With A-Levels and University over, the real world is looming this autumn. For those of you looking for jobs (or who are super prepared!) it’s time to start thinking about gaining some hands-on work experience. The jobs market is super competitive right now and near-impossible to navigate, so The Debrief is here to answer some of your most pressing questions about gaining experience, including specialty advice for different fields.
How do I Find Work Experience? Where?
How you find work experience depends in part on the kind of experience you’re looking for. You should first think about the industry you want to gain skills in – is it media, medicine, teaching? Once you’ve ascertained that, it’s a case of finding companies that offer work experience. NCVO is a company that puts you in touch with volunteer centres and helps you to find work experience more generally, but if you’re interested in particular industries there are other ways. For journalism and media you can look at GoThinkBig, where we post our opportunities, or try to contact websites directly; but your email may well get lost in the fray.
Success at School also offer many work experience options and internships, and Prospects is full of post-graduate advice. The best way, however, probably remains contacting local businesses – you could try to get into work with family members, friends, or with companies you can stroll into and chat to. It’s always easier if they get to see your face.
How Do I Find Work Experience on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn have work experience job listings on their website, but you can also potentially contact employers you are interested in through there; this will either show you as diligent and motivated, or a little creepy. Either is fine.
How Do I Find Work Experience in Year 12?
Often your school and teachers will have procedures in place to help you to find work experience during your A-Levels, but if not (especially as it isn't mandatory anymore), Student Ladder offer great resources on which companies offer work opportunities. Try to contact these companies directly with a stunning CV and covering letter, or they may have application systems on their website.
How Do I Find Work Experience in London?
If you’re looking specifically in London, it might be a good idea to go through Indeed. Alternatively, you can look into which companies in your field work out of London, and then try to contact them directly.
How Do I Find Work Experience Abroad?
There are tons of benefits to working abroad, not least in the fact that...well, you’re abroad! Taking placements overseas will broaden your horizons massively and enable you to work in positions that you wouldn’t be able to access from the UK. Prospects have lots of great advice on work experience abroad, or you can go to AISEC directly if you’re a student or recent graduate interested in work experience overseas. Just remember, for your cover letter, you should come up with a better reason than tanning. Even if that is your primary goal.
How Do I Find Work Experience in a Lab?
This one is tricky as due to the busy and often dangerous nature of most lab environments, staff are unwilling to have younger volunteers hanging around. However, it is possible, and this comprehensive guide is the best source for you.
It will also be easier if you are a University Student, as many IBMS accredited courses will offer a placement or sandwich year. Your tutors can also potentially help you find experience, but again, the above link will be your best opportunity.
How Do I Find Work Experience in a Hospital?
As with lab work, it’s pretty necessary to gain experience in a hospital if you want to follow a career in that field. Stepintothenhs recommend that you contact the NHS trusts in your area directly and ask to speak to HR, voluntary services, or the education department. It could also be a good idea to speak to the careers adviser at your school or University, or the head of your course, as they may already have arrangements in place.
You can go here to find the NHS trusts in your area.
How Do I Find Work Experience in Accounting or Finance?
Accounting is a highly competitive and potentially lucrative career to get into. There are firms who offer placements and taster days, and you can find more information here.
How Do I Find Work Experience in Engineering?
If you take engineering at college or University, shadowing or work experience is usually included with your course. If it isn’t, though, you can check out the advice here, which could help you out. There are limited numbers of opportunities, but you can also consider contacting organisations directly and explaining your interest to them. Even companies that don’t explicitly offer work experience might let you shadow.
How Do I Find Work Experience in Law?
Real world law experience is essential to those hoping to work in law or convert to law later in their careers. It’s possible to acquire this through tons of means, and All About Law has a diverse range of guides on all of the different forms of law work experience, from shadowing to placements. It also offers advice on how to hunt for it, and just what to expect.
How Do I Find Work Experience in a Bank?
Lots of different banks offer work experience, so it depends on which you want to work for and what’s more convenient for you. You can go through Santander, HSBC, and RBS among a number of others; this HSBC guide is full of useful info that’s transferable to other programs.
How Do I Find Work Experience in Fashion?
If you’re interested in any kind of fashion work experience, Fashion Workie is your go-to. Fashion is a tricky career to get into, and a placement is your best opportunity at getting your foot in the door. Be warned – it’s ultra-competitive and a tough world to work in, but you can take it.
How Do I Find Work Experience in Medicine?
Medicine schools expect applicants to have gained relevant experience, which is hard to do without any time in medical school! You can however head to this website, which will tell you everything you need to know about gaining experience in medicine.
How to Find Work Experience in a Pharmacy?
If you’re interested in working specifically in a pharmaceutical environment, Boots offer an official scheme. There are other routes, but Boots have a really handy week long placement program to students aged 14-19 in a number of areas. Alternatively you could contact your local pharmacy, which could be an easier route in, especially if you've already left school.
How to Find Work Experience in Architecture?
Architecture is a very skill-based job, requiring a keen eye for both maths and design. If you think it’s for you there are ways to acquire work placements in the field, Grimshaw Architects have tons of information, as do All About Careers. This is the best way to figure out early whether or not it’s the career for you.
How to Find Work Experience in Dentistry?
If you’re interested in Dentistry, your course should offer work placements as part of the program, but you may need experience before you even take a course. Premedprojects offer advice on dentistry work experience and have projects available, during which time you’ll learn all the major aspects of dentistry. My Dentist Careers is also very handy.
How Do I Find Work Experience in HR?
If HR is where you feel you belong, there are quite a few ways in. Milkround offers internships and graduate jobs in HR, but alternatively you can look at getting a job directly. If you’ve time, this website is full of resources and posits itself as the ultimate guide t0 working in Human Resources.
How Do I Find Work Experience in IT?
IT can be a highly successful and lucrative career, if you’re interested in getting work in this field it would be ideal to get a placement as it’s an incredibly hands-on position. You can find more info and listings here and find a list of all the IT related positions available here.
How Do I Find Psychology Work Experience?
Firstly you have to think about what kind of psychology you are interested in. Organisations such as MINDare always looking for volunteers, but do-it.org is a great resource for placement searches. BPS is also an amazing resource if your school don’t offer direct placements.
How Do I Find Work Experience in Teaching?
If you’re interested in teaching for a living, there’s no better way to understand what you’ll be getting yourself into than spending time in a classroom. This website is full of information on how to arrange experience independently if your course can’t help, but again it would usually come as part of a teaching program. You can also again find help via Prospects.
I Still Can’t Find Work Experience...
If you are still struggling to find a placement, don’t worry. There’s no age cut-off for doing it so you can keep trying when you have time, focusing on the best times of year – around September and during the summer. If you keep struggling to find work experience it’s still entirely possible to find a job, so don’t despair! You could fail to get a placement and still end up with a fantastic position.
We Asked
, And You Said:
Brenda Wong: 'Twitter is a surprisingly great networking tool! You'd be surprised - search for your potential workplace and look for people working there. then perhaps nicely send them an email?’
Christie Day: 'I wanted PR experience so searched on google for PR companies in London. I made a list of about 30, and emailed them all asking if they had any work experience opportunities. A few got back to me, and I ended up doing a month with one last August. It's definitely worth emailing as many as possible, as unfortunately not a lot do reply’
Victoria Kerr: I found the 'experience needed' circle applied more to students who hadn't achieved any paid or voluntary experience work while at uni... So get started now! Also, think outside the box - if your thing is finance then getting a Saturday job at Topshop might seem silly but it's a way into a week in their finance department (I did this with legal!)... Look at both big and small companies - a small start up marketing firm may be happy to take you for a week as its someone free to do their photocopying and you might learn more than jumping into a massive corporate where no one knows your name!
Emily Dawson: 'To be honest it's not the work you actually do it's what you can draw from what you've done if that makes sense? Soooo my advice would be to look on sites like prospects or on job ad sites like reed and look at the specifications for roles you would be interested in and see if you can draw on what you have already done to "tick the boxes". I would then definitely try and get a shadowing experience of the role so you can say you know what the job entails. Research the companies that do the grad schemes and know when the applications open and what tests/assessments they require and set out a time line. There are also lots of skills that can be drawn out of your university experience- that's why they look to hire graduates in the first place.’
Jocelyn Cheek: 'I agree with all the advice above, but I would also make an effort to seek out small companies. That way you won't just be thrown onto a pile of applications and you'll get to really show how you could make a difference. My brother and I are both starting out in quite creative industries and were really struggling without "experience" until we found small, local companies we could speak to directly and personally.’
Jessica Nightingale: 'I agree, Twitter was great for networking but also following companies I might be interested in working for and seeing when they posted new opportunities. I would also suggest trying the careers service at your uni and asking for advice about schemes to apply for if that's the route you want to take or volunteering opportunities because although you won't be paid, you'll get fantastic experience and avoid the vicious circle of no job, no experience.
Lastly, I would also try to see your career as a whole - not just focus on the job you want directly after uni. I found it helped me to gain a sense of perspective and took the pressure off the idea of the 'perfect grad job'. After a circuitous route, I'm in my dream job two years after graduating my MA, but all of the other experiences I have had have been great and I've found friends along the way!
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Follow Marianne on Twitter @marianne_eloise
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.