www.le.ac.uk/careers

Career Planning and Festival of Careers Preparation

Career Development Service

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Your Career Planning model

www.le.ac.uk/careers

What you might do after university…• Graduate job

• Further study

• Travelling

• Volunteering

• Internship

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Mythbusting!• Unpaid?

• Impossible to get?

• All about who you know?

• “Not for people like me”

• Have to be at a big-name company

• Making tea

• I have to know what I want to do

• It’s the best / only type of relevant experience you should do

www.le.ac.uk/careers

400,000 graduates enter

the labour market every

year

85 applications are received by

the largest graduate

recruiters for every position on

offer

56% of employers that feature in the Times Top 100

target more than 16 Universities

www.le.ac.uk/careers

I haven't a clue what career route or what I want

The two extremes of career planning…

I know what I want to do/ where I am going

Where are you?

Both are ok!!But doing nothing isn’t!!

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Which are you?

Not well thought through and little research

Well thought through and properly researched

I haven’t got a clue I know what I want to do

www.le.ac.uk/careers

What are your motivations and passions?

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Challenge Financial Gain Personal Recognition Fun Security

Co-operation and Teamwork Structure Advancement Personal

Growth Social Good

Practical / Technical

Investigative Problem Solver

Artistic & Creative

Social & Caring Enterprising & Business Conventional

Values and Preferences

www.le.ac.uk/careers

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Research

www.le.ac.uk/careers

www.le.ac.uk/careers

www.le.ac.uk/careers

www.le.ac.uk/careers

www.le.ac.uk/careers

How can meeting employers help?• Explore your options

• Find out about variety of roles and opportunities available to you

• Familiarise yourself with the sector

• Identify cultural differences

• Talk to recent graduates and current professionals

• Mythbust! What is it really like?

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Where can you meet employers?• Festival of Careers – 7th – 9th October 2014

• Employer workshops and sessions

• Industry groups

• Networking events

• Conferences

• Open days and insight events

www.le.ac.uk/careers

It’s not about this….

www.le.ac.uk/careers

87% of employers rated their conversations with students as either good or excellent.

Source: Festival of Careers 2012 - Employer Feedback

75% identified at least 10 students they wanted to recruit.

86% of employers would very strongly recommend the University of Leicester.

www.le.ac.uk/careers

70% of employers don’t stipulate a

discipline…

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Research and prepare

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Define your objectives

Insight

Contacts

Confidence

Personal

Engaged

Employer

Impressed

Recognition

Plan

Application

Quality

Gaps

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Research

www.le.ac.uk/careers

• Visit www.le.ac.uk/festivalofcareers from 1st July.

• Look at employers’ profiles, see what they are offering, click through to their site.

• Identify:

(1) Who will you target? We’d suggest talking to at least 3-4 employers on each day.

(2) Which programme(s) you are interested in? Think about why too.

(3) What questions will you ask? What information would support your application and give you a better insight?

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Meeting face to face

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Employers aren’t expecting this….

www.le.ac.uk/careers

But the basics really are important…• Do dress appropriately

• Smile

• Face the other person instead of looking at what’s going on around you

• Look everyone in the eye*

• Hold your head up and maintaining good posture

• Ask open-ended questions

• Be sincere; don’t ask questions for the sake of it

• Shake hands firmly*

www.le.ac.uk/careersSource: Mehrabian, Albert (1971). Silent Messages (1st ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. ISBN 0-534-00910-7

Visual • Eye-contact • Posture• Gestures• Facial Expressions

Verbal(Your Words)

Vocal (How you say it)

• Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic• Pitch• Pace• Volume• Emotion• Detail/ High level

When people talk about their feelings and attitudes, it is possible that 93% of what influences someone’s like or dislike of them is non-verbal.

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Think about how will you open the conversation?

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Don’t open your conversation with…

• Who are you? What do you do?

• I haven’t come across your company before?

• Do you get a lot of applications? Is it worth applying?

www.le.ac.uk/careers

If you’re stuck try…• What’s the typical path for a graduate that

joins you?

• What sort of development opportunities are available?

• Do you recruit from specific disciplines?

• Beyond the entry requirements, what qualities are you looking for?

• How long have you been with…? What made you want to join?

• How would you describe the culture at X?

• What skills are most important to the business?

• How does the assessment process work? Have you got any tips that would help me prepare for this?

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Keep your objectives in mind…

Insight

Contacts

Confidence

Personal

Engaged

Employer

Impressed

Recognition

Plan

Application

Quality

GapsGaps

Insight Impressed

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Follow up Meeting employers is the

first step…

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Gain experience

More research

Make an application

Develop Skills

How you follow up will depend on your objectives and what

information you gained.

www.le.ac.uk/careers

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Develop your transferable skills• Teamwork

• Communication

• Leadership and supervision

• Researching and Analysing

• Problem solving and decision-making

• Planning and organising

• Learning, improving and achieving.

• Resilience, adaptability and drive

• Digital Skills

• Defining work objectives and outcomes• Managing time and priorities• Developing a realistic action plan• Using project management

methodology• Liaising with a range of stakeholders• Identifying, assessing and weighing risks• Developing a contingency plan• Allocating resources to tasks• Carrying projects through to successful

completion

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Recognise your skills and abilities• Extra-curricular activities

• Volunteering

• Specific academic and technical skills and knowledge gained through your course

• Work experience

• Part-time work

• Internships

• Transferable skills

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Volunteering projects

Volunteering Award*

Tomorrow’s Teachers*

Newspaper & broadcast journalist

Languages at Leicester

Exchange and study abroad

Course Rep

Student Groups

Mentor

Sabbatical Officer

Peer Assisted Learning*

Part-time jobs, internships & vacation work

Student Engagement Team

Working in Social Enterprise*

Business Projects

Leicester Ambassador

Experience Employability*

Enterprise Inc*

Starting a social enterprise

Student ventures, enterprise fellowship

Tier 1 graduate entrepreneur

Tomorrow’s Managers*

Entering competitions and

awards

www.le.ac.uk/careers

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Narrow down your options• Reflect on your results – what is important to you?

• Research roles and sectors you are interested in

• Explore related roles – pick and choose

• Talk to people who do the job (networking)

• Work shadowing

• Social media – search for alumni/employers

• Attend employer events, talks and Festival of Careers

• Try it out: through work experience or internships

www.le.ac.uk/careers

Come and see us!!

Actions…• Update your contact details

• Update your preferences.

• Review events available.

• Complete the online feedback & planning

• Put the Festival of Careers in your diary!Tues 07 October Voluntary Sector, Charities & Work Abroad

Weds 08 October Engineering & IT

Thurs 09 October Business, Finance & Government

www.le.ac.uk/careers

We can help – keep in touch