Looking for Internships and Work Experience
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•607 views
Careers adviser presentation, 2015
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Viewers also liked
Viewers also liked (17)
Similar to Looking for Internships and Work Experience
Similar to Looking for Internships and Work Experience (20)
More from University of Sussex, Careers & Employability Centre
More from University of Sussex, Careers & Employability Centre (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Looking for Internships and Work Experience
- 1. Looking for Internships and Work experience
- 2. What will we cover? • What is it? • Why do it? • The schemes • Doing it yourself • Making contact • How can we help?
- 3. Different types of work experience • Internships / vacation schemes: vacations, several weeks, performing real work, usually for penultimate year students • Insight: shorter opportunities for first-year students • Placements: usually a year long • Work shadowing: several days, no substantive work • Volunteering: unpaid, can be ongoing part-time, usually for a not-for-profit organisation
- 4. Why should you do it? • Investigate possible career path • Establish contacts • Relevant work experience on your CV • Gain up to date work reference • Get a realistic view of what is involved • Develop skills • Apply skills and knowledge • Get a job!
- 5. The Employers’ View “Internships are a fantastic way for individuals to gain an understanding of how an organisation works and get experience within a sector” Youth Charity “Today’s interns are tomorrow’s arts sector workforce…we recognise that internships are a valuable learning and development opportunity for those aspiring to a career in the arts sector” Director, Tate
- 6. Should I be paid? • YES (but there are some exemptions for voluntary workers in charitable and not for profit organisations) • We have detailed guidelines on our website about unpaid internships, the law and our position: www.sussex.ac.uk/careers/gettingexperience/unpaidinternships • Health & Safety
- 7. The schemes • Different sectors, different schemes • Large corporations’ structured internships • Deadlines often Jan/ March time • Often for penultimate year students, some for 1st years • Some sectors may not offer structured schemes
- 8. How to find opportunities General websites • www.ratemyplacement.co.uk • www.prospects.ac.uk/workexperience • www.targetjobs.co.uk • www.topinternships.com Our jobs database: • www.sussex.ac.uk/careers/jobs/ Our Getting Experience section: • www.sussex.ac.uk/careers/gettingexperience
- 9. Some examples • HR Summer Internship – BP • Summer Internship Programme – Wellcome Trust • Engineering/HR/IT/Marketing/Procurement/Supply Chain/Finance Internships – GSK • Programmer Internship – BossAlien • Numerous internships - EY/Deloitte/PwC/KPMGss
- 10. Sector Specific Information- check out our Sector Guides www.sussex.ac.uk/careers/careerchoices/researchingcareers
- 11. Examples of specialist resources www.gradcracker.com/ - Engineering www.w4mp.org/ - Politics, charities & policy undesadspd.org/Youth/UNOpportunities/Internships.aspx - UN Internships www.lawcareers.net - Legal vacation schemes www.bbc.co.uk/careers/work-experience www.pathfindersrecruitment.com - Marketing, advertising ,PR http://www.idealist.org/ - worldwide not-for-profits
- 12. Arranging your own Internship • Set your aims • Research • Think about what you could offer • Check out the NCWE guidelines www.work-experience.org
- 13. Creative Approaches- finding contacts • Social contacts • Academics • Previous work experience • Sussex Alumni Careers Network • LinkedIn – look at Alumni Tool • Names in journals, magazines, reports, the press • Yellow Pages (www.yell.com ) • Specialist directories and lists of companies
Editor's Notes
- This session is about how to find Internships and Vacation schemes. The presentation will be put online after the session so please take notes if you wish but it will be available later. I will take questions afterwards but please also feel free to stay around after the session to ask me anything Link to presentation slides is from: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/careers/gettingexperience/summerinternships
- What do you mean by Internships? Why should you do it? Formal work experience schemes & internships How to set up your own work experience & finding contacts Making contact
- An Internship is an opportunity offered by an employer to potential employees, called "interns", to work at a firm for a fixed, limited period of time. Interns are usually undergraduates or students, and most internships last for any length of time between one week and 12 months. Internships (also called "placements", "work placements" or "industrial placements") may be part-time or full-time. They are usually part-time if offered during a university semester and full-time if offered during the summer, winter or Easter holidays, when they typically last 4-12 weeks. Placements are usually full-time, and take place irrespective of term time or holiday time.
- Confirming your career choices (or confirming that you have made the wrong choice!). Establishing a network of contacts to be used in the future, maybe for further work-experience opportunities or to help with finding a job after graduation. Having some relevant work experience on your CV – adds prestige Gaining an up to date work reference from an employer recognized by others who you might want to work with Seeing work from the inside and gaining a realistic view of what is involved. Developing more flexible communication skills and self-confidence in the context of employment A chance to apply some of the knowledge or skills you have gained so far to the real working world. Some organisations increasingly view placements as part of their recruitment processes- impress and you could ease your way into a graduate role later
- Two views, either: you getting experience Them finding employees of the future
- - When you are looking for work experience you will come across a range of opportunities, some will be paid, some unpaid. There are also a number of terms used to describe such opportunities - internship, volunteering, work experience and placements. We are using the term internship here but it doesn’t matter what you call the opportunity, the law on whether it should be paid or unpaid remains the same. It is a fact that there are a large number of unpaid internships being advertised. For some professions, such as Media and PR, competition for paid jobs is fierce and work experience opportunities have traditionally been unpaid. This is also often the case in other areas, such as politics, international development and the environmental sector. Are unpaid internships illegal? Although National Minimum Wage legislation is in place there is growing concern that a large number of unpaid internships are illegal. Most workers are entitled to receive at least the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and therefore the majority of internships should be paid. Our position The Careers & Employability Centre advertises opportunities for a wide range of employers and we will not advertise opportunities which contravene employment law legislation. We ask all employers to offer the higher level National Minimum Wage (currently £6.19 per hour). We will only advertise unpaid opportunities that are either for a voluntary organisation or charity, or up to a maximum of 4 weeks (full time equivalent) for a non-charitable organisation. But the latter must be a genuine work experience or training opportunity. That is, you cannot be classified as a worker.
- Internships work differently in different sectors and in different companies Large corporations in areas of business, finance, retail, pharmaceuticals, advertising, law, engineering & IT will often have structured schemes (and always paid). A lot of companies will take into account your performance on internship if you apply for their graduate scheme- this is quite prevalent in Law firms. Often for penultimate year students, some for 1st years (HSBC 1st year summer internship, RBS Easter Insight, Ernst & Young 1st year programmes) Some sectors such as International Development, media, public services, environment may not offer structured schemes and you may need to try volunteering or speculative approaches www.sussex.ac.uk/careers/gettingexperience/summerinternships
- If you have a career area in mind, investigate if there are advertised opportunities in that area. Many companies offer formal schemes. You can search generally as there are many websites such as target jobs, prospects that have searchable databases of opportunities. However if you have a particular sector in mind, its likely that defining what you are looking for and being specific will reap rewards. There are so many internships available that it can become overwhelming and being targeted in your searching can be a productive way of finding the right internship for you. Our sector guides are a good way to do this.
- We have detailed Sector Guides which will help you to target your search more specifically to the area you are interested in. Show guide- Development pages
- Make sure you make good applications & spend time on them- treat them like you would a job application
- Set your aims and objectives and be clear about what you want to achieve from the placement Research the occupation and organisation before you begin approaching them Think about what you could offer them (skills, specific pieces of work) eg. journalism esp magazines Check out the National Council of Work Experience guidelines www.work-experience.org Look at the Prospects Quality Work Experience definitions: www.prospects.ac.uk/workexperience (about work experience)
- Friends, family, friends of friends .... Don’t be afraid to ask around. If you have any contacts, use them! Academics, your personal tutor, lecturers etc Contacts from past work experience, vacation work etc. Vacancies advertised in newspapers at Careers & Employability. If you have seen a company that interests you use the contact details from the vacancy advert. You can search for employers by name and type on the our website: www.sussex.ac.uk/cdec/research_employers Names in journals, magazines, reports, the press. The phone book and Yellow Pages (www.yell.com ) Specialist directories and lists of companies Linked in – growing in importance – we have a social media session this week
- Careers and Employability Centre information centre See a careers adviser Review your application Attend an event - employer presentations/recruitment fairs Web based information and resources – look in research section of our website for further information about making contacts Ask other people- it may feel like a lot of effort but it is definitely worth it- keep your motivation uo