Major Leicester employers have visited De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) to plan career-boosting experience opportunities for students.
Senior staff from organisations including Next, Dunelm, 360 Dotnet and Leicestershire County Council were invited to a garden party held on campus.
At the event, the visitors spoke with DMU staff about creating more opportunities for students during their studies to gain experience and how to spot talent and develop students' skills in partnership.
The employers learned about some of the new developments at DMU, like the new Leicester Castle Business School (LCBS), the £136m transformation of the campus and the community initiatives launched under the #DMUlocal programme.
Professor Dana Brown, Principal of LCBS, was there to meet the visitors and talk about the new business school, which offers a selection of highly-specialised courses designed to meet the needs of 21st century business.
She said: "We're committed to working in partnership with business across Leicester and beyond to build a university that is relevant and responsive to 21st century business and community needs.
"We want most of all to create graduates with relevant, future-facing knowledge and we know that the best way to do this is to work as closely as we can with real-world organisations to make sure those graduates will meet - and exceed - their needs."
Professor Brown, together with Adele Browne, DMU's Senior Placement Manager, spoke about DMU's desire to build strong partnerships across a wide range of industries.
Several employers present were DMU alumni who had been on placements during their degree and worked as graduates for the same organisation. They were now the recruiting managers of DMU placement students, creating a continuous cycle.
Sarah Louise Bussey, Senior Recruitment Manager at Next, said she was excited to work with DMU to try and find new star employees of the future.
She said: "The garden party was well-organised and interesting and gave me a good opportunity to network with some key university representatives.
"It was great to hear how DMU is looking to developing its relationships with local employers and that there is a keen interest in understanding what we as employers want."
Steve Harvey, ICT Systems Delivery Manager for Leicestershire County Council said he had enjoyed meeting DMU staff.
He said: "We talked through lessons learned and how we could make these opportunities even better for the employer, DMU and of course the students themselves."
Posted on Friday 23 September 2016