Employment opportunities after university

Hello, my name is Paul Blackmore. I work in the role of student employability and academic success in a UK university. In this Step, we’re going to talk you through some of the various stages and advice and tips that will help you get the most out of your time at your UK university and through your degree programme to pursue your ideal career.

So the world of work is very rich and varied for graduates. So you need to spend lots of time thinking about all the different opportunities out there and exploring the different career paths, occupations, sectors, and employers who you may wish to apply to. Don’t underestimate the amount of information that you need to collate to help you to make informed career decisions.

Fully utilise your own personal networks, whether that’s friends, whether that’s family, neighbours, people you may already be working with. You’ll be surprised about the advice and valuable contacts that they can put you in touch with and the potential advice that they can give you in terms of researching different occupations and different employers.

Another great way of exploring some of the opportunities out there is to check LinkedIn, the networking platform. There’s over 300 million individuals like yourselves– students, early career professionals, and experienced professionals, who have a wealth of information on their LinkedIn profiles. This is an ideal opportunity for you to actually research individuals who have a similar degree from your university or a UK university and see what kind of career paths they have undertaken to secure their current professional roles.

Employers specifically come to universities because students have a proven track record of being independent learners, acquiring knowledge, and applying this knowledge and skill sets outside of the classroom. The UK student experience is a rich opportunity to actually acquire skill sets outside of your degree programme. This may be joining student societies, may be joining your sports club, may be taking on roles like treasurer or captain. The other thing that you may want to do is try and acquire some valid work experience or relevant work experience to the area that you wish to apply to.

All of these things will provide you with a lot of opportunity to articulate in the recruitment process that you can apply these skills in a practical way outside of the classroom.

Many employers will have different deadlines and different ways of interviewing and selecting their candidates. So do find out, before you set off to the UK, what the critical deadlines are that you need to take into consideration whilst you’re in the UK. One of the best ways of actually finding out a wealth of information is going to the UK official graduate careers website, Prospects. The Prospects website will provide you with a wealth of information, which will enable you to research fully your career path, employers, and how to make effective applications well ahead of you travelling to the UK. If there is one single source of information that you should make sure that you use, It’s your university career service.

So do make sure that you use them frequently and try to access them as soon as you get to the UK.