Bayes Business School (formerly Cass Business School)

Background

Cass Business School is City University’s business school. It is ranked as one of the Top 10 business schools in the UK, one of the Top 20 in Europe and one of the Top 40 globally.

Keenly aware of the challenge of attracting the best students to its MBA programmes in a highly competitive environment, Cass Business School’s careers and professional development service supports students to map out and secure their best possible future career path. To do this, the careers team provide a wide range of resources and assistance to make student’s career aspirations a reality.

Cass Business School’s careers team selected Strengthscope® as a tool of choice to introduce students to the strengths approach as a way of helping them make better career choices, as well as improving their individual and group performance during their studies.

Our solution

Along with the careers team, Strengthscope has run introductory strengths workshops for all MBA and Executive MBA programmes for a number of years. The purpose of these workshops is to:

• Build the case for a focus on individual strengths when making future role and career choices.
• Through Strengthscope®, to provide an accurate picture of those strengths which best define each individual student and which mark them out as unique.
• Help students build a personal brand which is compelling, authentic and motivating.
• Support students in building personal development and career plans based on their unique strengths and aimed at minimising risk areas such as strengths in overdrive.
• Get student group working sessions off to a strong start by providing insights into strengths and risks that will affect group performance.
• Help identify leadership strengths and risks for Executive MBA students, and feed into personal development plans that maximise leadership strengths and minimise risks.
• Prepare students for strengths-based interviews and assessments that they are likely to encounter on their return to work following their studies.

The careers team regularly revisit strengths principles and Strengthscope® profiles with student cohorts during their studies as a means of maintaining energy and motivation, building personal confidence as well as focusing on future career choices.

Outcome

• At the start of their MBA (Full-Time MBA cohort of 2017), 41% of students said they felt able to apply their strengths in selecting a fulfilling career. Afterwards, that figure was 94%.
• 75% of Cass MBAs are now confident they will find future roles that fit with their career goals, up from 27% at the start of the programme.
• 61% of MBAs at the start of the Cass MBA felt very confident in communicating their strengths and abilities. That figure is now 92%.
• And 82% of students now feel very confident in using their strengths in a new industry or sector, up from 57% at the start of the MBA.

94% POSITIVE Fulfilling career
75% POSITIVE Career goal roles
92% POSITIVE Communication
82% POSITIVE Confidence