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How to secure a job in a Small/Medium Sized Enterprise : Case Studies

By UCL Careers, on 28 March 2014

Want to get a job in a SME but have no idea where to start? We collected a few different case studies of how students at UCL have got into SMEs.

Case study 1

Aim: Secure Job in the Charity Sector

Starting point: Experience in management and IT and also an MA in Human Rights at UCL

Method used to secure a job in an SME:

  • Studied the sector in detail – further knowledge was acquired
  • Maximised personal networking and contacts
  • Gained further knowledge, contacts were used to facilitate informative industry interviews
  • Focused job search further by understanding the sector
  • Applied to positions that needs core strengths in order to get an interview
  • Structured the applications on what the employer wants and highlighting strengths
  • Applied to jobs

Result: Succeeded in securing a job in the charity sector

 

Case study 2

Aim: Secure Electrical and Electronic related job

Starting Point: MSc in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in the UK and previous work in home country

Method used to secure a job in an SME:

  • Identified problems with previous application by getting advice from career consultants
  • Focused job search for vacancies that were in-line with my strengths i.e. languages and understanding home country culture
  • Sent speculative applications to employers that would be interested in my strengths
  • Applied to short term and long term internships
  • Spent additional time on understanding the job description and person specifications in order to apply to  the right jobs
  • Kept on applying

Result: Secured an internship with a company that is expanding in my home country and the potential of a job in the future

 

Case Study 3

Aim: Secure job in security, policy in Think tanks, NGOs or government body

Starting point: MA in Politics, Security and Integration

Method used to secure a job in an SME:

  • Dedicated additional effort as was required by the industry and the employers observation and research showed that low number of  advertised jobs were available
  • Researched related websites to get the news about the industry and find out the names of relevant employers
  • Strengthened personal support network to keep up job hunting momentum – long process
  • Cancelled plans to travel and focused on job hunt – times management
  • Managed time to ensure priorities
  • Attended job fairs organised by the career service to expand possibilities
  • Made new contacts and strengthened existing contacts
  • Applied for internships and jobs related to my strength and skills

Result: Found an internship in-line with my strength first and carried on applying then found exactly the right job overseas

 

Case Study 4

Aim: Graduate job in computer software

Starting Point: MEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Method used to secure a job in an SME:

  • Went  to  a few niche job fairs for entrepreneurial companies that required specialist skills and expertise
  • Made new contacts by networking, LinkedIn
  • Discussed options with careers consultants
  • Applied to relevant internships and jobs constantly

Result: Secured a job with an application developer

For further help with getting work with an SME, pop in to see us at UCL Careers or sign up to UCL Talent Bank.

What is the Global Citizenship Summer School Employability stream?

By UCL Careers, on 26 March 2014

Ok, I know what some of you may be thinking. Two weeks? In early June?  What am I going to get out of this? What will be expected of me?  How does this beat spending time with friends, reflecting on the year, or just getting outside after exams?!?!

If you’ve got your dream job or internship lined up for the summer, then the answer is pretty simple: it may not.  But if you’re wondering what to do next, don’t have any work lined up, and are feeling some dread about what’s to come after your time at UCL – chances are you’ll be feeling that way even if you do spend the first few weeks of June out in the park.

So why don’t you put that time to good use?  Why not take part in workshops and projects, with a group of like-minded students, learning key skills to help you get a job or internship? If you can’t banish that dread, why not at least harness it to achieve something positive?

BackgroundInternational Flags

In today’s job market, getting a good result from UCL will work in your favour. However, a UCL degree alone will not land you the graduate job you want. These days, it is your experience, motivation, skills, and importantly, how you market all of these, which can make the difference between getting a job and having your CV being binned at the application stage.

So, how will UCL’s Summer School Programme help you?

Over two weeks, UCL Careers will help you explore and build your skills in various aspects of your career: from planning, to applying, to interviewing, to researching wider issues that will serve you well as you progress onwards from your first job.  Not only will you learn from each other, but you will gain priority access to over 40 employers who are looking to recruit students, now, for paid opportunities.  You will also get 1:1 time with these employers, as well as with a range of experienced careers consultants, giving you feedback and insight into how you are marketing yourself in the world of work.

So, how will all of this unfold?

Week One

Summer School 2013

In week one we will be breaking down the career essentials, looking at everything from how to plan your career, to how to put together a CV, to how to engage with employers effectively, to how to approach assessment centres.  Some of the key questions we will tackle will be:

How can I….?:

  • make decisions around career choice?
  • personalise my CV to a specific employer?
  • really use LinkedIn to get jobs?
  • sound credible at interviews?
  • do well on online aptitude testing?
  • stand out from the crowd at assessment centres?
  • really connect with employers?

We’ll approach these through workshops, team work, plenary speakers from a range of sectors – from the humanitarian field to banking and finance – intensive employer-led feedback, and debriefing sessions with careers consultants.  All of this will prepare you not just for putting this into practice in Week 2, but for your career journey long ahead.

Week 2

Jobs Market 2013Week Two will kick off with the Jobs Market, where you will get priority access (ie. first in the queue ahead of all other students) to over 40 employers who have immediate vacancies in 2014.  With the intensive preparation from week 1, you’ll be well placed to have meaningful conversations with them which will hopefully lead to a role for you.

For the rest of the week, we’ll push you to dig deeper and really test your careers skills.  Working in teams, you will carry out a Labour Market Research project, where you will explore key themes of Global Citizenship,  such as ethics, how to market yourself in an increasingly transnational jobs market, and how to identify companies and sectors at the cutting edge of global workforce.  You will also apply the skills you’ve learned to a wider global picture, and then present back to a panel who will give you intensive feedback, helping build your presentation skills and confidence for when you have to do this in the real world.

Finally, we’ll end the week with drinks and a chance to unwind before the weekend.

Register now!

If that’s not enough to grab your attention, you can also put this on your CV to show employers just how serious you are about your career, and why they should hire you.  Attendance in 70% of these sessions will count towards our HEAR.

REGISTER NOW – TO SECURE YOUR PLACE YOU NEED TO BRING A £20 DEPOSIT TO UCL CAREERS, ULU Building, 4th Floor.

“Volunteers have a lot to gain, they meet a lot of new people and make new friends”

By UCL Careers, on 21 March 2014

This post originally appeared on the VSU Blog

Marilena Hadjittofi currently volunteers befriending patients on the Red Cell Haematology floor at the UCH Macmillan Cancer Centre.  She’s a a third year Psychology student and volunteers at the hospital once a week.

red_cell_groupWhat do you do as a volunteer? Describe your typical session.

What I really love about my shifts is that they are never really the same, there is a lot of variety in the things I do and the people I get to meet. My main role is to befriend patients on the Red Cell Haematology floor in order to improve their experience when attending appointments or clinics. Patients at the Red Cell Haematology have a chronic illness, such as thalassaemia or sickle cell anaemia. This means that they are bound to the service for basically their whole lives, as they have to come in for regular tests and to get their progress checked. I generally talk to patients about the volunteers’ role, events organised by MacMillan that they can join and other services available to them. If patients have a complaint or a comment about the service then I can pass this on or direct them to someone that can assist them. Some patients might express interest in matters such as art and so on, so I try to find events that they can join and are suitable for them. Recently, we have also been carrying out a survey to see how patients feel about the services and the volunteers as well.

What were your first impressions when you started volunteering?

My initial impression, especially after the first session, is that this was not just going to be a fascinating experience, but also a very challenging one. Each patient is different and a vast majority of them come in from different cultural backgrounds, with different beliefs, different expectations and they are all unique in the way they approach you as a volunteer and in effect how they will be approached by the volunteer. Familiarising yourself with the patients however is only a part of the whole experience. It also became clear that liaising with the team would also be an integral part of my role to help the patient’s experience in the service.

How do you feel about it now?

After several months of volunteering, I can now see how much the role has taught me and I really appreciate it. The role involves a lot of team work with everyone there, as well as the other two volunteers. I find that self-reflection and improvement are integral parts of the role and I really enjoy having discussions with my colleagues on their experience and learning from each other. I find the role extremely rewarding and I feel that it doesn’t only help the patients, but as a volunteer I take a lot away from it as well. I particularly like the fact that the role is evolving as we are adjusting it according to the patients’ needs and feedback to suit the unit as much as possible.

What’s the best thing about volunteering?

Volunteering, contrary to what a lot of people believe, is a really amazing bidirectional relationship. Indeed, you devote time in helping others, making their waiting time a bit more enjoyable, helping them out, listening to their worries and being a familiar face to chat with. On the other hand though, you gain a lot, you learn more about people and how to approach them, how to be sensitive with what information you receive but you also learn more about yourself. With each person you meet, you get to see things from a different perspective and you learn to respect what other people feel and think. I also really enjoy the freedom we have as volunteers to come up with our own ideas on how to improve the service and how to organise events, something which we can then discuss with our supervisor and then put into motion.

And what’s the most challenging thing?

As a third year, I would say the biggest challenge is balancing the volunteer role and my academic demands. Studying can be quite hard and time consuming and sometimes it might be hard to also adhere to my volunteer sessions. Having said that however, I truly find it helpful to attend my sessions, it takes your mind off the heavy demands and you actually feel that you are not just using your time to study, but also to do something you really enjoy.

Apart from that however, a challenge is of course dealing with some potentially difficult situations with patients in the unit. All patients are struggling with a chronic condition and each person deals with it in a different manner. They have different expectations from the service and as a consequence different expectations from the volunteers as well. We sometimes have to deal with more vulnerable individuals that are in a more sensitised state and particular care is required when interacting with them.

How has volunteering changed you?

I feel that in many senses, volunteering has made me more attentive to peoples’ needs as well as my own reactions to them. Often when we find ourselves in a conversation, we tend to look at how the other people react and respond and we forget that we are actively playing a role in the interaction. As a Red Cell Volunteer, I found myself observing my own reactions and also catching myself often making mistakes, something that I would later reflect on and try to improve on. I also feel that this volunteer role has made me more responsible but also gives me the freedom to introduce new ideas to the team in ways that we think we can improve the service.

What difference do you feel you’ve made by volunteering?

As a Red Cell volunteer you might not see a patient for several weeks or months, so for patients we rarely see I would say that we have helped make their waiting time for an appointment a bit more comfortable and enjoyable. I think the biggest difference I feel we made as volunteers is with patients that find themselves in the hospital on a regular basis and have to go through different procedures as well. I think we have now become for several patients a familiar and friendly face around the unit, someone who they feel they can talk to and ask for when they are in the hospital who can make their experience of the service more positive. In fact I think it’s one of the most rewarding feelings when you hear a patient has been looking for you or when patients recognise you and want to talk to you after your first meeting!

Would you recommend the project to anyone else? If so, why?

I would recommend this project to anyone that wants to help people and also get involved with a great organisation such as Macmillan. Volunteers have a lot to gain, they meet a lot of new people and make new friends and most of all, you never feel like your time is wasted and it’s a continuous process of learning and improving your skills. The role is very well supported and supervised, not just by the Macmillan service but also by the Clinical Psychologist at the unit who makes sure we are all happy with our roles but that we are also fulfilling all our duties.


UCH Macmillan Cancer Centre have a great selection of volunteering opportunities for UCL students to apply for – email Oliver Peachey to find out more and check out our directory for other health-related volunteering opportunities.

Employability Summer School – What is it?

By UCL Careers, on 18 March 2014

This week sees the launch of UCL Career’s Employability Summer School which is running as part if the UCL Global Citizenship programme. Between 2nd – 13th June, undergraduates who are either penultimate and finalists are eligible to attend.

But what is global citizenship?And why is it important to be a global citizen?

‘A global citizen is someone who identifies with being part of an emerging world community and whose actions contribute to building this community’s values and practices. Such a definition of global citizenship is based on two assumptions […]: (a) that there is such a thing as an emerging world community to which people can identify; and (b) that such a community has a nascent set of values and practices.’ (source: Open Democracy)

Studying in the heart of London could not be a better way of experiencing a world community; and identifying with a world community is inline with the view of UCL as ‘London’s global university.’

UCL Global Citizenship Programme

UCL believe that as well as graduating with a great degree, students should also leave university with the core values of a Global Citizen. For this purpose, the UCL Global Citizenship programme has been established for undergraduate students. The core characteristics of a Global Citizen as set out by UCL are:

• Creative and critical thinkers
• Sensitive to cultural difference
• Ambitious, yet idealistic
• Highly employable and ready to embrace professional mobility
• Entrepreneurs with the ability to motivate
• Prepared to assume leadership roles

There is a separate programme for first year undergraduates and penultimate and final year applications. The first year undergraduate programme is run centrally by UCL Global Citizenship and the penultimate and final year undergraduate programme has 3 strands one each being run by UCL VSU, UCL Advances and UCL Careers.

The UCL Careers strand of the programme is focusing on employability. This is suitable for those students who are looking to build on their employment skills. The week will offer a series of events run by both UCL Careers Consultants and graduate employers. Participants will get the chance to build on the skills they need to get through the recruitment process and secure a job whilst looking at the issues facing organisations in today’s global society.

Taking part in this innovative course will not only enhance your employability skills but will also help to equip you with the attributes needed to work in a global environment and a provide you with a greater understanding of what being a global citizen entails.

UCL Global Citizenship ProgrammeRegistration for the Employability Summer School is open and places are filling up fast. Register through you ‘My Careers Service’ account and leave a £20 deposit to secure your place. Don’t miss out!

*Registration for the Focus on Management course is also open. Register through ‘My Careers Service

UCL Talent Bank – introducing you to employers

By UCL Careers, on 17 March 2014

Getting your foot on the career ladder can seem daunting, UCL Careers has a new fast tracking service to help connect UCL students and graduates to a broad range of employers.

 

UCL Talent Bank Pencils

“UCL Talent Bank is a quick and easy way to find fantastic opportunities with SMEs. As a recent graduate I found many relevant, interesting opportunities and first one I applied for, I got! The job I have now has fast tracked my career and I’ve even started a professional qualification.” – Sarah, BSc Economics, 2011.

UCL Talent Bank will actively source opportunities and present your CV to employers. To ensure you are automatically considered for these roles, sign up including the UCL department you are studying at: www.ucl.ac.uk/careers/talentbank

Write an amazing CV for the Charity/NGO sector

By UCL Careers, on 3 March 2014

This post originally appeared on the Develop your Career blog

So you’ve decided to apply for that position at a Charity/NGO, but you’re stuck, blankly staring at your CV, not knowing how to best get across your experience or even if it will make the cut. You’ve got this nagging stat in the back of your head, that on average less than 10% of CVs make it through the first stage of the recruitment process.

Here are some quick tips on writing a CV for the Charity/NGO sector that can help give you a fighting start:

  • Make sure it’s no longer than 2-sides and know that the first half of your CV is key – it is what the recruiter will look at first and if they aren’t intrigued to read further, they won’t! Note: Some employers such as the UN might take a longer CV, so check and do your research before hand especially on the position you are applying for.
  • Read the person specification and tailor your CV against the competencies they are looking for. Most recruiters score CVs against a criterion and if you haven’t clearly labelled or demonstrated those competencies, your application won’t go any further. For example, if you are applying for a researcher role, make sure your research section has enough of the core competencies matched so you are ticking all their initial boxes.
  • A recruiter only spends on average 7 – 30 seconds looking at each application initially. Make sure you have a powerful punch at first glance. Get some friends to review or even get your application checked by your careers service.
  • When you are explaining why you want to work for them, ensure it is tailored appropriately and highlight what you can offer them. No one wants to read: “I want to work for Save the Children because I can’t wait to touch all children!”
  • Make sure it is a consistent format and if possible send it across in a PDF format – it doesn’t lose its formatting.
  • Get someone to triple check for spelling and grammar mistakes!
  • Demonstrating evidence is easier than you think. Core Humanitarian competencies are often:
  1. Understanding humanitarian contexts and applying humanitarian principles
  2. Achieving Results
  3. Managing yourself in a pressured and changing environment
  4. Developing and maintaining collaborative relationships
  5. Operating safely and securely at all times
  6. Demonstrating leadership

Once you’ve broken these down, finding examples are easier than you think.

Realised you haven’t got one of these competencies?  Build them up by:

  1. Volunteering whilst at university
  2. Internships during the summer breaks
  3. Reading
  4. E-learning
  5. Networking/attending free talks at ODI
  6. Training
  7. Transferring your skills from any sector
  8. Waitressing – pressure
  9. Childcare – operating safely
  10. Enhancing your knowledge of cultures – you can do all of this without even leaving the country!

Once you’re confident that you can nail your CV, come in and get it checked by an applications advisor who can give you more specific tips against the person specification and job description.

Good luck!