Personalising Career Support at Scale: How London South Bank University Built a Digital Skills Award

London South Bank University (LSBU) serves a uniquely diverse student population—highly motivated learners who often balance caring responsibilities, part-time work, and additional support needs alongside their studies. Many don't have time for traditional extracurricular engagement, yet the university is committed to ensuring every student receives comprehensive career support.

The solution? The LSBU Career Skills Award, a creative digital workspace built using Symplicity that integrates AI tools to personalise support whilst maintaining the human connection students value most.

Meeting Students Where They Are

"Our students really want to do well, but they don't necessarily have the same amount of time as their counterparts at other institutions," explains Dr. Séan Richardson, Digital and Curriculum Manager at LSBU. "These challenges in engagement require creative solutions."

LSBU developed a triangulated approach to measuring employability readiness, based on Department for Education recommendations identifying the two factors with the greatest impact on graduate outcomes: careers education and work-based learning. Their model combines self-assessment data, work experience engagement, and completion of the LSBU Career Skills Award—a structured pathway through essential employability knowledge.

Building the Digital Workspace

The Career Skills Award uses simple, accessible language deliberately chosen after road-testing with student interns. "They said to us, 'please speak to us in a language we understand. We find it really difficult when people use words like employability,'" Richardson notes. "Sometimes because we all work in this sector, we get lost in the weeds of what is and what isn't jargon."

The award comprises three progressive levels—Core, Advanced, and Expert—with activities that increase in difficulty, allowing students to build skills at their own pace. Students who complete the Core component will have developed a CV, cover letter, multiple STAR-based interview answers, foundational AI training, and comprehensive signposting to other resources.

AI That Complements, Not Replaces

Whilst AI dominates discussions in higher education, LSBU takes a measured approach. Recent research from the Early Career Survey revealed that only 23% of students prefer using AI for career planning—far lower than expected.

"Students want that human support because when you go to an interview, 90% of the time it is still a human on the other end testing you," Richardson explains. "What we're doing at LSBU is trying to use AI to complement what our employability consultants are doing rather than take away from those human skills."

The university integrated CareerSet's AI-powered CV and cover letter review tool into Symplicity workflows in three strategic ways:

Streamlining appointments: Students must upload their CV to CareerSet and achieve at least 70% before unlocking CV review appointments with consultants. "It's a digital fork in the road," Richardson describes. "Until they've got that 70%, the booking link is literally invisible to them." This ensures students arrive prepared, allowing consultants to focus on advanced guidance rather than basic corrections.

Supporting academic marking: Academics teaching employability modules can use CareerSet reports as marking guides for CV assessments. "It's really hard to mark a CV," Richardson admits. "Academics can look at the CareerSet score as a rough guide, which helps them upskill and gives them more security."

Out-of-hours support: Students accessing services at 11 pm before an interview can receive immediate AI-powered feedback when human support isn't available.

Simple Solutions, Significant Impact

"There's such a buzz around AI that everyone's looking for flashy answers," Richardson observes. "What we've managed to build with Symplicity are quite humble, simple answers that are working well. If it impacts students positively, that's the kind of AI we really want to champion."

The integration took approximately one hour to implement with Symplicity's support—a remarkably efficient solution that's transforming how LSBU delivers personalised career support to thousands of students with diverse needs and limited time.

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