Helping you get to where you want to be when you graduate
You may be about to travel, volunteer, work or study abroad and you’ve probably thought about what you’ll gain on a personal level. But have you considered the employability gains too? The two things aren’t mutually exclusive! What you’ll learn from personal challenges will positively influence your ability to perform in the workplace – enabling you to listen, communicate, adapt and solve problems.
It’s mid-February, and you may have noticed that the first daffodils are with us. You may not be aware however that alongside these early green shoots each year also comes our Careers Service Green Careers Week, from 18 to 24 February 2019.
This series of events is designed to help you find out about opportunities in “green” careers such as conservation and sustainability, get advice, and network with a number of different employers.
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We often get asked if the 50 hours work experience for the Bristol PLUS Award has to be relevant to your subject, or future career plans. The answer is no!
One of the great things about the PLUS Award is that it helps you identify the value of the transferable skills you have gained from jobs or volunteer roles that you might have been dismissive of, because you can’t see how they directly relate to your future. When you complete your reflective report and final review – the final parts of the PLUS Award – you will gain a good understanding of how these skills are valuable to employers, even if the context in which you gained them seems irrelevant. (more…)
As the deadline for the Bristol PLUS Award looms on the 8 of June, we thought it might be useful to talk about ways to fulfil the Intensive Skills Activity section of the Bristol PLUS Award.
The below are suggestions to give you some inspiration and are NOT exhaustive, we encourage you to find your own activity that is most relevant and beneficial to you!
Exams are almost over and it’s nearly time for a well-deserved summer break. Travelling, volunteering abroad and summer placements are popular ways to build your skills and experience during the long stretch of time between June and September, but don’t worry if you haven’t got one of them lined up as there are plenty of things that you can do to make the most of your summer.
Four things that you can do to make the most of your summer
If you need any help with your career planning, don’t forget that the Careers Service is still open as normal for the next few weeks and then for slightly reduced hours over the summer months:
21 June 2016 – 16 September, 1.30 pm – 4.45pm Monday to Friday
(Careers Service closed Monday 20th June)
We meet a lot of students and graduates who are looking for funding for a range of career-related activities, such as internships/work experience, volunteering and travel. This can be a difficult question since there are few straightforward sources of funding for any of these things. However, if you are creative in your search, there are some options to explore.
Funding internships and work experience
The University of Bristol Internship Scheme is open to all University of Bristol students and graduates from the last 3 years, including international students (as long as you have permission to work in the UK). The scheme provides funding for internships with a Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) i.e. not employing more than 250 people, or a Not-For-Profit Organisation (NPO).
There is also a lot of useful information on our work experience and internship pages e.g. advice about things to consider when taking unpaid work in the work experience and internship FAQs section. If you would like any further advice on this topic please do come and talk to one of our Careers Advisers.
Funding travel and volunteering
The University of Bristol Student Funding Office invites applications for the Knowlson Trust Travel Awards for travel which is not part of the applicant’s academic studies. These are made from a bequest by Mr John McKerrow Knowlson, Chartered Mechanical and Electrical Engineer of Bristol, and supplemented by grants from the University of Bristol Alumni Foundation.
The following information on travel grants and bursaries was compiled by the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) and NASES (National Association of Student Employment Services) members.
Organisations that offer bursaries or funding:
Other possible sources of funding:
Alternative sources of funding
There are some general Careers Service pages about funding. Although these are written with postgraduate study in mind, the section about trusts and charities may help you to fund a wide range of activities. For example, the Careers Service subscribes to the online searchable database: Alternative guide to postgraduate funding. You can also access the latest edition of the Alternative Guide to Postgraduate Funding (PDF, 3.54 MB), or come in and use the reference copy in person. This provides details of how to find and apply to various sources of funding. There may be organisations in there who would be interested in funding someone for education or career-related travel, volunteering or work experience.
There are a number of useful books and websites mentioned on the pages above. In addition to these, the Careers Service has a reference copy of the Guide to educational grants, available from the Resources Help Desk. This is a comprehensive list of sources of non-statutory help for people in education who are in financial need, up to and including first degree level. It contains information on over 1,400 national & local grant-making trusts, which together distribute more than £54 million in grants. Browse our online resources for ‘funding’ to see full details of all relevant resources, both print and online.
Further help and support
If you are able to come into the Careers Service in person then Information Specialists and Welcome Desk staff can show you the funding guides and talk you through the resources above in person. You can then also make an appointment to talk to a Careers Adviser about funding applications. For example, you may want to draft some applications and bring these in to get feedback.
Megan Wiley, Information Specialist
Guest blog post from Imogen Palmer, Vice President Activities, UBU
I grew up in the countryside, where the biggest opportunities were writing the obituaries for the local paper and playing the young William Wordsworth in my hometown’s annual history walk. I was overwhelmed when I arrived at Bristol by the 200-plus societies and clubs it had to offer, and I went a bit overboard. I acted in a play but realised I didn’t like acting. I went to kick-boxing and decided I didn’t want to be a ninja. I was an editor for the student paper and found I didn’t want to be journalist. Doing UBTV, the student TV station made me realise I didn’t want to be a TV researcher.
The most common thing I hear undergraduates say is ‘I don’t know what I want to do’. Most of us dread the ‘post-uni’ question that family insist on asking every time they see us, but not knowing is no bad thing. I had no idea what I wanted to do when I arrived at uni and I’ve managed to narrow it down so far. I don’t know any other point in your life where you can try on this many different ‘lives’, so to speak, and figure out what really stokes your passion.
It’s not all about getting ‘transferable skills’ or plumping out your CV, even if that’s an added bonus. It’s about working out what you like and being able to make the most educated choice possible about which direction to go in, because there isn’t just one.
My involvement with activities led me to the firm conclusion that I love people and I love trying new things. Therefore, when the opportunity arose to campaign for a job that would involve enabling more people to try things, in the form of VP activities, I leapt at the chance.
And that’s not just for the first-years; it’s for the second-, third-, final-years and post-grads as well. Life doesn’t stop in the library. Go and seek adventure during UBU Showcase Month, try something new and see what happens. Remember: if you’re finding it too expensive to get involved with activities outside your course, you can apply to UBU’s fair access fund: ubu.org.uk/activities/committee_resources/funding/.
We’ve had great feedback from student groups so far about Showcase Month, with lots of people trying new things, from canoeing to cross-country running. Volunteering Week kicks off this week so get on it! May I particularly recommend ‘Bristol’s Got Talent’ on Monday 24th February and the Volunteering Fair on the 27th.
Bristol’s Got Talent: facebook.com/events/731175766900390/
Volunteering Fair: facebook.com/events/750510671625775/
Full UBU Showcase listings: ubu.org.uk/events/
Imogen Palmer
Vice President Activities
University of Bristol Students’ Union
Some further info:
Careers in the Third Sector: How to sell volunteering on your CV – Tuesday 25th February, 3pm
This session is an opportunity to hear tips for accessing careers in the Third Sector, including useful resources and effective planning for your next steps. There will also be an opportunity to talk with professionals who have successfully made the transition into this sector. Sign up here: careers.bristol.ac.uk/ViewEvent.chpx?id=206070
Help – I’ve been forced to take a year out!
It’s that time of year when many students receiving their degree results have to make a sudden change of plan. We’re busy right now at the Careers Service seeing people who are rethinking what seemed like career certainties just a few months ago, either because they didn’t get the class of degree for which they’d hoped, or occasionally because they achieved a much higher degree result than expected and they hadn’t applied for any jobs.
Whichever position you find yourself in, it can be a daunting prospect to be graduating into months of completely unstructured time, but this doesn’t have to be a disaster. Employers are very interested in how people cope with setbacks, as well as how they demonstrate resilience and move on, so the focus should be on treating the unexpected time out as one big potential learning experience. It could even leave you with a stronger CV than the one with which you start your unplanned year out!
Try to maintain a sense of purpose
What employers will be looking for when you do start applying for graduate jobs is a sense of purpose: that you were able to set goals for yourself, plan ahead and structure your time. It can be incredibly difficult to motivate yourself when you have empty days looming ahead of you after the bustle of university life, but it’s important to have targets both in the long term – the job you want – and in the short term. What will you be doing each day to keep moving forward? How will you organise your days? It’s crucial to have something to aim towards so that you can maintain your motivation. Staff at the Careers Service are happy to talk through your ideas and help you to plan ahead, and we are open throughout the summer if you would like to come in for a chat.
Get some work experience
A great use of a year out is to find work experience and sample some different jobs and organisational cultures, as this could help you to make much more informed career choices further down the line. More work experience can also help to mitigate against the effect of a 2:2, as it can flesh out your CV and show that you are completely capable of doing the kind of work you want to do. The media has done a great job of convincing people that there are no jobs out there, but we know from talking to employers that this isn’t true. You will, however, need to be persistent to get your foot in the door. You can start by looking at the vacancies advertised on the Careers Service web site, and there are several national newspapers that have excellent online job databases, such as the Guardian.
You will also need to make speculative approaches in person, by phone & email and in writing to employers that interest you. To do this effectively, make sure that you have done your research before you make contact. Read the company’s web site carefully and make sure that you are clear about the kind of person, skills and experience that they are looking for, as well as reading related publications and web sites to fill in the bigger picture of what is going on in the sector that interests you. There is information on the Careers web site about how to make a good speculative application.
Finally, try to make use of any contacts that you have to find out about any work experience opportunities. Talk to family and friends about who they know or get back in touch with any previous employers who could be useful to you. You can also use the Careers Network of Bristol graduates who are all willing to answer questions about their work and career paths and, in some cases, may be able to offer work experience in their organisations.
Other options
Many students also consider volunteering opportunities, if finances permit, getting involved in a range of projects where you can develop and use skills that employers will value in your applications. These can be local to your community or they could be an opportunity to travel abroad. If you’ve always wanted to travel then this could be your ideal time to do it, as long as you can provide evidence of learning and development along the way by taking short-term work or getting involved in development projects. However, don’t forget that applications for graduate schemes open in the autumn in the year prior to you starting work, and sometimes even earlier, so you will need access to a PC to submit yours on time. You will also need to be available for interviews should your application be successful. If you don’t get organised for this crucial period then you might be looking at even more unscheduled time out, so it will pay off to have a plan you can stick to.
Follow up and support
However you decide to use an unscheduled year out, do remember that you can continue to use the Careers Service for a further three years if you are a University of Bristol graduate. We can provide advice, information and guidance in person, by telephone and also by email, so there is no need to panic if you are on the other side of the world and need someone to give you feedback on your CV! Just remember to keep track of what you are learning from your experiences, and you should be a solid candidate for the jobs you start applying for in a few months’ time. Good luck!
Dr Tracy Johnson, Careers Adviser