What to Expect from a Virtual Application Advice Appointment

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Written by Susanne Stoddart, Recruitment and Selection Advice Manager at UCL Careers.

Still Here to Help You

Whilst the current situation is having a significant impact on the graduate labour market, some employers are still advertising remote work opportunities and internships, and further study and scholarships are still open for applications. If you’re currently preparing applications, it’s more important than ever to make your CV, cover letter, personal statement or other application documents stand out. That’s where we can help! Once you’ve written an application draft for a specific opportunity, you can still receive support and feedback from UCL Careers during a 20-minute one-to-one application advice appointment. Although we are very happy for appointments to take place over the phone, the majority of our appointments are now taking place virtually via Microsoft Teams.

Booking a Slot

In terms of booking a virtual application advice appointment, you can still do this through myUCLCareers. After booking a slot, the advisor who is scheduled to run the appointment will send a Teams meeting request to your email. This request will include a meeting link enabling you to join the chat via your web browser at the scheduled time. If you would like to turn your camera off for the appointment, in order to increase your bandwidth and improve your connection or because you would just prefer it off, that is absolutely fine. You can either email your advisor any documents that are relevant for the appointment (such as your application and the opportunity details) in advance of the meeting or you can upload the documents through the meeting’s file sharing tool.

Empowering you to Make Progress

Apart from the above logistics, our application advice appointments remain the same. They focus on empowering you to make progress with your applications, whether you’re applying for work opportunities and internships or further study and funding. Whether you have lots or little experience of making applications, we’ll listen to your ideas and any concerns that you may have in a completely non-judgemental way.

After providing you with some initial feedback on your application, your advisor might then spend some time looking in detail at the structure, tone or content of your application with you. You may have a conversation about how you can best demonstrate who you are, why you are motivated for this opportunity and what you have to offer. Your advisor might ask some questions to get you thinking about the transferable skills that you’ve gained from previous experience, and how you can use these skills to tailor your application for this particular opportunity. All of our trained advisors are dedicated to ensuring that by the end of your virtual appointment you sign off armed with clear, practical and personalised advice on how you can move forward with your current application, and confident in your ability to use this knowledge again and again when making future applications.

What Next

You can find further information on what you can expect from an application advice appointment and what application documents you will need to share with your advisor on our website. You will also find a link on that webpage to book your appointment with us when you’re ready. We look forward to working with you on your applications soon.