Sandra Obiora | Innovation in Authentic Assessment

How did the nomination for the awards come up?

A few months ago, my colleague Frances encouraged me to apply for some employability award categories. We had just collaborated with Beckett Careers on the Postgraduate Employability Conference supporting 300 students, with 18 of my NTF students working with the Careers team to deliver the project.

Impressed with the scale of work we’re doing, she suggested I apply for the national Graduate Futures awards that were coming up. I got a groundbreaking 4 nominations across various employability embedding categories at the national level and even though we didn’t win, it confirmed that our employability work at the Business School is leading the way.

After that experience I applied to the Awards for Excellence for two categories. Many of my students were already sharing about the upcoming awards on LinkedIn, so it felt like a good idea. I’m also confident that we’re trendsetting in key areas — especially in postgraduate employability at Leeds Business School.

What projects and relationships have you been involved in that promote employability in our community?

As a multidisciplinary researcher, I work with a wide range of experts from various disciplines and schools. Operationally within LBU, nationally, and internationally. I’ve been fortunate to produce lots of impactful publications and also collaborate on various internal and external grants including British Council and FCDO grants as well. Last year, we partnered with the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, and recently we presented talks at the Research and Knowledge Exchange Festival, highlighting our employability coaching work with women in STEM and leadership.

We’ve also secured a new British Council grant to work with Brazil, supporting marginalised groups with entrepreneurial, employability, AI capabilities in circular economy and climate skills. I recently carried out coaching for African Academics on academic visibility and leveraging employability assets for greater visibility and impact. This is an initiative by the British Council’s going global partnership towards innovation across African university.

My goal is to help people enter the job market with greater confidence and capability. I love being able to extend this kind of impact beyond the classroom and into various communities whether locally, nationally, or globally.

What would be your standout achievement or highlight of this work you’re doing?

Two years ago, I created the Colour Coding Engagement System, a new way to help students connect with learning. Instead of tracking attendance, it tracks engagement and it feels more like a game than a task. It’s now been tested across four modules and more than 30 seminars at the Business School.

We can clearly see its positive impact on grades. I now use it as an employability tracker in my employability modules, helping students practice workplace behaviours such as communication, leadership, teamwork, time management, project management, reflection, and initiative among other skills.

It’s made seminars more colourful, interactive, and reflective of real-world professional expectations. For example, running late isn’t the issue, it’s not sending the message to communicate professionally in real-time that’s a problem.

I’m also proud of the longitudinal work I’m doing with students I’ve taught over the last two years. Thanks to winning an LBS funded grant, we are able to start tracking the impact of our approaches and can now become an expert voice around employability teaching. We have already completed research to design a framework for effective employability teaching, not just at LBU, but an approach that can be successfully implemented across UKHE.

What are your hopes for the future in this area of work?

External grants are increasingly focused on the future of work, employability, sustainability, and AI — areas that are becoming central to our teaching and research.

In my 60-credit module handbook, the first line reads: “Industrial Revolutions are nothing new". I wrote this to inspire hope and remind students that change is constant and also manageable. My goal is to keep building environments where students, professionals, and organisations alike develop the confidence and capability to stay relevant, add value no matter what number and phase of industrial revolution we are operating in.

With the pace of AI and industrial revolutions, adaptability, resilience, and critical thinking, and sometimes unpopular employability assets, become more crucial to build. I also want students to understand that rejection and even frustration is part of working life and development. At the end of some of the worst frustration, if it's paired with a resilient mindset, some of the greatest innovations and value the world has ever seen can come from it.

What would be your top tip for future students and graduates for improving their employability?

My advice would be to understand the difference between employment and employability. These aren’t just words. Getting a job is one thing but staying relevant and valuable over time is another. When you hone your employability assets, getting a lucrative ‘job’ is never an issue. You really will always have something doing. You want to be always in demand. The idea is you want to be the type of person that is so relevant that even when you genuinely say, ‘I need a break’ or ‘I am retiring’, people are still knocking at your door seeking your value adding wisdom and input.

Focus on building strategic thinking skills, an innovative mindset, adaptability, and a resilient mindset among other employability skills. Learn how to deal with rejections and manage frustration and stay healthy so you can bounce back like a stress ball.

Reflection question: If the way things have always been done changes tomorrow morning, will you be caught off guard or will you be the trendsetter who saw it coming, adapted early, and pivoted long before anyone else noticed the shift?

And finally, be good with financial management. It sounds simple, but when I speak to alumni, it’s often the financial pressure and not the rejection that makes job searching or starting a business feel overwhelming. Strong financial habits are a foundational life skill to have.