Rich Pictures in Qualitative Research in Higher Education: The Student as Consumer and Producer in Personal Branding.

Marketing principles and consumerism are evident in higher education with universities central to the development of fit for purpose graduates. Students are increasingly viewed as consumers of university products and expected to manage self-hood and to promote themselves to the marketplace. This article is drawn from research in an ongoing larger scale project exploring the ownership of students in shaping their 'career capital' and in building 'brand-me' from a student perspective when seeking industrial placement and graduate career progression. It appraises the use of a 'soft systems' methodology using rich pictures (RP) to support qualitative one-to-one interviews with students in higher education. The findings showed that the combination of in-depth interviews with the rich pictures creative qualitative approach provided a much closer generation of insights to inform staff in the support of students pursuing of industrial placement and career progression, and for the students it offered an opportunity for self-reflection and consideration of 'brand-me'.