Hello Diigo - Goodbye Delicious!

After reviewing for some while the development of delicious.com since it was sold on by Yahoo, the University of Cumbria Careers Service has decided to use diigo.com as its main website for useful links.  Our links will be stored at the specific url http://www.diigo.com/user/uoccareers.  Here's a quick screenshot to show roughly what it looked like earlier today:

Hold On - What's All This About?

If you're not familiar with the likes of diigo and delicious, they are both social bookmarking sites.  Anyone can sign up for an account and use it to save web references that interest them - although in the case of diigo, you can do much more, e.g, annotate or highlight text within the referenced webpages.  A bit like Google bookmarks, they have the advantage that, unlike IE favourites or similar, you can view them from any computer.  An extra advantage over Google bookmarks is that anyone else can view them  too, if you have allowed public access to your bookmarks.

Because of the vast explosion of careers and job information on the internet, many University Careers Services make use of them to reference the vast amount of online information likely to be relevant to their clients.  For example, the University of Cumbria currently has 2055 web pages bookmarked on diigo - far too many to even consider putting on a "Useful Links" section of a website. Most services use delicious or diigo but there are others, and the University of London have their own dedicated bookmarking site, Careers Tagged

The key trick is that the use of tags means that it is possible to pick out links according to a key theme or area of interest, rather than browsing all of our links to find if there's anything useful to you.  So you get  exactly those weblinks that are relevant to your needs - more or less.  You can see the precise tags below each web reference in the screenshot.

OK, So How Do I Use This Stuff?

If you visit http://www.diigo.com/user/uoccareers you can pick out the tags that will interest you and search on them in the box at the top (next to Careers Adviser's Public Library).  Or simply type the first few letters of a word you want to search on and diigo will bring up all the possibilities in a dropdown box.  Alternatively just click on any tag beneath a weblink or in the "Top Tags" list and diigo will bring up all the bookmarks bearing that tag.

Then click on the link to bring it up in your browser, or use the 'preview' facility to get a taste of what's on that page.  If you have too many links using one tag, you can narrow things down by selecting another.

You can also retrieve links by modifying the main link to the uoccareers section of diigo in a url web address.  So http://www.diigo.com/user/uoccareers/cv will bring up all the links tagged 'CV' and  http://www.diigo.com/user/uoccareers/internship will bring up all the stuff on internships, etc.

Useful isn't it?

Sites like diigo offer you a vast amount of information at your fingertips and weed out a lot of the chaff you would get by just googling the themes you want.  It's surprising then that most students report that they have not heard of this sort of site, let alone used them, or set up their own accounts.  All we can say is - give it a try!

University of Cumbria students can find a more detailed guide about using diigo on the Jobs&Careers tab on Blackboard (see 'Plan Your Career' section).  If you should find any dead links on http://www.diigo.com/user/uoccareers - or if you would like to suggest some new ones - please feel free to contact us on careers@cumbria.ac.uk

Unpaid Internships: Are they Fair?

The following details were extracted from a Graduate Recruiter magazine article: "Unpaid, Unfair, Unwise" by Danielle Grufferty.

Unpaid internships are increasing and an NUS YouGov poll (Nov 2012) found that unpaid internships are widely seen as an important route into the key professions including media, fashion, finance and politics.

The current cost for a university student is many tens of thousands. This means students are paying for their education before being asked to work for free, but only if they can afford to do so. Confused? Please can somebody illuminate some reason here, any justification? Are we not missing the very purpose of labour laws? Is the fundamental principle not to protect employees?

Our economy is floundering. So when an employer says they will 'let' young people work for free on the vague promise of paying jobs later, they will find desperate people to do it. But just because people are willing to do it, can we really just let the market take over and let it happen?

Alan Milburn's report as the Government's Social Mobility Tsar on Access to Professional Careers argues ''unpaid internships clearly disadvantage those from less affluent backgrounds who cannot afford to work for free for any length of time'' he goes on to say [internships] ''should be subject to similar rules to other parts of the labour market. That means introducing proper, transparent, and a fair process for selection and reasonable terms for employment including renumeration for internships'.

The TUC launched their smartphone app, which allows individuals to work out whether their internship is legal or not, and whether it is of a decent quality - and even provides a calculator by which those who have undertaken unpaid internships can determine how much they should have been paid, and contact HMRC to raise this violation of minimum wage legislation!

TUC Deputy General Secretary Frances O'Grady says 'Whether they are unscrupulous or genuinely unaware of the rules, too many employers are ripping off young people by employing them in unpaid internships that are not only unfair but, in most cases, probably illegal...... it is vital that we crackdown on those internships that offer little but hard graft for no reward. Employers need to know there is no such thing as free labour.''

Want a Summer Job? Then start thinking about it now....

As well as being downright good fun, a summer job is a good way of putting some extra cash in your piggy bank as well as providing some useful experience for later job applications.

Do It Now!

Winter, with its floods and gails plus ice and snow probably still to come, may not feel like the right time to start thinking about it.  But as soon as the beach ads start to appear, it's a sign that the holiday job market is about to take off.  Many companies and websites will be advertising summer vacancies with deadlines from February onwards so it is not too soon to start working out what sort of things might interest you.

And if you're thinking of seeking foreign climes, the formalities of passport, visa applications and innoculations all take time, so it really is case of the earlier the better for getting the bureaucracy out of the way.  Don't wait until passport offices and consulates are knee-deep in applications and all the flights are booked up.

Some Points To Think About...

Picking a summer job is a bit like a career decision in miniature, so it is worth thinking what you hope to gain from it apart from a suntan - as well as the fun and cash element.

Without sounding too boring, it's a great opportunity to find out more about what you like and dislike in a workplace and to enhance those vital CV skills.  Just getting there will need some organisation and communication skills.  If you're looking to enhance your customer service experience, there are loads of opportunities to do this.

You may be looking to enhance a particular area of your skills e.g. by coaching sport or working with disadvantaged people with future applications in mind.  And if you are set on a graduate traineeship in areas like law or business, a summer internship may be what you need - even if you end up seeing more of the water cooler than the swimming pool.

What's Available?

An incredible amount... but if we do try and generalise, some of the obvious niches for summer and holiday jobs both home and abroad are:

• Hotel, catering and bar work
• Shop jobs
• Temporary office jobs
• Holiday reps, tour guides
• Summer camps, playschemes and adventure schemes
• Teaching English as a Foreign Language (especially in China and other Asian counrties)
• Working in farms and gardens e.g. fruit picking and harvesting
• Festivals, events and exhibitions

One slight 'buyer beware' message is however to watch out for providers who charge money for a foreign job or working holiday experience. A small amount to cover expenses may be reasonable enough but you should not need to spend £2000 for the privelege unless you are looking for something very exotic.  On the whole, you should be able to find paid opportunities if you stick with it.

Finding Out More

Many summer jobs are advertised on the University of Cumbria Jobshop and you can also follow up useful links we have gathered at http://delicious.com/skillzone/summer  or, if heading abroad is your plan http://delicious.com/skillzone/abroad

There is also a good number of books to help you research your ideal summer job and you should be able to find a selection of them in University or public libraries.

FAQ - How Can I Get Information on Working and Studying Abroad?

As with many careers faqs, a really good starting point on information about careers and courses in the rest of the world is the Graduate Prospects website, where you can find a dedicated section on the subject.  Here you can find plenty of help to think through your decision, profiles on working and studying in over fifty different countries, plus information on gap years and Teaching English as a Foreign Language plus a search facility to find international job opportunities.

Working abroad is one of the subjects on which books are still being published, so a visit to the main University library or public lending library may be worthwhile.  Titles covered include everything from finding holiday jobs and backpackers' guides to information for people who are considering long-term relocation to develop their career.

Some key tips from our own Careers Advisers on the subject of working and studying abroad are:

• If you're considering a gap year, how will it fit in with your future career plans?  Not all employers will be impressed by your improved surfing skills gained on Bondai Beach.
• There is a current vogue for 'overseas internships' but check these out carefully as many require you to pay large sums of money to participate.  Ask about the career destinations of past participants and check that there are no similar paid or cost-free opportunities.
• As with many things, planning is the key to success.  Start thinking about your plans well in advance.  Next year may be better than right now.

For some extra links on opportunities try http://delicious.com/skillzone/abroad or http://delicious.com/skillzone/gap_year  

Are Unpaid Internships Illegal?

Recent discussion on the subject of unpaid internships suggests that there may be a legal basis for insisting that employers offering internships must also offer the national minimum wage.

In particular, Business Link offer the following guideline to employers on their website:

"If you or your organisation offer work experience, including 'placements' and internships, you need to consider whether the individual who will work for you is entitled to the national minimum wage (NMW). It is your responsibility to determine whether or not the individual is a worker for NMW purposes and, if they are, whether an exemption applies to them. Failure to pay the NMW to someone who is entitled to it is against the law. If an unpaid individual claims that they are owed arrears of the NMW, the onus is on you to prove that they are not a worker or that no arrears are owed. An individual's entitlement to the NMW does not depend on their job title but on the contractual relationship with their employer."

This may not be welcome news for employers, some of whom may wish to retreat from offering internships as a result. But from a student and graduate point of view, it clearly offers a strong negotiation position for those considering the offer of an internship.

If you want more details, follow the further links from the relevant page on the Business Link website.

It's Not All Doom and Gloom...

Further to the earlier post "What Do Graduates Do?", the AGCAS Quarterly Survey of Vacancies and Employer Activity suggests a positive trend during the summer of 2011.

Vacancies in IT, retail, marketing, advertising and PR all rose during that period, while the survey also reported increased vacancies from smaller companies, some of whom may have been recruiting graduates for the first time.

At the other end of the scale larger companies, who might have ceased recruitment altogether in earlier recessions, have continued taking on graduates - perhaps to avoid future shortages - although many have reduced numbers and are making more use of internships and temporary posts.

AGCAS reports that the overall picture is mixed as there are still plenty of graduates from previous years competing for posts, but there are some clear signs for optimism.

This will be the last post this year, so here's to wish all reading this a Merry Christmas and an Employable New Year!

Career Player

Graduate Jobs and Career advice on video - internships, psychometric tests &c http://ow.ly/36DhR