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Why work experience adds up to more opportunities
- Starting your graduate job hunt
- What is the right graduate career for me?
- Get a job - life outside the graduate training scheme
- How to handle online applications
- How to write a great covering letter
- How to write a great CV
- Job interviews - how to shine on the hot seat
- How to impress at a selection centre
- Why work experience adds up to more opportunities
- Work placements and internships - get in before you graduate
There's more to getting the job you want than having the right degree. Today's employers are looking for skills you simply won't get through study alone.
You've jumped over hurdles and through hoops and you've made it to university. You'll want to enjoy yourself, make friends, and work towards your degree. But what about after you graduate?
A degree isn't everything - employers want people who have skills and experience above the ability to study and pass exams. You need to prove to recruiters that you can do the job you want. It's never too early to start acquiring the necessary credentials.
Why start now?
Transferable skills are essential in finding a job in today's graduate employment market. At around 37%, the UK has the highest graduation rate for honours degrees in the EU. This means that the UK benefits from a highly-trained workforce, but also that there is a lot of competition for popular jobs. You have to stand out from the crowd.
'Through our recruitment process, we look for graduates who can bring more to the tale than pure academics. Typically the graduates who shine have work or life experience which differentiates them,' says Gaynor Sykes, Graduate Resourcing Manager at Vodafone UK.
Alex Lanzanas, Graduate Trainee in Finance and Financial Management with WestLB agrees: 'You have to use your free time to gain as much work experience as you can as early in your life as possible.'
Contacts with industry also open up valuable recruiting opportunities for students and employers alike. Over 70% of employers who offer work placement to students have taken one or more of them on as permanent staff, while over 60% say that the hope of finding good staff is their main reason for offering work experience.
Personal contacts made while working as a student provide inside knowledge, introductions and references that might not be available otherwise and which can be useful throughout a professional career.
What counts?
Education institutions recognise the value of work experience in helping their alumni onto their chosen career path. More and more universities are collaborating with local firms to provide real-time examples for modules, and students work to solve genuine problems as part of their course.
Chiin-Hooi Tan, Process Engineer with Shell UK Exploration & Production, says: 'Industrial experience is more valuable than memorising equations. Focus on problem-solving skills.'
Obviously work experience in the sector in which you hope to have a career is extremely useful, but almost anything can provide valuable skills if you think about it in the right way.
David Benson, Talent Manager, Barclays says: 'As an employer we place a great deal of value on significant, non-academic experience.' Stacking shelves at a supermarket develops skills in stock control, teamwork and quantity surveying. Pulling pints down the pub offers experience in customer relations, time management, and low-level budgeting. Even routine office work develops the ability to deal professionally with colleagues, network and have first-hand involvement in the dynamics of business.
Work experience is more than just turning up, doing the job and getting paid. It can be educational, help you gain confidence and maturity and even add to your social life. To get the most out of it however you must ask questions, be enthusiastic, make contacts and evaluate the transferable skills you're acquiring.
Conor Gray, Graduate Structural Engineer with Sinclair Knight Merz adds: 'I wish I'd known the importance of work experience when I was a student. Any previous work experience is very beneficial for a graduate career.'
Fitting it all in
The Institute of Employment Studies (IES) report entitled Next Choices: Career Choices Beyond University says: 'once in HE, students need an early understanding of the value and importance of work experience. They also need to consider their choice of career, the ways to access their chosen career and the importance of lifelong learning.'
Gaining work experience and transferable skills takes time - and this may be time you consider ought to be spent on your studies, particularly in your final year. They are not an optional extra however.
Louise McMillan, HR Consultant with ScottishPower, explains: 'Even though your coursework deadlines might mean it'll be difficult to apply for jobs at the same time, do it. Employers are most likely to take seriously those students who can plan ahead and see the bigger picture. Evidence of this is often in timely applications and willingness to invest in job hunting during term time.'
You've spent a lot of years at school planning and working towards your three/four years at university. You should also be prepared to make an effort to prepare for your future career.
As Stephen Mole, Navigation and Guidance Specialist at DERA, says: 'After I graduated it seemed I had spent five or six years working towards a degree and then chosen my employment for the next ten too quickly. As it happens I found an area which interests and stimulates me but I feel many students wait too long before starting the job search.'