Careers Fair Coming Soon

It is just two weeks to the University of Cumbria 2013 Career Ahead Two Day Careers Fair at the Learning Gateway, Fusehill Street Campus.

Day 1

Join the UoC Careers Team on Tuesday 29th January for free workshops on Successful CVs and the Art of Networking. Sign up in advance at www.cumbria.ac.uk/careersfair - first come first served!

Day 2

On Wednesday 30th January between 10.00 a.m. and 3.00 p.m., browse 30 stands in the Learning Gateway offering a mixture of job, paid placement and volunteering opportunities as well as advice on getting ahead in your career, setting up a business and how to impress employers.

Employers represented will include: BBC, Carlisle Youth Zone, Lake District National Park, Cumberland Building Society, Cumbria Chamber of Commerce, Eden Carers, Sainsbury's, Smith's Hotel, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, Enitiative Media, Good Companions, Teach English in China, Burnetts Solicitors, Unite with Business...

All UoC students (all year groups and courses) and graduates welsome!

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.

Postgraduate Study - What Are the Benefits?

The answer seems to be "precious few" according to work recently undertaken by the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) Postgraduate Students Task Group, as reported recently in AGCAS' Phoenix magazine (October edition).

In a depressed labour market, many graduates hope they may increase their chances of landing a good job by obtaining a postgraduate qualification but the work of the Task Group suggests that many of the benefits they are anticipating can often prove illusory. Their investigations suggest that:

• Only a few employers have recruitment programmes that specifically target postgraduates
• There is not much evidence that acquiring a postgraduate qualification leads to higher salary offers
• With the exception of problem-solving skills, employers do not believe that postgraduates offer a better set of skills or progress faster than graduates in their first job
• A postgraduate degree seldom compensates for failing to achieve a 2.1

Overall the message is that a postgraduate qualification brings few benefits in its own right unless also accompanied by significant professional work experience.

So what price "Education, Education, Education"?

It's interesting to speculate what sort of postgraduates the Task Group, whose work is acknowledged to be anecdotal rather than scientific, had in mind in coming to their conclusions. Many University of Cumbria students pursue careers in Teaching, Social Work, Psychology, Nursing and the Health Professions where it is required or at least very desirable to take a postgraduate qualification, albeit alongside extending their experience in the workplace. There are also many career areas where a Masters qualification is needed if you do not hold a degree in that particular subject.

Could it be that the Task Group were perhaps thinking more of postgraduates pursuing non-vocational or obscure subjects, and then trying to break into the 'blue chip' graduate trainee market?  Quotes from Ernst & Young, PwC (Price Waterhouse Cooper to the rest of us) and RAND Europe indicate that may be the case.

Research Your Course

So where does this leave the would-be applicant?

As so often with careers, it is a "horses for courses" type of situation.  There are a great many postgraduate courses - some that offer no vocational benefits at all and do not even pretend to do so, a few that are effectively essential career stepping stones, and others that come some way between.  The onus is on you to quiz postgraduate course providers about the career outcomes of previous students if you are definitely hoping to choose a course that will advance your own career.

Where Do Graduates Go?

"What Do Graduates Do" (see recent post) also contains a breakdown of the likely areas of the UK in which graduates are likely to find their first job, with some interesting analysis according to job sector.

Unsurprisingly, just over a third of all graduates ended up working in South East England and 21% went to jobs in London, although many were concentrated in the City of London and Westminster, a very small geographic area, whereas under 7% took up jobs in North East England and Northern Ireland.

But a look at destinations broken down by career sector showed up some other happy hunting grounds for graduates looking for jobs outside the centre of London:

• Marketing graduates also found work in the London Borough of Camden, Hertfordshire, Surrey, Oxfordshire and Manchester.
• Science graduates were most likely to start work in Oxfordshire or Cambridgeshire but Merseyside, Surrey, Norfolk and Aberdeen (also the main centre for oil and gas engineering) were popular destinations.
• Outside London, Surrey, Cambridgeshire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Belfast and Tyne and Wear took on IT graduates in considerable numbers.
• Similarly, graduates in Art and Design subjects also found opportunities in Merseyside, Hertfordshire, Surrey, Manchester, Kent, Glasgow and Edfinburgh.

Of course, many career areas (e.g. retail management, energy, public sector jobs) offer a wider geographic spread of opportunities but the overall message is that graduates in less affluent parts of the country will struggle to find graduate jobs locally - and of course none of the areas mentioned fall within Cumbria or North Lancashire.

Incidentally, you can find an online version of "What Do Graduates Do?" 2012 on the HECSU website

New Jobs at Gretna Gateway

According to the local press, there are fifteen new shop jobs coming up as new stores move into the Gretna Gateway Retail Village.

Molton Brown (beauty products), The Perfume Shop and The Gift Company are all recruiting for new staff as they prepare to open up later this month.  This follows on from new openings by Clarks Shoes, Berghaus, The Body Shop and Pagazzi Lighting at Gretna Gateway, which already provides work for over 400 people.

More details on the opportunities are available at gretnagateway.com or by email from recruitment@moltonbrown.com, tpsrecruitment@the-perfume-shop.com or lynn933@msn.com (for The Gift Company).

Source: Dumfries and Galloway Standard.

P.s. This could be excellent news for our Carlisle students. Shop jobs were hard to find in Carlisle last autumn and Gretna Gateway is just a train ride away.

Impressive careers information

Have you had a look at the National Career Service website lately?car
No? Well as a self-confessed careers information nerd I have!
And it's pretty impressive.
Careers information databases like this one and Prospects (the UK's official graduate careers website) are a great starting point for researching your job ideas.
Not only do they give you a summary of what the job involves, skills and qualifications needed, routes in as well as pay, but the further information section is great at taking your research that bit further by giving you links to industry bodies and key organisations.
This sort of exploration can lead you to ideas for work experience, key job vacancy sites, interesting courses and application and interview advice - for the job area that interests you.
Much better than Googling!

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  

Health Job Shortages

Although entry to many health sector jobs has become more difficult over the past few years, there are still areas where there are some shortages.  A listing produced recently suggested the following:

◦       Hospital Consultants in: neurophysiology; emergency medicine; genito-urinary medicine; haematology; neurology; occupational medicine; forensic psychiatry; general psychiatry; learning disabilities psychiatry; old age psychiatry.

◦       Hospital Doctors specialising in: anaesthetics; paediatrics; intensive care medicine; general internal medicine (acute); emergency medicine; general surgery; obstetrics and gynaecology; trauma and orthopaedic surgery.

◦       Nurses specialising in: operating theatres; neonatal intensive care.

◦       Radiographers.

◦       Nuclear medicine technologist; radiotherapy technologist.

◦       Cardiac physiologist; clinical neurophysiologist; clinical vascular scientist; respiratory physiologist; sleep physiologist.

Meanwhile a drive to recruit 2,400 more health visitors by 2015 is also underway.

Of course, this does not mean that your local NHS Trust will automatically have vacancies for all these positions!

Manchester Graduate Recruitment Fair

We have received the following reminder notice about the above event from Manchester University:

• Hundreds of graduate jobs (local and national) starting June onwards (mostly permanent and paid, but a handful of voluntary positions too) plus some postgrad course opportunities, all on offer at:  The Graduate Recruitment Fair, Manchester.
• Wednesday 13 and Thursday 14 June 2012, 10.30am - 4.00pm, The Armitage Centre, Fallowfield, Manchester.  DIFFERENT EXHIBITORS EACH DAY .
• 160 companies and institutions - with graduate vacancies for this year. Attend on both days if you want to see all the exhibitors.  BRING COPIES OF YOUR CV.
• STUDENTS & GRADUATES FROM ANY UNIVERSITY WELCOME.
• FREE bus from Piccadilly Railway Station to the Armitage Centre and back.
• For details and to register to attend, see http://www.manchester.ac.uk/graduatefair

[ends]

The Manchester event is probably the biggest Graduate Fair within easy travelling of Cumbria, so it's well worth booking a place.

Preparing for Band 5 Nursing Interviews

The NHS is currently placing a big stress on patient safety issues and it was suggested that applicants for Band 5 Nursing posts would do well to familiarise themselves with a number of resulting national initiatives.  These are:

• Safety Express - concerning the reduction of possible "occurrences of harm" (e.g. falls, embolisms, bedsores, urinary tract infections) as audited through the monthly "Safety Thermometer"
• Productive Services - about improving efficiency to find time for caring, e.g. by standardising ward layouts and equipment locations
• Leading Improvements in Patient Safety - reviewing case notes to check for possible risks of harm.
• Energising for Excellence (E4E) - reviewing appropriateness of staffing levels related to patients' levels of dependency

If you are being interviewed for a Band 5 vacancy shortly, it might also be worth familiarising yourself with any additional local initiatives on patient safety and avoidance of harm.

Highlight Your Job Specs!

Most people know that when writing job applications, it is vital to review two key documents - the job description and person specification - and that you ignore them at your peril. The terms are not used by all employers and employers are not legally obliged to provide them, but generally they need to form the basis of your applications.

Unless you are applying to smaller employers and have no more to go on than the text of an advert and your own research, you need to learn the art of reading between the lines of these key documents and responding to them appropriately. This is where it gets a bit more tricky.

Some of them tell you virtually nothing worth knowing about the post and you may be left feeling that they have only been written to satisfy company policy. But some are chock full of detail and use five times more words than you could ever hope to get into an application form. And some selection panels will definitely screen your application against a list of 'essential' and 'desirable' selection criteria drawn from the person spec.

At this point, one essential tool to help you separate the wood from the trees is - no, not an axe - but a highlighting pen. Here's what to do next:

1) Take the 'desc' and the 'spec' plus any other details about the job you have collected and allow yourself the time to go through them all with a fine toothcomb - and a highlighting pen.

2) Try to get the feeling of the words and the energy they convey. Look for key phrases that tell you what the job is all about and the sort of person they are looking for. When you find one, highlight it. In the margin, add a few quick notes of situations where you used the skills or demonstrated the experience that the phrase indicates. These will be useful reminders when you start to draft your application.

3) Now of course there will be some phrases where you cannot think of any relevant information you can give. If so, do not despair. Highlight them anyway, perhaps in a different way so they stand out. If you come back to them later, it's amazing how often that you will suddenly recall useful information that is exactly the evidence the employer is looking for - or, if not, something that is similar enough for you to use convincingly.

4) You may find there are some phrases that are used several times in the same documentation. These are likely to be major areas of interest to the employer that you need to write about at some length, using the STAR technique. Similarly, if you are applying for a number of jobs of the same kind, it can be worth noting that some employers mention requirements that others do not.

5) Once you have been through all the documentation, prioritise on the basis of your notes and the required length of the application:

• things you must write about in detail
  
• things you will at least mention
• things you will only mention if there is space

6) Then put down the highlighting pen and pick up your mouse, laptop or black biro...

A Couple of Provisos

• Don't forget to say why you want to work for that company, even if they didn't ask you to
  
• If you really can't think of any material that you can use to cover 'essential' criteria, don't apply - the job probably isn't for you.
  

Youth Unemployment: A Student’s Perspective

an article provided by Sam Curran, an Education Student at our Lancaster Campus

If you have wandered round a nondescript town centre dispensing as many CVs as you possibly can (for no reward) or looked on the Job Centre Plus site every day or even been forced to claim benefits then you will know all about the effects of recession. Whilst media coverage tends to focus on redundancy and lack of jobs for middle aged people it is actually the younger generation, those who are in-between the ages of 18-25 that are suffering the most.

Youth unemployment is at a record high and the number of people claiming Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) has risen by an incredible 100 per cent in some areas of the country. According to recent statistics the worst hit area is the North East (where I’m originally from) where the benefits claims of 18-25 year olds has risen a staggering 43 percent in the last year. Interestingly in the more affluent South East benefit applications have dropped 5.9 per cent. The situation is further compounded by the obvious fact that the government has to make cuts to try and stimulate economic growth and many benefits claims will either be rejected or reduced. How on earth will this benefit people of my generation?

However the effect of youth unemployment cannot just be gauged by simple statistics (although on average benefits applications have increased by 8 % across the UK in the last year), the effects seem even more pronounced when you look at each individual case. Take my situation for my example:

I’m an 18 year old student studying secondary teaching with maths at the Lancaster Campus at the University of Cumbria. In three years’ time I will graduate from my degree and have £25,000 debt to contend with. Will I have any kind of savings to fall back on whilst paying this debt? Not in the current economic climate I won’t. For the past two months I have been searching (fruitlessly) for a part-time job to boost my savings. I have put in over 200 job applications, given out so many CVs I must have covered every shop in the town centre twice and searched on the net for job vacancies and what do I have for my efforts…….. absolutely nothing! Most firms can’t even be bothered to reply and the ones that do trot out the vague phrase: “good candidate, but not enough retail experience”. How much experience do they want?!? For the record, I have had a proper temp job in the past and gone in every Saturday religiously to volunteer at Oxfam in my home town of Darlington. The fact is there is very little chance to get retail experience these days.

Perhaps I’m one of the lucky ones though. I have a loan to cover my living and tuition fee costs but what about when I leave Uni? £25,000 worth of debt and nothing to fall back on. What do I do then? Withdraw from the bank of Mum and Dad? Take out an overdraft? None of the options are desirable, especially when it is even harder to get a foot on the property market these days so it would seem I will be consigned to renting a house for the next decade with no realistic hope of actually ever owning my own house.

Some might say that I’ll be fine: I’ll be earning more than enough as a teacher and they are “paid far too much” anyway. Realistically though the starting wage of a teacher is £20,000 which sounds a lot but looks a lot less impressive when you take away bills and paying off my student loan. The fact is not getting a job now will harm me in the long term.

Some suggestions have been mooted by the government: they plan to make anyone unemployed carry out a six month “community work programme” for 30 hours each week. It is compulsory: anyone who refuses will have their benefits taken away. This would not solve the problem though: in fact it could exacerbate it if some people refuse to carry out these work placements.

So it seems I and a number of people of similar age are consigned to a period of unemployment and no chance of earning some extra cash. I’ve now got to the point where I’m doing surveys online to try and earn a little bit of money (although the most I can make is £40 per month). I’m also considering volunteering again at a charity shop although will that even look good on my CV to employers? In short, youth unemployment is a big problem and it doesn’t look like it is going away any time soon.

Career Player

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

Career decisionmaking - a quick guide

A lot can and has been written about career decisionmaking. In the UK, one of the most helpful resources is the Windmills Careers Coach. Now part of a bigger lifestyle coaching facility, it takes you through a labyrinth of interactive material to help you focus in detail on your key career decisionmaking issues.

And yet the basic structure of the career decisionmaking process is actually quite simple. The process itself can be complex but the structure is easy. In careers jargon, it all relates to your 'career focus'. In layman's terms, it means there are just three key career decisionmaking situations that you can face:

1) I haven't got a clue what I want to do

In careers speak you are 'unfocussed' or have 'no focus'. In many ways this is a very good place to be, since a lot of people grasp hurriedly at a supposed career choice only to repent at leisure and return to the square one of complete indecision, often at considerable financial and emotional cost.

Unfocussed people either admit straight out that they have no idea what they want to do, or can only make vague statements about kinds of jobs they might or might not like. They may mention a job title but with no substantial knowledge of what is entailed.

They need to start finding out more about themselves, in particular their interests, values and motivation so they can start to match their preferences to opportunities. We call this 'self knowledge'. Career interest guides, of which there are several available free, are likely to help you realise their preferences and will list some possible job titles to look into.

2) I am trying to decide between a range of different careers

In the jargon, you have 'moderate focus'. People with 'moderate focus' can name a number of different jobs that might fit their interest profile and have some knowledge of what they are about, but they need to decide what to concentrate on before they move on to actually applying.

They need to look more closely into their possible job choices by finding out as much information as possible about them. They need to use the readily available sources of careers information, and talk to people who are in the know about the careers that attract them. It may help to construct a list of 'pros' and 'cons' for each job, or a grid showing how far each job might match up to your hitlist of requirements. Or it may just be that the information gives you a better intuitive grasp for the right decision.

3) I have a clear idea of what I want to do

Then you have what we call 'precise focus' and can move on to concentrate on searching for jobs and applying for them. This isn't the end of the story as methods of finding and applying for jobs vary considerably. You often need to research them as carefully as you do information about careers, if not more so. Finding and applying for teaching posts will be different from becoming a goldsmith.

Incidentally, applying for just one particular career isn't necessarily ideal. A shortlist of three or so careers incorporating a fallback or two, or possibly even a 'longshot' you don't really expect to get (but why not try your luck?) will give you a bigger but still manageable target to aim at.

Shouldn't I apply for 'any job'?

This is a common reaction amongst many applicants who fear that they do not have the skills to compete successfully when there is a shortage of jobs. On discussion, most will admit that there are jobs they would rather not do.

The trouble is that trying for 'any job' tends to decrease your chances of success because you don't get the inside knowledge about particular jobs that will help you succeed. You can't for example answer questions like "Why do you want this job?". You'll also end up mainly applying for advertised jobs (i.e. the minority) because you haven't learned the hidden tricks of getting into any particular job.

Career decisionmaking is not an exact science but success is more likely if you treat it like one. There will always be surprises and contradictions. Career plans are not for life and can change - but stick to the idea of having a plan.

Colin Taylor is a careers adviser and freelance writer who has been publishing careers and employment related material for over five years. Find out more about him at http://www.coltext.com