Monday 31 January 2011

Marketing Jobs on the Up?

Graduate Prospects' magazine "Jobs and Courses" reports a 26% rise in recruitment to Marketing vacancies in 2010, as surveyed by the Reed Marketing Job Index.

Unfortunately, this has not lead to an increase in Graduate salary levels but is never theless encouraging news. You can view the full article in the January edition of Jobs and Courses.

Thursday 27 January 2011

Looking to get into teaching? Need experience? - Useful advice is available from the TDA http://ow.ly/3L7zW covering the Open Schools, Teaching Advocate, School Introduction and Student Associates programmes.

Wednesday 26 January 2011

Shortage of Midwives

NHS Chief Executive David Nicholson recently calculated that England needs an extra 4,500 midwives.

According to information he submitted to the Commons Public Accounts Committee, 608,000 births in England in 1997 had risen to 671,000 by 2009, while the number of full-time midwives had only increased from around 18,000 to just over 20,000.

As mentioned in a previous post, David Cameron has already talked of a need to recruit around 3,000 midwives. However, research I did some time ago suggests that the midwifery shortage mainly affects the South East and Eastern counties of England.

Anecdotal evidence from Scotland suggests that there is a surfeit of midwives training North of the Border.

Milkround.com seeks Budding Writers

Milkround.com's Student View is looking for students to write articles on careers, internships, university, housing, travel and what’s important to students. This is a forum for students, where they can write about where and how their future careers are going to develop and report on university news.


To submit articles students can go to http://www.milkround.com/news-advice/student-view.aspx or email their reports to studentview@milkround.com. Details to be sent with the article are:

• Name

• University

• Year of graduation

• Telephone Number

• Your article

• A photo to accompany the story (Optional and must be your own image)


This post was based on information supplied by Annelise Johnson of Milkround.com

Access to Fashion

This is a copy of the text of a poster we received from Elevation Networks:

Interested in Fashion? Aspiring to be the next Fashion Mogul? Want to know the opportunities available to you as a student? Then this is the event for you!!

Elevation Networks is proud to present an exclusive Access to Fashion event. Where 30 carefully selected students will get the opportunity to meet industry professionals and ask questions to the people who know it best. The event will be hosted by the National Magazine...the owners of Cosmopolitan, Reveal and Harpers Bazaar*.

To Gain your Access invitation please email your CV and Cover Letter to: events@elevationnetworks.org telling us why you should be selected for this event.

Deadline for applications is: FEBRUARY 11TH 2011

*presumably London. The actual event is scheduled for 25th February between 5.30 and 8.00 pm

Monday 24 January 2011

Positive Outlook for the IT Industry

Research by Sector Skills Council e-skills shows employment in the IT industry is set to grow at five times the national average over the next ten years.

Their "Technology Insights 2011" suggests opportunities will increase at 2.19% per annum, with over half a million new IT & Telecoms professionals needed over the next five years.

Further details suggest that the age profile of the industry is now rising, with only 19% of professionals aged under 30 and 17% are over 50. The gender profile however remains a big issue as only 18% are women.

For more details see http://www.e-skills.com/technologyinsights2011

Wednesday 19 January 2011

Graduate Recruitment Trends

Some good news from a recent survey:

- The UK¹s leading employers are expecting to increase their graduate recruitment by 9.4% in 2011 and three-fifths of employers expect to recruit more graduates in 2011 whilst a quarter plan to maintain their intake at 2010 levels.

- The leading accountancy & professional services firms are intending to hire almost 10% more graduates than in 2010, an increase of more than 350 trainees year-on-year. There will also be substantial increases to the graduate intake at the City¹s top investment banks (up 12.2% compared to 2010) and the high street banks (up 24.8%).

- The largest recruiters of graduates in 2011 will be PricewaterhouseCoopers (1,200 vacancies), Deloitte (1,000 vacancies), KPMG (900 vacancies), the Teach First scheme (780 vacancies) and Ernst & Young (740 vacancies).

- A quarter of top graduate programmes will pay new recruits a starting salary of more than £30,000 when they begin work and seven organisations are offering at least £40,000 to this year¹s graduates. Public sector employers (average of £22,200), retailers (average of £24,000) and engineering & industrial companies (average of £24,500) have the lowest graduate pay rates for 2011.

- Three-fifths of employers are providing industrial placements for undergraduates (typically for 6-12 months) or vacation work lasting more than three weeks. However, nearly two-thirds of recruiters caution that graduates who have had no previous work experience at all are unlikely to be successful during the selection process and have little or no chance of receiving a job offer for their organisation's graduate programmes.

Source: Highflyers

Thursday 13 January 2011

Teacher Training News

The Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) will soon cease its role in promoting the recruitment and training of teachers as this role will be taken up by the Department of Education.

In the meanwhile, there is a new number for the TDA's teaching information line (TIL) - 0800 389 2500, a highly useful resource for those considering a teaching career.

From September 2012 graduates who do not have at least a 2:2 will not receive funding for initial teacher education. The stress will be much more on on-the-job training routes such as the SCITT, GTP and Teach First programmes and a national network of Teaching Schools will lead the delivery of initial teacher training by these routes.

The Teach First programme is to be expanded to train over 1000 teachers over the next five years and will be new Teach First secondary places in Newcastle and Durham.

Studio Schools, a new type of state school for 14-19 year olds of all abilities are being introduced to to equip young people with the knowledge, skills and experience they need to succeed in life and work. For more details see www.studioschoolstrust.org

Contrary to a previous post on this blog, there is no longer a centralised system for applications for the Graduate Teacher programme on the TDA website. The system has been abandoned, so presumably applications will need to be sent direct to the appropriate provider - in our case the Lancashire and North West GTP Consortium

Source: Teaching and Related Professions Task Group Bulletin

Wednesday 12 January 2011

New Year Health Sector News Snippets

Job Shortages for Newly Qualified Nurses in Scotland

Qualifying nurses in Scotland who cannot find work are entitled to a place on a scheme offering them a twelve months temporary contract. But the scheme is becoming overwhelmed as the number of requests for places has nearly quadrupled since last year, and is still rising.

Source: Glasgow Herald

New Nursing Section on NHS Careers

Careers information website NHS Careers have launched a new specialist section on careers in nursing It includes material on careers options and pathways, videos and real life stories.


Statutory Indemnity Insurance for Healthcare Professionals


All healthcare professionals will soon be required by law to purchase their own personal indemnity insurance if it has not been provided by their employer.

Source: Health Workforce Bulletin

Careers in the Voluntary Sector?

Skills for Health have recently produced a brochure promoting opportunities in the voluntary sector.

Manchester Careers Fairs 2011

The dates for this year's careers fairs run by Manchester University are as follows:


Graduate Recruitment Fair Manchester: WEDNESDAY 15 & THURSDAY 16 JUNE 2011 - different exhibitors each day.


Engineering, Science & Technology Fair: WEDNESDAY 19 October 2011.


Finance, Business & Management Fair: THURSDAY 20 October 2011.


The Law Fair : TUESDAY 22 November 2011.


The Postgraduate Study Fair: WEDNESDAY 23 November 2011.


Ethnic Diversity Fair: 5 October 2011 subject to confirmation.

More details nearer to the dates from the Manchester Careers Fairs page.

Monday 10 January 2011

An Invitation from the University of Cumbria

“What Employers Want” - Top Tips for Getting That Job
25th January 2011

You are invited to a day to help you get your graduate career started


Venue F26, First Floor, Skiddaw Buidling, Carlisle Campus, Fusehill St, University of Cumbria CA1 2HH


9.30am – 10.00am Coffee, registration, welcome

10.00am – 10.45am Job Opportunities For You - Jo Tate & Christina Gash (Knowledge Transfer Partnership)

10.45am – 11am Coffee break

11.00am – 11.45am What Employers Want, What Employers Don’t Want! - Adrian Charlton, AW Communication

11.45am – 12.30pm Paid Placements for You, Unite With Business - Pippa Greenwood, Steve Minto

12.30pm – 1.30pm Lunch

1.30pm – 2.30pm Assessing Your Skills for Graduate Management Training Schemes. Workshop - Emma Grant, Enterprise Rent-A-Car

2.30pm – 3.15pm Starting Your Own Business – one University of Cumbria graduate’s experiences. - Leo White, Hydrant

3.15pm – 3.30pm Coffee break

3.30pm – 4.30pm CV Clinic – Make Your CV Work For You. Bring Your CV and Make It Happen - Sarah Fox

IF YOU WISH TO ATTEND PLEASE EMAIL SARAH FOX sarah.fox@cumbria.ac.uk
PUTTING 25TH JANUARY IN THE SUBJECT LINE.

Friday 7 January 2011

New VRQs in Health Sector

Further to a previous post (18/11/10), Skills for Health have issued more details about the new Vocationally Related Qualifications to be offered in the Health sector.

Specialised subject areas included are: Health Informatics (IT), Healthcare Support, Emergency Care Assistance, Optical Retail, Pharmacy Service, Allied Health Profession Support (n.b. excludes Radiography), Blood Donor Support, Dental Nursing, Maternity and Paediatric support, Pathology Support.

VRQs are different from NVQs, which they replace from 1st January 2011, in that they are based on learning outcomes rather than knowledge and performance criteria.

Thursday 6 January 2011

What are IT companies looking for?

Some answers came out from a recent careers adviser meeting with four major companies:

Technical Skills

SAP / ERP technologies, methodologies such as Agile, languages such as .NET and C#. If you can demonstrate a good grasp of a language like Java you can probably pick up other languages quite easily.

Communication, influencing and the ability to self-market seem to be as important as numerical and technical skills.

Degree Classification


A bit of a split - about half of the companies recruiting stipulate a 2.1 Not very positive about PhD students but a masters in some sort of IT conversion course can be good if students demonstrate passion for IT.

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Time to Apply Yourself?

New Year is a signal to forthcoming graduates to start applying for vacancies as deadline dates are notified with increasing regularity.

University of Cumbria students and graduates and others looking for work in the area can register to search for vacancies and prospective employers across the North West at www.prospects.ac.uk/pnet/cumbria In spite of the doom and gloom on the vacancy front, the site regularly features over 100 jobs from employers recruiting in the North West. IT vacancies are particularly frequent with common vacancies for Trainee Recruitment Consultants (how many people think of this as a career?), Teachers of English as a Foreign Language, and Trainee Sales Managers as well as more niche opportunities in marketing, the creative sector, sports coaching and subject tuition.

We also have a large number of business placement opportunities for students and graduates at www.cumbria.ac.uk/grab At the moment there are surprisingly few applicants for these opportunities, which pay at least £6.00 per hour, often with expenses. Currently, almost all placements involve marketing in some form but this can vary from week to week.