For most, university is about gaining the necessary skills and knowledge to enter a certain field or industry. It is this reason why a lot of people quite easily fall down the rabbit hole and assume they must have their whole university time planned, with placement along the way before concluding in the perfect graduate role.
Especially for those who are just starting, the untapped potential you have at your fingertips over the next few years can be really overwhelming and you can’t help but try to plan everything as soon as possible (I know I did). This isn’t sustainable and will likely lead to early burnout.
To hopefully help you with the process, the following article lays out a method of breaking down how you can improve your employability over the course of your university career. This is just a rough guide; some stuff will work for others that doesn’t work for you. And that’s okay.
If there is one thing you do learn though, it is that you do not need to do everything straight away and even the smallest step is important.
This is the second article of three, focusing on what stage two students could be doing at this next stage of their employment journey. If you are interested in any other stage, Stage 1 or Stage 3, please click the respective link.
Semester 1
Securing Placements
Stage One done! Congratulations on completing your first year. Regardless of how it went, don’t dwell on the past, because from here things truly begin to ramp up. While in first year I recommended maybe spending about half an hour working on your employability, now you should probably start ramping up a little bit. Especially if you want to get a placement.
For many, you may be thinking that you have plenty of time to secure placements for third year, but they can be extremely competitive to get so the sooner you start the better. This is even more important for larger companies like Microsoft and Google who tend to search and hire earlier in the year.
Be sure to make use of the careers service to help improve your CVs and Cover Letters before you start applying, as they will be able to spot any weaknesses in your applications that could cost you an interview. It might take some time for companies to get back to you about applications but in the meantime, you will be confident in the fact you have applied for roles in a calm and collective manner rather than rushing to send applications off later in the year while juggling assignments.
For some students, a placement year might not be the thing for you (I know it wasn’t for me). That is perfectly fine, but it doesn’t mean you’ll have nothing to do. It just means you have more time to fine-tune your portfolio! Working on extra projects is a fantastic way to get companies to hire you. And you may also want to consider applying for shorter roles you can either do alongside your studies, or over the summer between stages 2 and 3 (The MyCareers page is great for this as it advertises roles done with the University).
Semester 2
Networking and Interviews
After that initial rush of applying for placements, be sure to try and catch up with your studies. It can be a difficult thing to juggle both your degree and employment, so don’t feel bad if you drop slightly behind!
Hopefully, you will start receiving responses to applications at some point during semester 2, or even semester 1, and if they like what they see, you may be in with an interview. In a post covid world, a lot of interviews might be over video, but there are some cases where they may ask you to come to their offices. This might mean that you must miss some lessons but if you let your personal tutor and module leader know, it should be fine. The Careers Service also has resources to help you prepare for interviews and assessment centers so that you can really shine out to employers.
Regardless of if you are going on a placement or not, there is something you must start doing. Networking. Certainly not the happiest word in the English language, networking can fill you with existential dread, but it does work. Whether it’s talking to other people at an interview or attending a short conference, just talking to people will help down the line, especially if you manage to get some LinkedIn connections!
Semester 3
Portfolio Progression
Hopefully by now, if you tried to secure one, you have a placement for next year. Fantastic! What now? You might think you can put your feet up for the rest of the year and to a certain extent you can. But there are other things you can be getting up to. At around this time of year, you might be working on your team project, which is something great to include in your portfolio. But what else should you include?
If you haven’t been working on anything outside of your degree, you might have a solid portfolio of work, but it will look exactly like everyone else’s. Spending time working on your own projects, be it a mobile game, recreation of a piece of software or just something fun you made in your spare time, is a great way to stand out. If you want more tips on how to improve your portfolio, check out this article.