Helping you get to where you want to be when you graduate
Hello prospective PLUS Award achievers! I’m Avellina, a final year Biology student and 2021/22 PLUS Award achiever.
Many students understand that the Bristol PLUS Award is an employability award that rewards you for going above and beyond your degree. We know that it boosts our CV and makes us stand out to future employers… but there are also secret, unknown benefits that you’ll only uncover upon starting the Award process!
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Lucy graduated from Bristol in 2022 with a degree in biology. Despite planning to go straight into further study, Lucy decided to defer her Master’s in London and stay in Bristol. She currently works as a healthcare scientific support worker in a Virology lab at Southmead hospital. Keep reading to see why she made this decision, the career and personal benefits, and her advice for other students and graduates.
The City Challenges are an exclusive programme of events which provides you with the opportunity to engage with Bristol’s charity sector, gain informal work experience, and develop your skills through working on real life challenges posed by local community organisations.
The first City Challenge involved piloting a problem-solving session focusing on reducing HIV stigma within the medical community, which was supported by the Brigstowe charity and the Careers Service Community Engagement team.
A total of 10 students took part, developing their teamwork, communication, and decision-making skills to create presentations in which they gave details of how Brigstowe could approach raising awareness in the medical community of unfair and untrue beliefs around people living with HIV.
This City Challenge allowed students to explore their interest in community outreach as well as learn about how they can be aware of and actively combat their own biases around their attitudes to people who are living with HIV. They explored issues such as how General Practitioners and students can destigmatise their work when dealing with people living with HIV. Brigstowe will now be able to use these ideas for possible future funding bids, marketing campaigns and training sessions.
The next City Challenge will be based ask the question ‘How can we encourage male university students to talk about their mental health?’ and students will be working with Talk Club and the Community Engagement team. This challenge will be eligible for the Bristol PLUS Award and held on Wednesday 27 October from 11.30am to 5pm and you can sign up on myopportunities.
Meeting with employers does involve networking – which we know can seem terrifying! But don’t let that put you off coming to talk to some of the 300 plus employers that come to Careers Service events every year. There’s so much you get from coming along. Here’s our top five:
Coming along to a large scale employer event, like one of our Sector Spotlight Series (27 October to 11 November) events, is a great way to get a lot of information quickly. There’s no better bang for your buck than being able to research multiple employers on the same day.
As you’ll be speaking directly with employers, you get the inside scoop on the work culture and can get answers to questions that aren’t on their website or FAQs list. Employer representatives might include recent Bristol graduates who can tell you all about their work. Come and get the gossip!
Employers come to our events because they want to hire Bristol students. They will have work experience and internships on offer as well as graduate jobs. Recruiters will often hire people to their full time roles that have completed work experience with them, so you can get in there early.
Meeting employers in person (even if that is through Zoom!) is the best way to make a good impression. The people you meet might be a future interviewer, so you can make a good contact and start to stand out from the crowd early on. You can also ask for tips on making applications 👍
It doesn’t matter if you’re starting to explore your options or ready to apply for opportunities, you can get useful information from an employer. The range of employers we connect with is huge – large and small, local and international – and from a huge array of sectors.
At our Sector Spotlight Series, you can meet employers from:
👋 We look forward to seeing you there!
And if you’re worried about networking, use our resources to build your confidence, our elevator pitch builder to prepare your introduction, and our how to prepare guide for ideas about questions to ask. Remember, you can always ask your Careers Service for help through our live chat too.
Luke, a third year Zoology student, has written about his recent internship experience which was supported by our COVID-19 SME Internship Fund. The aim of this fund is to support local SMEs including charities, social enterprises and start-up who are operating at maximum capacity as they respond to the challenges of Coronavirus, while giving students valuable and meaningful work experiences in a difficult economic climate.
We know that many of you have had your summer internships and work experience cancelled or are struggling to find opportunities. Luke found himself in this situation and our COVID-19 SME Internship Fund offered him a new opportunity.
Update: The Outstanding Award process closed after the 2020/21 academic year. Current students who have made an outstanding contribution to their PLUS Award activity may consider engaging with the Outstanding PLUS Award, which launched in the 2021/22 academic year.
Manan Vaswani describes the opportunity he received to apply his computing knowledge in the real world. The role was part of the SME Internship Scheme run by the Careers Service, you can find out more about the scheme and how to get involved here. This is what he had to say about his experience:
The word ‘internship’ used to conjure visions of long monotonous days, working for large companies on projects to which my only contribution would be slogging out the most mundane of tasks. This perception, however, was flipped upside-down after Spin Up Science arranged for me to carry out an internship with the science start-up, QLM Technology. (more…)
I graduated last summer with a degree in Biology. When I finished I hadn’t got a large amount planned, all I knew was that I wanted to remain in Bristol. I was open to all jobs to start off with but my overall aim was to head down a biological route.
In November I had an opportunity to have a meeting with a member of staff from the UoB Careers Service, this was really helpful in clarifying the types of jobs I could see myself doing and what steps I should take next. She also told me about internship schemes Bristol University offer with local SMEs. (more…)
Joe Baldwin, a Chemistry student at Bristol, shares his experience as a Commercial Banking Summer Intern at HSBC.
My time as an HSBC Intern started as I expect it does for many, concerned about possibility of not having a job to go to after graduation. My search for an internship wasn’t about finding the perfect internship, as I didn’t know what this would be. I wanted to get a flavour of the jobs available to chemists – one that doesn’t involve lab coats and safety goggles. (more…)
Máire Power participated in our UoB Internship Scheme as a marketing intern for the science company, NuNano Ltd. We spoke to Máire and NuNano about their experiences.
Can you give us a summary of your internship?
‘I spent two months as a marketing intern for the science company, NuNano Ltd, based within the science incubator, Unit DX. NuNano manufacture nanoscale probes for the sensitive measurement technique, atomic force microscopy. I was tasked with designing and creating content such as articles, videos, and social media posts to increase the awareness of their brand.’ (more…)