Enterprise Support Agencies in Cumbria

In addition to Business Link, there are a number of agencies in Cumbria that can offer advice, training and support on becoming self-employed depending where you live:

Cumbria Chamber of Commerce covers Copeland District and Carlisle area (n.b the web reference only mentions Copeland).

Cumbria Rural Enterprise Agency covers Eden District and South Lakes.

Furness Enterprise covers Barrow area.

West Cumbria Development Agency covers Allerdale District.

Follow the links to see exactly what is available in each case.

NHS News

£1,000 Grants for Health Students

A new financial package means all health students are entitled to a £1,000 grant a year and can also apply for a means-test bursary and loan. For details see http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/Changes-to-financial-support-for-healthcare-students.shtml

The funding applies to both undergraduate and postgraduate study such as the 2 year accelerated nursing courses for graduates in related disciplines and ends the discrepancy of funding regimes for Nurse training, whereby degree students could not claim an NHS bursary.

NHS Jobs Website

Applicants for posts on www.jobs.nhs.ukshould bear in mind that they may need to apply before stated closing dates as adverts may be withdrawn early if sufficient applications have been received. Using the advanced search facility may be helpful when searching for less common jobs.

Source: AGCAS

Using Social Networks to Advance Your Career

Here you can find some information about using LinkedIn, Delicious and Twitter, the main social networks Careers Advisers at the University of Cumbria have found useful for careers purposes.

We don't currently use Facebook. Although Facebook can be used for careers purposes, we tend to feel that Facebook is more of a leisure facility. There are also reports that employers sometimes reject candidates on the basis of their Facebook profiles.

On the other hand My Space and YouTube have been successfully used by musicians and performers trying to make themselves better known.

LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com is becoming the most important social networking site for students and graduates who want to advance their career opportunities. A recent survey at the London School of Economics showed that, although students were initially more aware of Facebook, many have turned to LinkedIn as the main way of extending their career and professional network.

LinkedIn is a sort of Facebook for professionals but as such there are some major differences:

• Because of the professional context, there is no place for the frivolity that can be found on Facebook, such as drunken photos or dating activities
• You cannot link to any other LinkedIn subscriber unless you do actually know them, or know someone who knows them
• You can however look for jobs, research company details and the career progression of the people that work for them. You can also ask for personal recommendations from people you have worked with.

A helpful introductory video is available at: http://learn.linkedin.com/students as well as a number of pdfs which our students can access on the Blackboard virtual learning environment.

You’ll see that much of the above material is heavily US influenced, but there are already 24 million LinkedIn accounts in Europe and there are plenty of people from the University of Cumbria you may find it useful to link to when you create your account.

Delicious.com

http://delicious.com is the ultimate resource for “useful links”. Following the massive rise in the number of careers websites over the past decade it has become very popular with University Careers Services looking to organise weblinks that are likely to be useful for their students.

The University of Cumbria is no exception and we have collected the links we feel may be useful to you at http://delicious.com/skillzone

http://delicious.com/skillzone/nursing will bring up all the sites that are likely to be relevant to potential nurses, while http://delicious.com/skillzone/cv will bring up all the sites that have been tagged “CV”.

Of course this is just the start of the story. You can also look for more links on Delicious outwith our skillzone area. You can open your own Delicious account and use it to start storing your own favourite “useful links”. There are a number of tutorials on www.youtube.com that will help you do this. Another similar resource is www.careerstagged.co.uk from Careers Group London.

Twitter

Twitter isn't just about celebrity gossip. As well as telling us what Stephen Fry just had for breakfast, Twitter has become a very important source of information about job vacancies and careers information.

Examples of some currently active job feeds are http://twitter.com/EducationJobUK or http://twitter.com/charities_jobs

University of Cumbria LISS-Careers follows a number of useful job and information feeds at http://twitter.com/uoccareers We also subscribe to an automatic daily newspaper, the LISS-Careers Daily at http://paper.li/uoccareers The result is a "mash-up" of stories produced from our tweets and those we follow, including items tweeted from this blog.

You don't have to follow any twitter feeds to be able to view them all on http://twitter.com Twitter can get complicated but it's easy enough to start up your own account so you can follow tweets and tweet yourself. www.youtube.com contains plenty of beginners' and advanced tutorials on using twitter for those who want to get more involved.

Health Visitor Training - The Facts

The Nursing and Midwifery Council have recently published a document aimed at clearing up some misapprehensions about training to become a Health Visitor.

Some of the key points they stress are:

• You do not have to have practised for a minimum period as a nurse or midwife before you enter a health visitor programme. Qualified nurses and midwives can enter the programmes at any stage as long as they can demonstrate that they are able to study at the required educational level.

• It is not necessary to undertake a secondment or sponsorship for a full year as training routes are flexible.

• You do not have to be an adult nurse to enter a training programme. Any registered nurse or midwife is eligible to apply.

You may have seen a previous article on this blog about an anticipated major shortage of health visitors. You might also wish to note that, by a great stroke of fortune, the University of Cumbria is currently offering places on the BSc Hons Course in Specialist Community Public Health Nursing (Health Visiting) to start shortly at its Lancaster campus.