Get Career Ready with the Career Ready Course

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Do you know how to get started or move forwards on your career journey?

Many students and graduates ask us for help in deciding what to do. Others are looking for advice on how to upskill, gain relevant experience or stand out in the application process.

Career planning is a cycle, and to support you at every stage, whether you’re a first year considering your options, or a recent graduate navigating the jobs market, the Careers Service has developed the Career Ready Course for you. (more…)

8 reasons why you should do the Bristol PLUS Award!

As the new academic year starts, we are so excited to welcome you all back and *drumroll pleaseopen the Bristol PLUS Award for registration!  (more…)

Best resources for emotional intelligence

Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash

Emotional intelligence (EI) is a very useful skill in the workplace and is an increasingly sought-after skill by employers. But what does it mean, and how do you improve and demonstrate your emotional intelligence?

We had a look on the mycareer e-learning hub and found these top 5 articles to help you learn more.

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Best resources for commercial awareness

Photo by Surface on Unsplash

Commercial awareness is all about having an understanding of the market a certain organisation operates in.

It is a sought after skill by employers, and having good commercial awareness when applying for a job might help you stand out from the crowd.

How can you improve your commercial awareness? We’ve done a round-up of some of the top resources about commercial awareness from mycareer.

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Help! What are my strengths?

Ask someone what their strengths are and it’s likely they’ll give you a fair imitation of a rabbit caught in headlights. Although we know ourselves better than anyone, it’s not always easy to identify exactly what makes us special.  Employers will often ask you about your strengths at interview. To avoid responding with a glassy-eyed stare, you need to first get clear about what yours are, and then understand how best to articulate them.

So, what ARE my strengths?
A common interview question is, “how would a good friend describe you in three words?” Prepare for this by asking a friend ahead of time! (You can always return the favour). We ran an exercise a bit like this recently at the Careers Service. We all drew a representation of ourselves on a piece of A4 paper (it quickly emerged that most of us couldn’t list artistic talent amongst our finer qualities). Then we moved around adding words to the pictures. Where we agreed with a word someone had already written, we put a big tick against it.

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Who are the Faculty Employability Team?

Last week (12 June 2019) the Faculty Employability Team at the Careers Service won the ‘Enhancing the Student Learning Experience Award’ at the Bristol Teaching Awards. To celebrate this fantastic achievement we thought it was about time we introduced the team and explained a little more about what they do.

The Faculty Employability Team (Back row L to R: Peter, Ellen, Eilidh, Tim, Gareth. Front row L to R: Holly, Natalia, Hannah, and Jo.)

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10 ways to avoid being tricked by a job scam

Using online recruitment agencies and websites is now the most common way that students and graduates find a job. While most jobs that you see advertised online are real, fraudsters make use of online advertisements to trick you into paying for something that doesn’t exist.

Scams come in many different forms, but the people who carry them out are always looking for new ways to make easy money. To detect a scam and avoid being tricked, here are 10 things to look out for:

1. Always do your research. Type ‘name of the company’ + ‘scam’ into Google and see what comes up. Are they registered with Companies House? For VAT? Are they on mycareer? Check student forums to see if anyone else is talking about them or has experienced problems.

via GIPHY

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How I got my dream internship

Fourth year Economics student Pratik Popat writes for the Careers Service blog on his experiences of interviewing for Investment Banking firms and how learning from each application and networking ultimately helped him get his dream internship.

Since the start of my second year studying Economics, I have been applying for summer internships in the financial industry, specifically Investment Banking.

When I applied the first time, I felt very much out of my depth. Everyone I spoke to seemed to have much more of an idea of how to do interviews, and how to get to the interview stage in the first place. (more…)