Darrin Steward

Darrin joined the University in February 2023 from St Benedict’s Catholic School and is aligned with the School of Social Sciences & Humanities. During his four and a half years as Head of Careers at St Benedict’s he led a complete overhaul of the school’s careers programme, successfully embedding a cross-curricular infrastructure of careers related learning across all subjects and year groups. He also incorporated a strong programme of employer and alumni engagement to support the programme. His work was recognised when the school were awarded the Quality in Careers Standard (QICS) for the very first time in 2022 in acknowledgement of its outstanding careers provision.

Darrin is a QCD Level 7 qualified careers advisor, a Registered Career Development Professional (RCDP), Registered Career Leader (RCL) a member of the Career Development Institute (CDI), and a member of AGCAS. He holds an MA in Career Development in Management from Coventry University, which he passed with distinction, the OCR Level 6 Diploma in Career Guidance and Level 6 Certificate in Career Leadership, and a CMI Level 7 Certificate in Strategic Leadership and Management.

He has two pieces of advice for all students:
1) Engage with the careers service throughout your time at UoS. The team will be able to help you develop further your career development, planning, and management skills which will help you to navigate the ever-changing graduate labour markets of the future more effectively.

2) Take every opportunity you can to experience the workplace during your degree studies whether it be through micro-placements, placement years, internships, or work shadowing. These are great opportunities to develop your work-based skills, and experience industries and sectors you may have never considered as potential career pathways. They also offer the opportunity to build your professional network giving you greater access to the hidden job market – remember 70-80% of all jobs are never advertised. Networking has never been so important, developing effective networking strategies is something the careers team can support you with.