Employability - what's in it for you?

As many students and staff know, the Careers Advisory Service has been doing a small research project this year, funded by HESCU. The focus? Employability, and how staff and students understand what this means for them. For something which on the surface seems to be a fairly straightforward concept, it is surprisingly complicated, with several different definitions. 

But rather than talk about the emerging findings, this blog is really aimed at giving a quick overview of what students could be doing to improve their ‘employability’. This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list, but a few pointers in the right direction to help!

Part time work – this is an often overlooked and ‘forgotten’ experience in how students can develop their employability. Lots of employer surveys highlight the need for experience of the world of work, and wanting students applying for graduate jobs to be ‘commercially aware’, good at problem solving and having demonstrable communication skills. What better way of doing all of these than by having a part time job/paid internship?

Making the links between what you are learning at college or university and a future career. This is a really good way to show an employer that you don’t just compartmentalise your learning, but that you can make the links between assignments you’ve done and ‘real life’ work issues. Did I mention that employers want ‘commercially aware’ students? Doing this applying of course knowledge to the work environment will help show this.

Identity – how do you view yourself? Do you see yourself purely as a student, or can you see yourself as an employee/self employed business owner? There is some research which points to students finding it tricky to move from seeing themselves as a student to a graduate employee or to being self employed. Alongside this, the Employers and Education Taskforce have done research which shows that the more good quality contacts that students have with employers, the better and easier the students find it to move from education to working life. So perhaps making good use of field trips, careers fairs, guest lectures done by employers and summer work/internships will help with this issue!

Doing a self audit on your skills – what are you really good at? What skills and experience really stand out for you? What needs to be developed and improved on? This isn’t something that just needs to happen in year 3 of a degree, as you are applying for a graduate scheme, the sooner you start doing it the better, as it gives you time to improve on what you need to! And once you’ve got a graduate job? You’ll need to carry on auditing your own skills and experience so that you can manage your career for the next 40-45 years!

As with most things, some of these pointers will be of more use than others. But what would be worth doing is giving your future employability some thought. How are you preparing for it? What else could you do, even if it takes you out of your comfort zone? And if you want to discuss any of this in more detail, come and talk to someone in the careers advisory service!

Thinking of becoming self-employed or starting your own business?

 

If you’re thinking about setting up your own company, getting your Business Plan right is crucial.

A business plan gives an outline of your business, the market in which it will operate and how it aims to make money - and should answer this question: why will your business succeed when so many others fail?

Be concise
It’s really important that potential investors can understand what your business is all about from a quick glance at your plan. Make sure you include a summary of your business, and how it will make money right from the start, and use simple language throughout.

Be specific

Being specific is just as important as being concise. The details will help you drill down into how you will actually deliver your plan.

Know your market

A big part of knowing whether your business will be successful is understanding your audience. Make sure your plan is clear about your target market – who will you be selling to and how many other companies are already selling similar products?

Know your finances

The other essential part of a business plan is the finance section. If your business isn’t going to make any money, it won’t be successful so you need to be very clear on how you will make a profit. Use it to your advantage – your plan will be incredibly useful when it comes to securing loans and investment, but that’s not its only use. It’s also a personal tool to help you understand your objectives.

Marketing is vital to business success. Think about big brands like Apple, Innocent and Burberry. They have all successfully identified their target audience and have tailored their marketing to suit them, which has helped them to develop a clear identity.

Market research is key, to help you understand your target audience. The more you do, the easier it will be in the future to make decisions about your marketing strategy, pricing, budget and sales target. There are several methods for conducting market research and you may need more than one.

Market research will help you to:

§  Work out whether there is a market for your product or service and how much demand there is

§  Who your target customers are and what your product is worth to them

§  How you will reach your target customers

§  Who your competitors will be and how they operate

Brand identity
Once you’ve done your market research, you can use your findings to help develop your brand.
Think about the impression you want to give your customers and how you can deliver that. For example, if young people are your target audience and you want to be known for being cool and creative, make sure everything from the way you dress to the language of your marketing materials shows that.

Once you’ve identified your customer base and worked out your brand identity, you can start to develop your marketing materials.

Having your own website is a really powerful marketing tool. Making sure it is professional and matches your brand is really important.

Finance & Legal considerations

Start-up costs

Once you’ve worked out your own monthly outgoings, you’ll have an idea of how much your business needs to make for you. After that you’ll need to think about the start-up costs you’ll need to get your business off the ground.

Tax

Once you’ve set up your business, you must register as self-employed with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). HMRC has loads of really useful information on setting up a business, including an e-learning package called Starting in Business. For more detail on registering your business with HMRC and further information on setting up in business, visit their website. www.gov.uk

Insurance

All businesses need insurance as soon as they start trading. Some types of insurance are required by law and should be in place before you’re up and running. For example, you must have employers’ liability insurance if you employ people.

The broker or insurance company you use should be registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Want a helping hand?  If you’re 18 to 30, living in the UK and have a business idea or some ideas to explore, the Prince’s Trust’s Explore  Enterprise programme could be for you.

Visit www.princes-trust.org.uk for more information

How to be CV Savvy - from Agenda Resource Management

Getting a CV up to scratch is an important part of job hunting. Not only is it the first hurdle of the process, it is also the key factor in attracting an employer’s attention. So, what should it contain?

Despite what many career websites say, there is no ’perfect’ template. Different sectors may require a different emphasis on a different aspect of the content. It is all dependent on the particular role you’re applying for. For example, a practical role would require an emphasis on career history but a candidate applying for an academic role would highlight their gained qualifications.
However, experts suggest all candidates should follow these basic rules when creating a CV:

1.       Type it up

Employers will expect you to word process your CV. This is a much neater way of presenting your work and generally looks a lot more professional.

2.       Keep it short

Preferably no more than two sides of A4. Your CV should be clear and concise, stressing both achievements and strengths.

3.        The basic format for a CV includes:

·         ­ Personal details: including name, address, phone number, and email address. If you have a relevant online blog, don’t forget to add the URL. You no longer need to include your date of birth, owing to age discrimination rules.

·         ­ Career history: record your most recent job first. Include dates and temporary or voluntary jobs if and where appropriate.

·         ­ A personal profile which sells you and your qualities, tailored towards the job you are applying for. You should also include a covering letter.

·         ­ Achievements from previous jobs that are relevant and which highlight your strengths.

·         ­ Qualifications and training from previous jobs, with the most recent first.

·         ­ Interests if they are relevant and especially if the skills or teamwork concerned are relevant for the job.

·         ­ Any extra information, such as reasons for a career change or reasons for gaps in career history, such as caring duties or long term travels.

·         References: ideally two or more and including a recent employer.

Make sure that you keep font and formatting basic. Fancy font and tables can hinder your CV by taking the attention away from your achievements and qualifications.

4.         How do you avoid making mistakes on your CV?

Most employers will agree that poor spelling is one of the quickest and sure-fire ways of getting rejected from a role. It may seem unfair, particularly if you are a bad speller, but these costly mistakes can be avoided.

Why not ask a friend or relative who is a competent speller, to check over your work for you? This way, you can be sure that you haven’t made any mistakes and you will feel a little more confident once you’ve hit ‘send’. At Agenda, we offer a free CV review service, so why not ask an expert to cast an eye over your CV. Check out our website for a free CV review: http://www.agendalifesciences.com/cv-review

5.        How do you adjust your CV to suit  that particular role?

According to career buffs, you should search the internet for inspiration. Find adverts for similar roles and work your CV around them. This doesn’t mean that you should do a ‘copy and paste job’ because the likelihood is; the employers have seen this kind of thing before and binned CVs because of it. Just doing your research is always going to stand you in good stead - be it for your CV, your interview and your general knowledge.

For advice about roles within life sciences and animal research, contact Agenda Resource Management on 08456 44 55 45, or email us at jobs@agenda-rm.co.uk.

Thought about teaching as a career?

Did you know that encouraging children to play in the classroom increases their attention span?
Are you interested in working with children and young people? There has never been a better
time to join the teaching profession! It’s true...research does show that children’s attention spans increased when learning was based in play. Imagine having a classroom of your own where you could make things significantly better for a large number of children by doing what works for your learners. The average teacher will teach around 1,500 children in their careers - that’s a lot of lives you could be influencing.

Having been in education for 26 years one of the best things is those moments when children really grow as individuals and in their learning because of something you did. Excitingly, it’s also an opportunity to be part of a lively community of creative, caring professionals. There has literally never been a better time to become a teacher. For the first time the Government is taking steps to shift the balance of power within our system away from politicians to the professionals. That means the newest teachers will have the most freedom ever to do what works!

Our region has some of the best training available and has excellent links to leading edge organisations to ensure that your training is at the forefront of educational thinking. Unlike many other regions, the training providers here work together to ensure that every trainee teacher has the best possible training and that they end up in the schools best suited to their skills and personalities. I often look at the offer from courses offered locally and think how much more I could have done had I had the training on offer to all of you. You can find out about your local courses by doing a Google Search for teacher training or following one of the links below.

Jo Palmer-Tweed, Executive Director, Essex and Thames Primary SCITT

www.essexandthamesprimaryscitt.co.uk
www.essexteachertraining.co.uk
www.midessexteachertraining.com
www.colchesterttc.org.uk

 

Starting or returning to college - top tips!

After a summer filled with holidays and exam results term has now started!  Are you feeling rather unprepared for what’s coming next?  This blog will look at some top tips for coping with starting or coming back to a course and new university college.

Top tips

Be prepared!  You will hopefully know what is expected of you.  But there may be some surprises

We're here to set you on the path to
a successful career after leaving WUC

too.  

Be flexible.  Sometimes your expectations of what is going to happen may not match reality.  This can be for any number of reasons, sometimes colleges and unis have to tweak what they are offering, or your assumptions might be slightly out of kilter.  If you have concerns about things, do ask someone -your institutuion will prefer to address your queries than you stress about it!  And of course, the reality might be actually better than your expectations.

Plan! There will be a lot to take in during the first few weeks, friends to make or catch up with, timetables to get used to, names of students and lecturers to try and remember.  And this doesn’t just for 1^st years either!  Although most 2^nd and 3^rd years should remember where their classrooms are.  So, its worth spending a few minutes at the start/end of each day reflecting on what’s happened that day, or what might happen the next day, and jotting any thoughts or notes down.  This way you can make a note of anything you are not sure about to find out about – and reduce any anxieties the uncertainty might cause.  In a few weeks, it will be worth taking a longer term view on this forward planning to see what will be expected of you for assignments/reading etc.



Image sourced from Wikimedia Author Druysts.t

Start planning your exit!  This isn’t about ensuring you are not the last to leave the party.  But about what’s going to happen after your course has finished.  This might sound strange at the start of your course, or only in the early few weeks of year 2/3.  But the time will pass very quickly, and employers are increasingly engaging with students far earlier in their studies than a few years ago.  Want that internship or volunteering opportunity this summer?  Or that graduate scheme?  Now’s the time to start planning it.

Using social media – good, bad, ugly?  There used to be a divide between the online world and real life, but not anymore, as you know.  Regardless of the rights or wrongs of the situation, employers will and do look at your social media profile, photos, likes, comments and activities at some point during the recruitment process.  And not just for jobs like accountancy, MI5, teaching or Defence against the Dark Arts lecturers.  People have been turned down for science labs interviews for ‘liking’ an anti animal testing comment when they were a lot younger.  Seriously!  So, before doing some applications, do some ‘tidying’ up of your social media presence.  Social media can be a very useful way of engaging with employers too.  If you want to talk about how to do this, contact the careers department.

Enjoy it! One of the most important things to do on your course!!  Learning should be enjoyable and interesting.

What now? Practical tips on what next.

Now that the course has finished, and the celebrations are over its time to make sure you build on your time at college in your next move. Many students will have already decided what they want to do next, and will have organised it, whether it’s the next level course or finding work/an apprenticeship. Some students will still be trying to do this. There will be some practical tips for all students to carry on your success!

 

If you have got something lined up, well done! Here are some tips for when you start the next part of your education or career,

Check out the travel arrangements, if you are going to be catching a bus or driving each day, make sure you know the route and how long it will take.

Find out if anyone you know is starting on the same course or at the same university as you. Having a friendly face will help. Using facebook or www.thestudentroom.co.uk may be a good way of doing this – with the usual social media health warnings!

If you are starting a new job, make sure your employer talks through your progress regularly during the first 3 months. This will help you settle in and achieve.

Don’t assume that ‘this is it’! Plan how to make the most of this next step, to help you with whatever happens after it.

If you haven’t got anything sorted out, now would be a good chance to do something about it. You won’t be the only student with nothing concrete sorted out yet!

While there may be a certain amount of pressure or questions about what you are going to do now from friends, parents and family relations, it is important not just to react by taking the first job offer. There is an increasing trend for graduates to accept an offer to then turn it down close to the start date due to being offered something else. This doesn’t do anyone involved any favours! Here are some tips to consider to help you.

Wiki images source Druysts.t

Think through what you actually want to do long term – having a longer term career/education aim is important

In the short term, this might mean taking a job or getting some experience that helps with the longer term goal, which you wouldn't view as a long term position!

Do a skills and experience audit, what are you missing that would make you stand out? What have you done that really motivates and interests you?

Get some help and support! You aren’t expected to do all this on your own. The WUC careers dept can help, as will tutors. You may be surprised how many people working in the area you want to get into will also be willing to offer some advice too.

Stick at it and be persistent. You may need to be adaptable in your thinking and aspirations, but there will be opportunities for you.

Whether you have got your plans all firmly in place or not, it is important to recognise what you have achieved so far. There will be much more to achieve in the next few years, and with some planning and thought there is nothing to stop you achieving really well. And who knows what the future holds.

Careers support during Mental Health Awareness Week

We're here to set you on the path to
a successful career after leaving WUC

This month is one of the busiest ones for students across the country, with assignment deadlines and exams looming. In amongst all the deadlines and revision plans there will be some thoughts and questions about what will happen after the last exam.  Many students will have got something concrete organised, a graduate scheme place, harvest work or possibly even something exciting like working on an equine holiday camp in America! For these students the ‘what next’ thinking may well centre around how the transition from WUC will be, and possibly about the natural nerves about starting something new. For these students, the advice is definitely to ‘jump straight in’, having coped with the transition to WUC all those semesters ago, the next transition should be one that is exciting, challenging and one to look forward to.

Quite a few students will have plans that are still either vague or non existent, or whose plan is still ‘in the application cycle’ for a specific job or post graduate course. 
 

Mental Health Awareness Week runs
from 8th May to 12th May 2017

For these students the National Mental Health Awareness Week could be a good chance to consider some strategies to help balance the demands of finishing studies with the increasingly repetitive question that will be asked of ‘what are you going to do once you’ve finished?’. This much asked question, although asked with every good intention, can sometimes lead to rather unwanted additional concerns/worries about what is going to happen after the year is finished. With this in mind, here are some possible practical steps to take to help the competing demands on you, to keep your mental health as positive as possible at a very busy time:

• Eat and sleep as well as possible
• Plan your studying/revising as well as possible – studying/revising into the early hours doesn’t work long term!
• Give yourself time to ‘think’, write down any study/career option concerns that you know you need to address
• Plan when and how to address these – could an email to your tutor or careers adviser help you feel that the issue is starting to be addressed?
• Make time to relax!

The next month or so will make demands on your mental health, regardless of how emotionally resilient you are, or how concrete your plans are for after the end of the course! An important consideration to remember is that there will be several opportunities for you to consider and apply for after the last deadline. There is often a misconception that the first job after graduating needs to somehow be ‘it’, and for some it will be. But just as often, or more often, for many graduates the first job after graduation will just be a stepping stone at the start of a life long career. 

The skills you've gained at WUC will set you
up for an exciting, continuously-developing career.

The skills and knowledge gained at WUC will stand you in good stead for an evolving career, which needs to start somewhere. And hopefully one of the important lessons to remember from the last few years at WUC, is that you have learnt to ‘survive and thrive’ in a new environment, you can do this again after you have finished.  Regardless of how emotionally or mentally resilient you are feeling at the moment, there will be opportunities for you post Writtle, and don’t forget that as a graduate, you can get help from the careers advisory department for 3 years after you’ve finished!