Assessment Centres - Practice Makes Perfect?

Many students worry about what will happen in a job interview, but increasingly the key phase of the selection process for many UK companies is the Assessment Centre. Usually only offered to candidates who have passed the initial stages of selection, such as an online application form or a telephone interview, assessment centres are a longer event, typically lasting one or possibly more days.

Elements that tend to be included in an assessment centre are:

• Psychometric tests
• Group discussion exercises
• E-tray or in tray prioritisation exercises
• Business case studies
• Presentations
• In-depth interviews

Candidates are under fairly intense scrutiny and are often very aware of competing each other, which may lead to some rather unnatural behaviour. According to careers advisers, some of the phrases that indicate successful performance are:  speaking up (without being unduly dominant), taking a lead, "building" on the contributions of others, keeping an eye on time, analysing facts, facilitating, awareness of the 'big picture'. Much of this focus is on how people work together in teams so it may be worth studying something about group dynamics in business situations.

But nothing beats having a try! Many careers services are now offering practice sessions on Assessment Centres to students and the University of Cumbria is no exception. On 13th November, we plan to run two practice assessment centres in collaboration with Enterprise Rent-a-Car at our Lancaster campus (exact location to be confirmed).  Priority will be offered to students from the New Business School but a large number of places will be available, so watch your student globals at the start of next session.

If you can't wait until then, here are a couple of links to help you gen up on the subject of Assessment Centres:

http://www.diigo.com/user/uoccareers/assessment

http://www.prospects.ac.uk/interview_tips_assessment_centres.htm

Enjoy!

A Career Is Born!

Thanks to the efforts of the Beer Academy a new career has come over the horizon - that of a Beer Sommelier!

According to "Wetherspoon News", the Academy introduced its Beer Sommelier scheme in 2011 to help restaurateurs, publicans and bar staff develop on their expertise on many students' favourite subject on the lines of the more established wine sommelier.  As well as advising on quality, a key part of the sommelier's role is to suggest how beverages can be paired with food items on the establishment's menu. So, for example in the case of beer, it seems Belgian raspberry beer works really well with chocolate pudding and a tangy IPA is the perfect compliment for a Stilton at dessert.

To become a beer sommelier, candidates have to pass the Beer Academy's Advanced Training Course as well as a course entitled "How To Judge Beer" plus an 'oral' (presumably verbal) examination and a blind tasting in which they have to identify different styles of beer.  Examiners look not only for a high level of technical expertise but good communication skills to convey their enthusiasm about beer.  A written portfolio, showing the candidate's skills in pairing beer and food in practice is also required.

Apparently, the Beer Academy has identified a gap in the market for beer connoisseurs, but it is not yet clear whether we can expect a flood of vacancies coming through on the University of Cumbria Job Shop

Career Ahead - University of Cumbria's Employability Award

Career Ahead is now coming to the end of its first year and it is with great pride that I have seen the accomplishments of our students developing their employability skills through an amazing array of activities. From bar jobs and shop work to volunteering with St. John's ambulance, student ambassador work and student mentoring while successfully continuing with their academic studies.

The Award has provided students who participate in extra-curricular activity the opportunity to pull all their experience together, providing evidence of attending workshops, coaching, voluntary and paid work to develop an e-portfolio which show-cases their skills to prospective employers.

The Award enables students to make the most of their university experience, to increase their employability skills and provide a method of evidencing their activities outside their university course. Consequently, students are not only developing their skills but also they are learning how to promote themselves through practical experiences such as paid/volunteer work, training, workshops and sports etc.

Elements of the Award consist of personal development - reflecting on what skills you have and what skills you need to develop further in order to get the job you want. Developing 4 key employability skills while taking part in 100+ hours of extra curricular activity throughout your time at university. Job searching, completing a job application form, developing a CV and attending a mock interview are all elements of the Award that develop skills helping students find their ideal job when they graduate.

We now have students that have completed the Award and it really is inspiring to see the dedication and effort that these students have put in to developing their e-portfolios. These students are the ones's that will be ready when they graduate to tackle the jobmarket, they will have all the skills that you need to get the jobs, they will stand out from the crowd because they put that extra bit of effort in while they were at university. I therefore want to applaud those students and congratulate them for completing the Award and hope that other students realise not only the importance of developing their employability skills but also realise their own potential to achieve their career goals and realise their dreams.

Well done and congratualtions!

For students interested in knowing more about career Ahead taking please email me, Libby, at careerahead@cumbria.ac.uk

Can Things Only Get Better? The Futuretrack Survey

Following on from the broad brush but optimistic approach of the last couple of posts the Futuretrack survey reported in "Graduate Market Trends" offers some contrasting insights as it studies the development of a group of students who started University in 2006.  In other words, most of them graduated at the time when graduate unemployment was at its highest (8.9%).

Unenployment and Under-Employment

Over 30% of those studied were still in what is classed as non-graduate level employment by the time of the latest survey in February 2012, although with considerable variations according to degree subject.  Looking on the negative side men, those aged 21-25 on applying to University (interestingly) and those from ethnic minority groups were found to be at most risk of unemployment after graduation, whereas (unsurprisingly) graduates achieving First Class Honours were much less likely to be on the dole.

There are also clear suggestions that those students who got involved in extra curricular activities, and especially those who held roles as a student representative or official were more likely to be in 'graduate level' jobs by 2012.  The interesting point here is that first generation graduates from poorer backgrounds are far less likely to have found the opportunity to take on this kind of function.  The same group are also more likely to be put off considering postgraduate study, which the survey finds has become less popular following the introduction of tuition fees.

Job Satisfaction

One of the tables in the Stage 4 Futuretrack report provides an insight into the degree-related skills used by graduates in their current job.  This is a subjective measure but suggests that the - by employers - much vaunted skills of spoken communication, teamwork and time management came out bottom, whereas the more academic sounding skills of research and critical evaluation made up the top two.  It would be fascinating to compare this finding with the original adverts for the jobs these graduates were actually doing at the time!

As well as providing some of the highest levels of graduate employment, students of engineering technologies and subjects related to medicine also recorded the highest levels of job satisfaction in their current roles.  bottom of the pile were architecture, building and planning with creative arts and design - so perhaps it's only two cheers for hopes of creative satisfaction in the longer term.

From Futuretrack Stage 4 Report p. 92

Gender

It's also only two cheers for gender equality as research into the respective earnings of men and women show that they remain strikingly uneven, in that women were much more strongly represented than men in the £15 - £24,000 range. Men were far more likely to be earning more, even though there was no substantial gender difference in the UCAS points held by those surveyed.

Almost 40 years after the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act, there were only two silver linings for women in the research:

• In the not-for-profit sector alone, reported salary levels were roughly equal with those earned by men.
• The minority of women who were earning salaries of £40,000 plus actually recorded higher levels of job satisfaction than their male counterparts.

But the researchers reserved their most forthright comments on the subject for the Law sector: "Compared with the Education sector, female law graduates seeking a professional career should be aware that the profession remains some forty years behind the times with respect to the elimination of gendered career paths."

Strong words indeed!

But Are Things Getting Better?..

The work of Futuretrack shows some aspects of individual choice (degree subject, extra-curricular activity) that can affect future job prospects but you cannot unfortunately choose the year you graduate.

Since 2009, prospects for graduates have been getting better and more recently Careers Advisers are noticing an increasing number of vacancies, for example coming in to the University of Cumbria Jobshop

Even the public sector is starting to recover, with evidence of increasing numbers of vacancies for newly-qualified teachers and something of a shortage of qualified nurses.

Are These The Jobs of The Future?

Some careers advisers have a distinct penchant for digging out obscure pieces of careers information and labour market trends.  However, I doubt if many will have perused the full 260 odd pages of the "Skill Shortage Sensible" report produced by the Migration Advisory Committee of the Home Office.  It does however contain a handy (if still considerable) list of the occupations the Committee recommend for retention in the shortage occupation list for the UK and Scotland.

In other words, it is a good guide to job areas in which UK citizens as well as immigrants to the country may themselves find opportunities in the future and may repay some further study.  Of course some of the
jobs are very high level occupations that would not be immediately within the grasp of the average graduate - but we would hope that least some of those who have sought careers advice at the University of Cumbria will harbour longer-term ambitions.

It might come as little surprise that many of the items on the list contain the word engineering at some point and some of the key disciplines that get several mentions are:

• nuclear decommissioning and waste management (so good news here for the sons and daughters of West Cumbria)
• electricity distribution and transmission
• tunnelling and landfill
• 'all chemical engineers'
• aerospace manufacture
• oil and gas

The continuing need for oil and gas extraction also accounts for a further sub-family of anticipated shortage applications incuding geologists, hydrogeologists, geochemists, geophysicists and pipe welders as well as a wide number of engineering technical specialisms.

If you've spotted that you can't study many of these areas at the University of Cumbria, there is better news coming.  The shortage recommendation list includes a number of occupations relating to 2D/3D computer animation for film, televison and video games, including artists, modellers and production specialists as well as dancers and musicians.  

Health occupations are also well represented, notably:

• hospital doctors in haeomotology, emergency medicine, paediatrics, old age psychiatry, anaesthetics, intensive care, internal medicine and accident and emergency
• diagnostic and therapeutic radiographers
• operating theatre nurses
• social workers in children's and family services (interestingly in the light of current vacancy shortages locally)
• nuclear medicine and radiotherapy phycisists

Lastly, secondary teachers of biology, chemistry and physics as well as chefs also receive a mention.

Currently the shortage occupation list is reviewed every two years - the so-called sunset clause.

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

Graduate Jobs Market On The Turn?

According to the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services website a recent survey of Heads of University Careers Services showed some optimistic results on graduate job prospects. The vast majority (90%) of careers bosses surveyed in the last quarter of 2012 felt that the graduate labour market was either becoming more buoyant or at least getting no worse.  80% felt that the position was better or about the same as in the same quarter of 2011.

Finance, construction and engineering were all quoted as areas that were recruiting graduates heavily. Notably some IT and engineering firms starting to have difficulty filling vacancies, and smaller businesses were finding it hard to compete with the salaries and prospects offered by larger companies.

While this all fits in with the overall reduction in unemployment reported in the papers, less good news is that opportunities for graduates in the public sector, on which many University of Cumbria students are largely dependent, have continued to decline, while full-time vacancies are being replaced by part-time jobs and internships.

Any improvement in the graduate labour market must of course be good news but the sad truth is that it probably doesn't make a great deal of difference to many graduates from Cumbria, who are basically faced with the "Shall I stay or shall I go?" question.  Either they pursue attractive job adverts elsewhere, or put up with the more limited prospects available in their home area.

Why You Should Link Up with Linked In

Last week's post on networking made a passing mention of the importance of using social media for networking purposes, in particular Linked In. Since then I have happened on some useful slides about using Linked In (and Twitter) to develop professional contacts by a colleague at the University of Manchester, Helen Buzdugan  Duly inspired, what follows is an attempt to pass on some thoughts about the ways you can use Linked In to develop your own career network.  You may find it useful to open a Linked In account to follow some of the references, if you have not already done so.

While many careers advisers advocate the use of Linked In to students, repeated surveys show that student use and awareness of Linked In is at quite a low level.  This is a shame as Linked In - sometimes alluded to as "Facebook for suits" - is one of the key arenas that budding professionals can use to build up influential contacts.  The difference is that it lacks the frivolity and some of the less desirable aspects of Facebook as it centres on professional life.  It's all about the work you, not you the party animal.

Linked In does include job adverts which are filtered to match your Linked In profile, but much more subtle is the way that you can use it to find unadvertised opportunities and befriend new contacts in particular companies or industry sectors.

Finding People

Using the Linked In advanced search facility, you can look for people who are already in careers that interest you and approach them for advice, company or sector information or to request information interviews.  The Linked In Career Explorer facility allows you to check out profiles of other people who have been involved with the same colleges or companies as yourself so you have something in common straight away.

A bit more subtly still, you can look at people's past career profiles to see what route they took to get to where they are now, which can shed some useful light on the steps you could consider to get to a similar position yourself.

As per good networking practice, Linked In helps you tap in not just to your contacts but their contacts and their contacts' contacts, any of whom you can readily message on the system. An extra dimension is that people will look at your profile too, opening up at least the possibility of getting headhunted.

Searching For Companies

It's dead easy to find companies in a particular geographical area or of a particular kind.  Not all companies have a Linked In page of course and a tool like the Direct Marketing tool of Keynote is a more comprehensive way of producing company listings. But where Linked In scores is on the sheer amount of information you can access by viewing companies who have built a significant profile.

For example, looking at the BBC page straight away gives you details of their current vacancies, and the Insights section tells you of people who have made recent career moves into and out of the company. What astounded me was the fact that, even though I have made no great effort at extending my use of Linked In and have no special interest in broadcasting, their Careers section showed that I have 27 first or second level contacts within the Beeb, only two of whom I have ever met!

Joining Groups

For the would-be job applicant, there are two kinds of groups that can be worth investigating - regional and professional.  A very good example of the former is the Cumbrian link group, a meeting place for a large number of professionals and employers who engage in frequent discussions on local themes - a great way of finding out the key influencers and topical themes in the county.

If you are interested in finding teaching jobs in the UK, there is a Linked In professional group on exactly that theme. Observing and contributing to group discussions can be a great way of making contacts and getting yourself known.

Last of all...

Linked In isn't the only social network that is useful for developing your career.  Following the 'horses for courses motto', there may be others that will be more useful for specific career directions or companies. But Linked In has a very strong presence in the Business, Finance, Commerce and Law sectors to name just a few and as the lead professional network available online, is always worth checking before you look elsewhere.

University of Cumbria students who want to know more about Linked In will find information on the Blackboard Jobs&Careers tab.

What Use Is (Made of) the University Careers Service?

Somewhat contrary to the views expressed by certain journalists, some recent research findings suggest that users of Higher Education Careers Services are increasingly happy with what they are offered.

Recently graduate research project Futuretrack found that, although 44.4% of final year students never visited their careers office, 84% of those that did said it was very or quite helpful (36.7% very; 47.3% quite) and only 3.1%  said it was not at all helpful.

Meanwhile GTI Media, looking at the networking efforts of students and graduates, found that 54% of those surveyed had networked with employers or professionals working in their area of career interest. Of these, 46% said that the contact had been arranged by their careers service.  This represents a rise of 23% of over the last six years.*

An Underused Resource?

The question would seem to be why less than half of final year students use the service in the first place. While Paul Redmond, current AGCAS President has justifiably pointed out that many students simply do not need to seek out detailed careers advice, there is still a feeling amongst Advisers that their services are underused.

Many graduates who received careers advice after completing their course wished they had done so earlier. But careers advice needs you to make a positive step to engage with it, and one that is surrounded by some uncertainty and not obviously enjoyable. Hence another great truism that the average person spends more time planning their annual holiday than their future career!

Misunderstandings also abound.  Some students are reportedly not aware that they can ask for careers advice.  Advisers note that some believed that they could not ask for help unless they had decided what job they wanted to do, whereas others said they thought the careers service could only help those who had not yet made a careers decision.

At this point, the debate clearly becomes absurd as all University Careers Services will work with both groupings.

Or is that terms like 'careers service', 'careers office', 'careers advice' are just too boring to catch the imagination? At the University of Cumbria we have found that our new Career Ahead Award - which talks more directly about the skills you can gain from engaging with careers has had a very enthusiastic reception from students and staff alike.

*Incidentally an interesting insight from the GTI survey, was that although 97% of respondents realised the importance of increasing their employability, they mainly looked to the internet and email as their main way of communicating with employers - suggesting that students still underestimate the value of social media as a source of employer contacts.

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.

Career Ahead - Careers and Employability Fair

This is advance notice of the University of Cumbria's first ever all-inclusive Careers Fair will take place at Fusehill Street campus on Tuesday 29 and Wednesday 30 January 2013. 
Students from all year groups and faculties and recent graduates from the University will get the chance to research job, voluntary, postgraduate and self-employment opportunities as well as the new Career Ahead Employability Award currently being piloted by Learning and Student Services.


The Learning Gateway at Fusehill Street

On the Tuesday, students will be able to attend workshops to help them make the most of their chance to meet employers the following day. Workshops will include The Art of Networking and Successful CVs and will be run by members of the careers team.

From 10.00am – 3.00pm on the Wednesday, around thirty local and national organisations will be available to offer advice and information to students in the ground and first floors of the Learning Gateway.

More information will follow in January on how to register for the event, but in the meantime contact Joanne Watson  if you would like to know more or have employers you would like us to invite. This event is part funded by the European Social Fund.

There are still opportunities for employers to take part on the 30th and any firms interested can register at https://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/cumbria/careersfair2013

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.

New Postgraduate Business Courses at the University of Cumbria

The new University of Cumbria Business School is offering a series of postgraduate courses that will be starting at the University on 14th January 2013. They are:

        · MBA - full time (Lancaster)
        · MBA - part time (Fusehill St, Carlisle)*
        · MA Business Management (Lancaster)
        · Certificate of Management Studies - part time (Fusehill St, Carlisle)*
        · Diploma of Management Studies - part time (Fusehill St, Carlisle)*

Also on offer from the same date are:

        · BA (Hons) Business Management (Lancaster)
        · BA (Hons) Business Management - top up (Lancaster, Fusehill Street, Carlisle and Energus, Whitehaven)

Interested candidates can get more information at www.cumbria.ac.uk/newstart or from our course enquiry centre on 0845 606 11 44.

Alternatively you can visit one of the School's open evenings in early December.

* All on Tuesdays

FAQ - Can Someone Help Me Fill Out an Online Application Form?

Some of our students clearly think that online application forms are a pain in the back end, and many Careers Advisers partly share this view. This is because it is actually quite hard for us to see what is going on in the world of online applications without starting to apply for the jobs ourselves!

As such online application forms are a bit of a Pandora's Box - you never quite know what will spring out next. But the main answer to this FAQ is that we are always pleased to hear from University of Cumbria students and graduates by email if they would like a meeting to discuss online forms.

A look at the dim and distant archives of this blog shows that I took a look at online application forms nearly four years ago.  So what follows next is bit of an update on the information offered there:

Copy and Paste

One standard piece of advice is to prepare answers to questions offline and paste them onto the relevant screen. But the most popular tool for preparing drafts is Microsoft Word, which has sometimes been known to cause problems because it generates a good deal of spurious html code.  Assuming the online form isn't clever enough to weed out the unwanted characters, the applicant can be left finding that they have exceeded the word or character limit on the form for no apparent reason.

If you find this is happening to you, a better way might be to copy and paste the answer into a text editor like Notepad first. If you then copy and paste from the text editor into the form, the extra code will be eliminated and 'what you see is what you get' again.  Note however that you may need to re-insert any formatting (e.g. bold, italics) that you want to keep.

Deadlines

Deadlines can cause an extra problem for applications in cyberspace that does not really exist with the paper equivalent.  The scene is that many people decide to apply at the last minute, the company's server gets clogged up and some applicants in Cinderella-like fashion fail to log on before the clock chimes and the system closes down the vacancy.

So the clear moral of the story is: set your own deadline a good bit before the deadline.

Extra Questions

Online forms often have more detailed questions than paper forms, which may simply ask for "Comments in Support of Your Application".  Competency-based questions are a common favourite, so it is useful to swat up on them - for example using the simulator produced by the University of Kent.

Come and Meet Us at Freshers' Fayre...

This is a notice for University of Cumbria Students!

Careers Advisers will be at both Freshers' Welcome Fayre events for new students next week at both Lancaster and Fusehill Street campuses next week.

Dates and locations are as follows:

• Fusehill Street Learning Gateway, Tuesday 25th September (from 10.00 a.m.)
• Lancaster Campus Old Dining Room, Wednesday 26th September (also from 10.00 a.m.)

While long-term career planning isn't usually the first thing on students' minds at the beginning of term, you might want to:

• Find out about sources of possible part-time jobs
• Learn about 'Career Ahead', the University's newly-introduced Employability Award
• Try our cryptic careers competition and possibly win a £20 voucher
• grab any freebies we manage to put together on the day

Here's the faces to look out for:

Joanne Watson, Linda Powell, Sandra Baron, Colin Taylor, Libby Davies

FAQ: Is there a certain way to write a CV depending on what job you are applying for?

This is going to be a 'yes and no' type of answer!

Broadly speaking, third year students and graduates can feel fairly safe if they adopt the traditional, two-page, reverse chronological, approach covering the key headings of Education, Employment, Interests and Achievements and References (one academic reference and one from the world of work) or the skills-based approach where you have a strong section on your employment-related skills instead of much detail on your past jobs.  If you don't understand the difference between these two approaches, you might like to do some initial research using the resources like those mentioned at the end of this post.

However, there are some mainly slight differences that do occur according to your career interest.

For example, Law CVs tend to be highly traditional.  The skills-based approach is not favoured and neither are off-the-wall presentational features. Unlike other areas, all exam results including GCSEs should be stated, including all degree modules and results.

On the other hand, imaginative approaches that break the 'normal' CV mould can work in some employment sectors although it should be remembered that they are always a 'high risk strategy' that can succeed spectacularly or fail totally.  For careers in the creative sector it is probably best to stay with a fairly standard approach, but ensure the CV conveys a sense of good visual presentation, and include a link to your online portfolio.

For those whose degrees are recognised professional qualifications (e.g. teachers, health professionals), some useful pointers are:

• Quote your professional registration or PIN number in your personal details (or say that it's awaited) to demonstrate your eligibility
• Offer some comments about parts of your course you found interesting or significant
• You must include details of your course placements including what you did or learned on them

Probably the only area where the approach to the CV is completely different is the wonderful world of Acting and Performance, where it is usual (unlike UK CVs in general) to include a photograph of yourself but to omit your school qualifications altogether. Details such as your physical appearance, the ages and accents you can portray would however be included.

This is the latest in our occasional series of Careers FAQs.  For more information about CV writing, see the links we have provided at http://delicious.com/skillzone/cv  or one of the numerous books on the subject in the University and public libraries. University of Cumbria students can also find more information on the Jobs&Careers tab on the Blackboard Virtual learning Environment.

Forthcoming Shortage of Primary Teachers?

Student Teachers at University of Cumbria

Last Friday's 'Independent' reported research by Pearson Education which indicated that, while applications for primary teacher training places have dropped by 17%, primary school and nursery roles are set to rise by 8% over the next three years, leading to speculation of future shortages of qualified teachers.

Researchers also found that 55% of Primary Headteachers reported a decline in staff morale and had found it more difficult to recruit teachers than last year. Suggestions of a recruitment crisis have however been stringently denied by the Department of Education.

Comment: Some of our recent Primary graduates may be surprised to learn that it is becoming easier to find teaching jobs.  Any easing of the currently highly competitive recruitment situation at Primary level will of course be good news - but one wonders whether any benefits will be equally spread across the country.  What happens in Stratford may not come about so readily in Cumbria.

Do You Lie On Your CV?

In yet another piece of research Graduate Prospects have unearthed some troubling evidence that suggest a good proportion of students and graduates are not entirely truthful on their CVs.  Of 1,306 surveyed, a third reported that they knew someone who had lied on a CV or deliberately exaggerated their qualifications.

Apparently, graduates prone to tell porkies are most likely to give a higher grade than they actually achieved, with a substantial proportion claiming to have completed a course when they didn't. Smaller proportions falsely changed their degree subject to suit job requirements or claimed they had a degree they did not possess.

Perhaps more worryingly, many respondents thought that practices like lying on CVs or purchasing fake degree certificates would increase in the wake of increased tuition fees, although such results can presumably only be regarded as speculation.

Comment: I have to say that in all my time at the University of Cumbria, I have never uncovered a clear example of a student providing false information on a CV.  There may have been one or two minor sins of omission but, in my view, our students are far more likely to undersell themselves on their CV.

For some hints on compiling a good (but truthful) CV, try the weblinks at http://delicious.com/skillzone/cv

Train to Teach – Bursaries still available

The University of Cumbria still has places on PGCE courses

You may be eligible for a place on one of our PGCE courses starting this September for which we have a limited number of places still available.

These courses include:

• PGCE Primary in Carlisle & Tower Hamlets, London
• PGCE Early Years in Carlisle & Lancaster
• PGCE Secondary subjects in Biology, Chemistry, English, Geography, ICT, Maths & Physics all in Lancaster

If you are unsure about whether your degree makes you eligible for these courses please call us on 01524 384 500/679 and we can advise you and possibly offer you a Subject Knowledge Enhancement.

You may be eligible for a bursary between £5,000 - £20,000 depending on your degree subject and classification – we can advise you on your eligibility when you call us.

For more information visit the following link:

http://www.cumbria.ac.uk/Courses/ApplicationsEnquiries/Enquiries/PGCE.aspx


Source: The Education Enquiry Team