Career Connect case
The Challenge
Career Connect helps young people and adults to find the right pathway and realise their potential by supporting them with their career planning, finding work and training opportunities, progressing their choices and overcoming barriers they might encounter.
As part of the University of Manchester’s Collaboration Labs programme, our Associate Research Consultants were tasked with developing an understanding of why some young people remain Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) and identifying the ways in which Career Connect can deliver and evidence positive outcomes for this user group.
Objectives
1. Describe the characteristics of young people who are long-term NEET and compare this group to those who are in education, employment or training.
2. Analyse how well Career Connect’s current services meet the needs of these groups.
3. Identify the most impactful components of Career Connect’s services for NEET users.
4. Produce a report detailing the key findings and recommendations.
Delivered on behalf of
Approach
1. Desk-based research on Career Connect’s aims and current service provision through the review of business documentation and reports, key performance indicators and the website.
2. Staff interviews to gain an in-depth understanding of the current service provision.
3. Quantitative analysis of Career Connect’s data:
a. Exploratory data analysis to identify key trends and patterns in user journey and success.
b. User segmentation and in-depth analysis to identify and compare group patterns, trends, characteristics, level of need and intervention types.
4. Conduct a survey with NEET service users to understand the interventions received, their perceived impact of the service received and their current situation.
In partnership with
Funded by
Impact
This project increased Career Connect’s understanding of the long-term NEET user group, its characteristics and the effectiveness of its interventions. The delivery of a robust research report evidencing impact and areas for improvement increased knowledge and facilitate key strategic decisions about the future development of Career Connect’s services to achieve improved outcomes for its NEET users.
Code-Switch supported the delivery of this project as part of The University of Manchester’s Collaboration Labs programme. This programme was funded by the ESRC NPIF Accelerating Business Collaborations account.
Our Associate Research Consultants:
Amalachukwu Nwazota, PhD Researcher in Law, University of Manchester
See Amalachukwu’s LinkedIn profile
Mayra Morales Tirado, PhD Researcher in Business and Management, University of Manchester
See Marya’s LinkedIn profile
Noelyn Onah, PhD Researcher in Data Analytics, University of Manchester
See Noelyn’s LinkedIn profile
Delivered on behalf of
In partnership with
Funded by