Okay...so I have got this far..but no one is noticing me?

If you have been able to find some kind of voluntary work then congratulations! As Tesco's says "every little helps".

It actually does help! Even the odd bit of ad-hoc work can show the ability to fit in a little extra work around your busy schedule. This ability shows excellent organisation skills and a team player. At this stage of the job-market-game, strong organisation and team player skills are essential as the jobs a graduate would primarily go into after University are within a team and with low responsibility.

In the last post, I discussed how a university student could get voluntary work within university societies. But, why bother with voluntary work? "What if I am in a position where I can get paid work within my chosen field, should I still bother?" Well my friend, you are one of a small percent who attain the chance to do so, so well done you!

As previously explained, short term placements and training in the right field for a graduate is extremely tough and can be just as competitive as a full time job. The competition is getting tougher by the year as more and more graduates pour out of university.

If you get a contract for a placement or training during uni, you are still competing against others for full time jobs at the end of your degree who might have a similar background as you, but with a bite. That bite could be a little bit of voluntary work or a project they have done in their spare time. It's unfortunately not enough these days to have one project under your belt.

Your CV needs to look so full of varied training, that the recruiter or future employer would be mad not to employ you.

I want experience, but I can't give up my holidays for voluntary work.

For whatever reason you can't give up your holiday time for voluntary work or a summer placement, The answer may be closer to home (well, uni).

Summer placements nowadays are becoming just as competitive as internships and let's not get started on work placements. Some are just about as competitive as graduate schemes! But there will be many out there who can't afford to work for free or travel half way across the country for a few weeks - if you don't have friends or family that are close that will let you stay, a massive fortune will have to be spent on B&B's. Many will want to do summer work closer to home to afford that holiday they rightly deserve, or many have great plans for a summer full of partying (we can never do enough at the ripe old age of 20yrs old and by god do we deserve it!).

So, what's the answer? Well, the good news is it's at uni and it's not so competitive. The answer is to join a society/group that is relevant to your ideal career.

So if you are interested in PR, why not join the union newspaper society? If you are interested in Marketing or Accounting, join a society and become the secretary/ event's secretary or treasurer. These don't sound as prestigious as a summer placements with Ernst and Young or a top PR firm down in London, but it shows interest from an earlier starting point and at least you'll have something down. If there isn't a society that fit's your ideal career, why not create one?

Prospective Lawyers look into debating teams or human/animal rights society

Events Management: join a society (or sporting society) and try for the events secretary - if they don't have one, say they should and try run for it! (I did!)

Radio or TV? A good number of Universities have a TV or radio station within the union. If they don't have one - well, make a start in getting one!

Prospective teachers could look into a society that offers voluntary teaching within the local community.

Future politicians could also look into the debating team and go into the society that represents their chosen party and be as active as possible within the university and local community.

Anymore you can think of? Feel free to comment below.

Hope this post will be hopeful for those looking for a chance to gain experience within their chosen field.

H

"You've got the job, so when do you want to start?"

Some good news! I had an interview last week and I got the job. Hip hip hooray!

Three months of unemployment. Three months of continuously writing, improving my CV, writing covering letters, researching jobs, interviews, rejections, feedback, mock interviews.... and I dare say..the list goes on.

So I now have a foot in the door. I'm hoping that things will be easier for future employment and I hope that the job market will be more stable the next time I look for work.

My plan is to share with you my processes in finding work and help current and future graduates get their foot in the door in a graduate job in their chosen field(not call centres, retail or bar work).

My next few posts:
- Searching for work: How versatile do you have to be to find your future job?
- Get yourself noticed by recruiters and have things to put on your CV to look better
- Adapt your skills to match your dream career path

I hope to have these out in the next few weeks.

I am also still working on my piece about work experience, which I hope to have up for you all by early October.

H

Conclude my week of work experience.

I realized that it really wasn't feasible to write about each of my days as most of the information I looked at was confidential. So a basic summary of what I did and my conclusion.

This being my second draft, as I realized writing a break down of what I did every day would be tedious. So in short: Monday and Wednesday I was out with clients and/or insurers. Tuesday and Thursday I was in the office either attending meetings and/or learning about other roles within the company. Friday was a short day with a client adviser.

From my week I learned that brokering involves many varied and specialised roles. I was shadowing a client executive which deals with the relationship between the client and the insurer, so very people and presentation based. Over the week, this particular role became apparent to me that this is the role I think I would be most suited for. There was a specialised client executive role for professionals and finiancials, but I was told that specialising too early could hinder me having transferable skills. These two I found the most interesting and will be reviewing at a later date.

What I suppose I can discuss in a bit more detail is that I was very pleased with the overall experience, I never felt like a loose end and everyone was very polite and easy to get along with. I never felt forced into conversation and things seemed to flow very naturally. I believe this is very important as I want to work within a company where the other employees are people I get along with and share similar personality attributes(not necessarily interests as that was very varied). A particular job can sound great, but I expect it's the people you work with which makes it more of an enjoyable experience and more likely to be something you look forward to coming into work for. In conclusion the company, the roles and the people all made a great impression on me. I am very much looking forward to spending more time with Marsh in Leeds.

My second week of work experience is coming up, this time at Dickinson Dees in Newcastle in HR. I have had a fantastic week with Marsh so I am hoping a renowned and successful company like Dickinson Dees can match Marsh in their hospitality and roles. Will keep you up to date.

I would like to thank Marsh for their hospitality and giving up their time for me.

H

Time to shine!

Tomorrow I start my first day with a company which I am very excited to be spending time with. I am very unsure of my target job so I think having tasters will benefit me greatly and it will also give them a taste of who I am too. I have learned I can't say too much in my blogs so I shall not say the name of the company in fear of getting into some kind of trouble (funny democracy we are in?). I shall be blogging the basics of my day for the next fives and my adventures with this particular company. It shall be brief because I know of the need for confidentiality.

The week after I start another week of work experience with a different company in a different part of the country and if I am able to, I shall blog briefly about that also. This particular one is in a completely different sector: HR and I have chosen it because I have seen that there are a lot of job vacancies in HR. Hopefully with a week of work experience behind me, it will show interest and I shall shine a bit more on my CV.

So yes I have been very busy setting these up. I am also planning some more work experience with another company in a totally different sector altogether! This one might be harder to get, but we shall see.

Overall, I think that these two weeks will shed some light into what I want to do, or what I want to stay away from. I think work experience is great and I hope it will really pay off as I have such little formal work experience behind me. In this current climate, I need anything even somethings which are slightly unusual, to stand out in the mountains of CV's recruiters receive for jobs.

I have to be an entrepreneur about this and look for the gaps which other competitors aren't looking at. I think most graduates who are not in work need to chase up new strategies to find and win the job they deserve.

H