Exploring AI’s Role in Career Development

Funding from The University of Aberdeen's Learning & Teaching Enhancement Programme is enabling the Careers and Employability Service to conduct a research project to understand how students integrate AI into their career learning and job preparation.

This project will explore students’ use of AI in relation to their career learning and development, building understanding of the benefits and challenges students face in its use and exploring how it impacts on their career readiness and confidence.

We will also be exploring employers’ use of AI in the recruitment and selection process.

Findings will be summarised in a report and used to inform the development of a suite of tools and resources to support students and graduates to develop the skills and insights needed to be able to benefit from and avoid the pitfalls of using AI in their career development and learning.

The project commenced in March 2025 and will be completed by Summer 2025.

Core Research Team

This project is led by Tracey Innes, Assistant Director and Head of Careers, University of Aberdeen, alongside the following collaborators:

John Barrow, Dean for Employability and Entrepreneurship
Ghina Elkasti, Careers and Internships Manager (Qatar Campus)
Rhona Gibson, Senior Careers Adviser
Julia Leng, Careers and Employability Adviser
Kate Robertson, Senior Careers and Employability Adviser
Faisal Al-Mallah, Student Intern (Qatar)
Anastasiia Korkina, Student Intern (Aberdeen)

If you have any questions about this research, please contact careers@abdn.ac.uk.

What We’re Doing

Survey

We’re gathering perspectives from students to understand how they are using AI in relation to their career learning and development. We are also asking employers how they use AI in recruitment.

Resources

We will develop a suite of tools and resources to support students and graduates and help them avoid the pitfalls of using AI in their career learning and development.

Engagement

We will develop an engagement and communications plan to ensure students and graduates can find and access the tools and resources.

Participation in Student Survey: Students are invited to take part in this research by completing this survey. The responses provided will help inform the development of a toolkit to support students and graduates to develop the skills and insights needed to be able to benefit from and avoid the pitfalls of using AI in career development and learning.

Responses are collected anonymously: your responses will be kept confidential and used for research purposes only.

Please access the Participant Information Sheet before completing the survey.

Take survey
Participation in Employer Survey: Employers are invited to tell us how they use AI in relation to recruitment and selection.  We are seeking to understand the benefits and challenges students and employers encounter in using AI in the context of careers and employability.

The findings from this survey will help inform the development of resources and tools to support students and graduates to develop the skills and insights needed to be able to benefit from and avoid the pitfalls of using AI through the recruitment and selection process, including advice and quotes from employers to illustrate and emphasise key recommendations.

For the purposes of this research, responses are collected anonymously and you and your organisation will not be named in report findings and outputs. The option is given at the end to attribute your name and/or organisation to your responses for this to be considered for inclusion in the resources and tools to be developed for students.  This is entirely voluntary, and proofs of text and explicit permission will be sought prior to inclusion of this information in any of the research outputs.

Please access the Participant Information Sheet before completing the survey.

Take survey