University award to attract local employers

Photo: Student Roanna Fox is presented her Lincoln Award by Pro Vice Chancellor Professor, Scott Davidson and Enterprise rent-a-car Area Manager, Ross Pengilly.

The Lincoln Award celebrated the end of its pilot year last night, as the first students to complete the award received their certificates.

The event on May 11 at the Enterprise@Lincoln building was attended by staff, Pro Vice Chancellor Professor Scott Davidson and Enterprise rent-a-car Area Manager Ross Pengilly.

The Award was introduced in September, encouraging students to either take part in a range of work and career-based experience or improve their current experience.

It includes areas such as volunteering, work experience and having mock graduate interviews with employers.

The aim is to provide students with a range of skills that will benefit them in the work place, making it easier for employers to identify key skills.

It also benefits employers, as highlighting the experience and skills of graduates makes it easier to find the right candidate for the job.

Davidson said: “When employers see students coming through The Lincoln Award they know that these are self-motivated students who are possibly going to be of great value to their organisation, so it’s like having the first bite of the cherry.”

Davidson hopes that local employers will develop relationships with the university in the future as they see the benefits it has for identifying “good, potential employees” as well as making a contribution to the community.

The Award event was celebrated with an afternoon barbecue by Curtis of Lincoln.

Close connections

Enterprise rent-a-car is one of the top five graduate employers in the UK and supports The Lincoln Award.

Pengilly said that the recruitment process is expensive, but being involved with the award helps the company to identify candidates that could join Enterprise in the future.

Their close connection to the university has also provided them with campus brand managers who will work for Enterprise when they graduate.

The Lincoln Award’s creator, Student Employment Co-ordinator Jessica Shields, says that a main development for the award is increasing the number of employers involved:

“We’re going to be looking over the summer at getting lots of employers involved for next year, whether that will be to come in and deliver a one-off workshop or support the process more and actually deliver some parts of it.

“A lot of employers are recognising the award now because they are putting so much emphasis on students developing skills above and beyond their academic side of things.”

Shields hopes that the award can achieve further success by seeing 75 to 100 students complete the award next year.