Employer voices: Insights on Bolstering Career Development for Graduate Students
Presenter Biography
I am currently an Epidemiology MPH student at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. This was a project from my qualitative methods course.
Institution
OHSU
Program/Major
Epidemiology
Degree
MPH
Presentation Type
Poster
Start Date
4-4-2024 1:00 PM
Keywords
Public Health, Workforce, Development, Interviews, Qualitative Methods Graduate Education, Employers, Taguette
Abstract
Title: Employer voices: Insights on Bolstering Career Development for Graduate Students
Alexandria J. Ashraf, MPH; Josh Hodsden, MBA, CPH; Justin Howe, BA; Danielle Ross, BA, CPH; Dalton Wesemann, BA; Lisa K. Marriott, PhD
Background: The development of the public health workforce has become increasingly vital as our world faces current and future challenges. The workforce has gained considerable insight into job skills that enhance responses to emergent needs. Building the foundation for a larger scale study on public health workforce needs, this project established processes for engaging with professionals who have hired recent public health graduates.
Methods: Open-ended questions assessed the skills employers prioritize among new public health graduates. Organizations that had at least five or more employees were recruited for semi-structured interviews, limited to organizational representatives who had direct experience hiring public health graduates. Interviews were less than 30 minutes in length with interview transcriptions qualitatively coded in Taguette using thematic analysis to identify common themes regarding knowledge and skills that employers consider to be pertinent when hiring.
Results: Ten interviews with organizational representatives described skillsets gained from public health graduate education programs as well as from prior work experience. Themes highlighted the importance of professional communication and an understanding of health equity. Employers shared suggestions to enhance preparation of public health students to meet future workforce needs.
Conclusion: This project builds the foundation for a broader needs assessment of the public health workforce, while highlighting opportunities where this work can inform career development services in the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health (SPH). This project establishes a foundation for future SPH students. This work can be continued, leading to more effective career preparation for public health graduate students.
Employer voices: Insights on Bolstering Career Development for Graduate Students
Title: Employer voices: Insights on Bolstering Career Development for Graduate Students
Alexandria J. Ashraf, MPH; Josh Hodsden, MBA, CPH; Justin Howe, BA; Danielle Ross, BA, CPH; Dalton Wesemann, BA; Lisa K. Marriott, PhD
Background: The development of the public health workforce has become increasingly vital as our world faces current and future challenges. The workforce has gained considerable insight into job skills that enhance responses to emergent needs. Building the foundation for a larger scale study on public health workforce needs, this project established processes for engaging with professionals who have hired recent public health graduates.
Methods: Open-ended questions assessed the skills employers prioritize among new public health graduates. Organizations that had at least five or more employees were recruited for semi-structured interviews, limited to organizational representatives who had direct experience hiring public health graduates. Interviews were less than 30 minutes in length with interview transcriptions qualitatively coded in Taguette using thematic analysis to identify common themes regarding knowledge and skills that employers consider to be pertinent when hiring.
Results: Ten interviews with organizational representatives described skillsets gained from public health graduate education programs as well as from prior work experience. Themes highlighted the importance of professional communication and an understanding of health equity. Employers shared suggestions to enhance preparation of public health students to meet future workforce needs.
Conclusion: This project builds the foundation for a broader needs assessment of the public health workforce, while highlighting opportunities where this work can inform career development services in the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health (SPH). This project establishes a foundation for future SPH students. This work can be continued, leading to more effective career preparation for public health graduate students.