Great to be back at Stonewall Conference – 800 delegates, 100 at the workshop I spoke at: Proud employers: Recruiting diverse talent. My focus was on retention. It’s all very well spending time and resources recruiting LGBT graduates, but what do organisations do to help them manage the transition into work? I focussed on the key stages of induction, retention and development. I drew on feedback from students I have worked with both in the mentoring scheme I set up at the University of Birmingham and from the research I did for my article for the University and College Counselling Journal due out in May. Topics I focussed on were: the importance of improving the support for students on placements. work experience and placements; helping them with the coming out process, especially with clients and customers and appreciating that coming out at university is very different from coming out at work. I also gave some tips on working proactively with university Careers Services to help them appreciate these issues.
