Work experience is any time spent with an employer increasing your skills and knowledge. This could be a year long placement or internship where you might complete a specific project and work in a variety of departments or a period of a few weeks where you can sample the sector or industry that you are interested in. Some students use the Christmas and Easter vacations for work experience placements or you might spend one day 'shadowing' someone at work.
But work experience can still usefully be gained from situations that you set up for yourself (for example, half a day a week working voluntarily in a school) and all the skills and experience you can gain from a part-time job.
This is what two graduate employers say about the value of work experience: |
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"Graduates with a wealth of good quality work experience (voluntary or paid) have varied learning experiences and challenges that develop skills and competencies such as - commercial awareness, results focus, self development, tenacity, project management, diplomacy, flexibility, resilience and customer focus. Rebecca Fielding
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"We have found that graduates who have spent some time gaining work experience during their studies perform very strongly during interview. We are always looking for applicants who are born leaders, work well as part of a team, have bags of initiative and most importantly, possess strong communication skills. Sara Varo |
Activity: Are these statements true or false?
Work Experience is an oppurtunity to try out Jobs and find out what type of role would suit you after Graduation. It is also the major route into finding Graduate work. More than a third of of Sandwich Placement Students go on to work for the same Employer permanently (Source: Incomes Data Service, 2005).
To make the most of your work experience it is important to consider what you can learn from each of the following categories. Choose two or three outcomes which are important for you from the list. You can then note them down and use them as the basis for a personal work experience action plan.
Academic and Personal Learning
Enhancing the quality of your academic knowledge, learning and the application of that learning to the workplace. Here are some examples:
Maximising the experience in order to develop your self-reliance and career management skills to boost your career potential. Here are some examples:
Maximising your understanding of how organisations work and the relative benefits of different work cultures. Here are some examples:
Gaining a broad range of people, team, and client skills, whilst maximising the learning from individuals in a variety of work situations. Here are some examples:
Developing a range of general and specialist skills, which meet the needs of your organisation and are transferable to broader work contexts. Here are some examples:
Maximising your impact, becoming indispensable and providing evidence of the value you add to the organisation. Here are some examples:
Now you have clarified your aims, you can go on to our module on getting results from your placement.