Work experience - stand out from the crowd
Experience of work is increasingly important in the world of graduate employment. Holidays and placement or sandwich years can offer you a marvellous opportunity to build up marketable skills and experience. These experiences can also be very helpful in the process of discovering more about a job or career that suits you. You can gain an inside picture of a particular employer, career and see how this fits in with your hopes and expectations.
In short work experience can:
- Help you clarify your career goals
- Improve your employability
- Earn you some cash
- Put you ahead of the competition
Types of work experience
There are so many types of work experience opportunity available:
- Undergraduate work which is part of your course
- Self-directed vacation work experience
- Paid term-time work
- Ad hoc/voluntary work
Of course, you can also use your hobbies and interests to demonstrate skills and personal attributes that will transfer directly to the workplace. Team games, individual sports, music, crafts, travel and much more can be used as evidence of work related aptitude.
Many university courses now include an element of work experience as part of the course. These range from really useful opportunities to learn about different careers and develop skills, to superficial token efforts at involvement. See what sort of work experiences your course offers. Course-based trips and projects can offer genuine insight and experience. But all too often, they end up as dislocated, tedious affairs which appear burdensome to the host employer and useless to the student. You can avoid these pitfalls by influencing the work experience to your advantage.
Over the 3 to 4 years of a degree course you will have many opportunities to pick and mix the way you spend vacations, so think through your strategy as early as you can. Here are some of the options:
- Structured work/ training scheme
- Short vacation courses
- Summer work experience
- Work shadowing
- Organised international programme
- Voluntary work
Sally Henfield: Age: 20: Final Year Student, Newcastle University
The most boring fortnight of my life
I did two periods of work experience. The first turned out to be the most boring fortnight of my life; the other was absolutely fascinating. The first was at an advertising agency near my home. Although it was a small agency, I did expect someone to actually take an interest in me. Instead, I was almost totally ignored. I sat there for the first week, asking questions or seeing if there was anything I could do. People replied in monosyllables and got on with their own jobs. No one bothered to show me anything about the business at all. In the first week, I sat in the corner and read the whole of a Stephen King novel, The Stand, and that's over a thousand pages!
They didn't even ask me to make the tea, although I volunteered. Everyone seemed to be so desperate to do a deal or make an impression. They had no time for me. Someone did give me one job to do - ringing up all the national newspapers and asking them the cost of a column centimetre of advertising. Of course they knew the answer already. They were simply trying to make it look like they were giving me something to do.
and the best!
The second work experience placement I found myself (rather than through college). This was with Independent Radio News in London. They supply the national and international news for all the commercial radio stations. I was able to shadow one of their reporters (Richard Frediani) on all his jobs - we went out on all kinds of dramatic stories. Then, they let me work the studio when they sent out all the stories to the commercial radio network. That wasn't very difficult - only a couple of buttons to press and a countdown as I sent the tapes - but it made me feel very important.
Even though they were much busier than the advertising agency people, the IRN reporters couldn't have been more helpful. I had a fantastic time - and it made me realise just how much work goes into a story that appears for only 30 seconds on the radio.
Given the time you have left, what scope is left for using your vacations to maximum benefit? You need to plan ahead as some of the employer and agency based opportunities have set closing dates or fill up very quickly.
ACTION PLANNER:
1. What are your personal goals for your next vacation?
2. What practical steps will you take now to ensure you reach your goal successfully?
Money is a key factor and motivator for almost every student in paid term-time work. Research shows that the majority of students are working to pay for basic living and study costs and to pay or reduce debts. All well and good, but the bad news is that this can affect your studies, the quality of your assessed work and your degree result. Therefore in the long run, it can affect your long term career prospects. Most students work in retail and the hotels/pubs/catering industries that are known for low, unsociable hours, job insecurity and low levels of employee protection.
However, apart from the financial rewards, there are many positive benefits to working part-time. You can gain insights into the type of work you are suited to and which ones to avoid even in low level jobs. There can be a number of pitfalls though so look at the checklist below and see if you need to improve your term-time work experience now!
Do
Think about how what you do fits into the bigger picture of the organisation. Reflect on and note down what skills you have used, learned or developed (why not produce a WE Learning Log). Reflect on and note down what personal aptitudes you have needed to do the job, e.g. trustworthiness, patience, and attention to detail. Do the job as well as possible and see what you can learn from others. Ask penetrating questions about how the organisation works, try to really understand it. See if you can do more than one job; move to different sections or departments. Make sure it goes on your CV
Avoid
Working long hours: many universities recommend you don't work more than fifteen hours a week during term-time. Cutting down on study time: you can't make up time by cramming. All work and no play: you need to build a balanced lifestyle - do it now it does not get easier! Working in unsafe conditions or without proper protection and training. Don't accept wages below the minimum wage. Worrying about money. If you don't feel in control of your financial position, find someone professionally trained to help you: a student advisor, or an independent counsellor. Most local authorities have specially trained debt counsellors. Beware banks may not be totally independent. See more about your employment rights for more information.
You need to plan a strategy to suit your own personal career ambitions. This will involve:
- Setting yourself some work experience goals.
- Exploring the options and consider doing something really different.
- Gaining experience, skill and insights.
- Reflecting on your learning.
- Using the local network of tutors, careers service staff, students.
- Taking care when working during term-time.
- But don't panic you can draw learning from any and every situation and experience.
Most careers advisory services offer:
- Locally produced vacancies bulletin
- Hold a local work experience careers fair
- A local community service skills exchange
There are also specialist schemes such as:
- STEP (Shell Technology & Enterprise Scheme); A UK-wide programme offering undergraduates project based work within small and medium sized.
www.step.org.uk - Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP); Enables high quality graduates to work in companies, normally for 2 years, on technology transfer projects central to the needs of participating companies and jointly supervised by personnel in the 'knowledge base' and in business.
www.ktponline.org.uk
Work experience information:
National Council for Work Experience
Prospects House
Booth Street East
Manchester
M13 9EP
Tel: 0845 601 5510
Web: www.work-experience.org
Placement opportunities and ideas from: Liverpool www.business.bridge.org.uk Manchester www.workbank.man.ac.uk
For overseas work/industrial exchange
AIESEC - International Exchange Programme www.aiesec.org
VSO - Voluntary Service Overseas www.oneworld.org
BUNAC - Camp America www.bunac.org.uk
This material has been taken from the Graduate Career Handbook, published under the FTPH imprint © Pearson Education Ltd 2000.
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