How to Get A Placement/Internship

Booklets produced by Careers & Employability 50 Park Place. Booklets sponsored by

, n o i t a m r o f n I Careers ice v d A & t r o p p Su

Help ur ques o y r e w s n a ing to tions

Last updated August 2012

CONTENTS
Introduction ......................................................................................................... What Do We Mean by Placements/Internships? ................................................. Before You Apply ................................................................................................ Finding Vacancies . The Application Process ..................................................................................... Work Experience ................................................................................................. Making the Application - The DOs and DONTs ................................................ Work Experience Action Plan ............................................................................. Appendices: ........................................................................................................ Appendix 1. Appendix 2. Further Help Sources of Work Experience .................................................. Activity - Highlighting Your Skills ............................................. 1 1 3 4 4 7 9 11 12 12 14

INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this booklet is to help students wishing to apply for work experience placements schemes or summer internships. Ideally this booklet should be used in conjunction with the Career Management Skills Workshop How to Get a Placement/Internship, which is run in certain Departments. It is highly recommended that students reading this booklet and wishing to apply for a structured placement scheme should attend Careers & Employability workshops on CV Writing, Application Forms and Interviewing Skills, as this booklet provides only an introduction to the application process.

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY PLACEMENTS/INTERNSHIPS?

Although there are many different types of work experience, structured placements and internships are a particularly popular way of gaining career skills. They tend to: Focus on one career area (this varies greatly depending on the placement). Occur in a set time frame (either 12 months or between 6-12 weeks over the summer). Be generally project-based. Be open to penultimate year students only (there are some exceptions but these are few and far between). Occur in organisations of all sizes, generally the bigger the company the more structured the training plan. Be paid fairly well (again this can depend on company size and varies dependent on location), a recent survey carried out by the Association of Graduate Recruiters (2011) found the median salary for work experience stood at 350per week (with more than a quarter of interns reporting a weekly salary in excess of 350 per week) 1. Be very competitive, with lots of students applying for a few roles. It is therefore essential that your application hits the mark.

Other benefits include: The structured element means the learning will be much greater than that of shorter term placements.

As they tend to be more career related you can find out if this is the right choice for you. You can gain an insight into the organisation you wish to work in after graduation. You will gain and develop soft skills required by employers; these include self management, teamwork, business and customer awareness, problem solving, communication and application of information technology1. More than half of recruiters wan that graduates who have had no previous work experience at all are unlikely to be successful during the selection process and have little or no chance of receiving a job offer for their organisations graduate programmes2 You are able to apply theory into practice. You could receive sponsorship for your final year. Work experience provides you with introductions to the right people and personal contacts that can be used for further work experience, future jobs and possible referees for graduate applications. Applying for placements / internships provides you with the necessary job search skills required for your final year and after graduation. Undertaking a placement makes the transition from University to work after graduation much easier.

What Employers Are Saying: According to the Association of Graduate Recruiters Summer Review, competition for graduate vacancies has intensified with an average of 73 applications per job3. The message coming through loud and clear ... is research, research and more research know your potential employer and know your sector. The best way to do this is to undertake a placement/internship. Carl Gilleard, Chief Executive, Association of Graduate Recruiters Virtually all of the UKs leading graduate employers are offering paid work experience programmes for students and recent graduates during 2011/12 academic year a total of 11,296 places are available 2 1/3 of this years vacancies will go to interns. 2/3 of employers are unlikely to select a graduate with no work experience. 3/5 of employers provide industrial placements or vacation work
Association of Graduate Recruitment Review Summer 2011 High Fliers 2012 Association of Graduate Recruiters Summer Survey 2012

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BEFORE YOU APPLY

You should not simply apply for positions with companies/organisations without thinking whether the role would be right for you. Much of this is covered in the workshop Planning Your Employability - download the accompanying booklet at www.cardiff.ac.uk/careers. You should try and determine in advance of applying, what role/organisation would suit you, your strengths, your current skill set and would it develop these? You may want to consider undertaking one or more of the following options to help you with this: Undertake a skills audit (see Planning Your Employability or Are You Employable? booklets). Attend the CMS Workshop Introduction to Career Planning Options in your Department. Download the Careers Booklet Getting Started with Career Planning. Use either Prospects Planner or TARGETjobs Careers Report - computer programs designed to help you explore key aspects of career planning in a systematic way. Prospects Planner has been designed specially for Higher Education students and graduates, and has hundreds of graduate job titles in its occupations database. The TARGETjobs Careers Report uses questionnaires and psychometric tests to explore your interests, strengths, personality and matches you to jobs that would suit you http://targetjobs.co.uk/careers-report Prospects Planner will not tell you what to do, nor will it necessarily come up with that quick solution you may be hoping for. It will, however, help you to identify your motivations, interests and skills, and identify a range of occupational possibilities. To use Prospects Planner you will need to access the Prospects website www.prospects.ac.uk and register with My Prospects. Following this do some preliminary research into the occupations identified to compare and contrast them, use the Careers & Employability Centre to do this. Use the TARGETconnect website and look at options with your subject. Use websites such as www.ratemyplacment.co.uk to see what students are saying about companies you are interested in applying to.

FINDING VACANCIES
Internships and placement programmes are marketed via a number of means. According to the AGR 2011 Summer Review, 87% use their own careers pages and 85.2% use careers fairs to promote on campus. Many advertise through third parties such as Target Jobs or RateMyPlacement and in some cases you may need to apply speculatively (explained later) in which case you may need you may need to adopt a more creative approach.

THE APPLICATION PROCESS

Whats Involved? If you are applying for placement schemes or internships with graduate recruiters then you can expect the application process to be similar to that of applications for graduate jobs. Apply using an on-line application form, this is usually followed by interviews and/or assessment centres (some may ask for a CV and covering letter but this is rare). If applying for summer placements through schemes such as GO Wales or STEP, then you will need to register your details on-line, they usually require an up-to-date CV too. Speculative applications can be a way into the organisations that do not advertise that they offer work experience. You need to apply with a well written, tailored CV and covering letter. The diagram demonstrates the processes or different approaches required for each type.
Graduate Recruiters Structured Placement Years/ Summer Internships On line application form/aptitude tests apply EARLY, from October Summer Placements with other organised schemes e.g. GO Wales Register on-line, apply with a well written, tailored online application form Find out who is responsible for recruitment Source your own

Research organisations

Telephone Interview / 1st Interview

Assessment Centres / 2nd Interview

Apply with a tailored CV and Covering Letter

Making the Application Applying on spec should not involve sending the same letter and CV to numerous organisations. You should follow a few simple rules: Research the company, find out what they do. Identify the key decision maker (a quick call to HR or the office if its a small business should be enough to find this out). Personalise the letter, show evidence of your company research. Do not use the words job or vacancy, instead use the words opening or opportunity and do not mention money until you get to interview! Be enthusiastic and promote a positive self image. Ask for a meeting. Follow up with a phone call if you have not heard anything after a week or two.

Example Letter

Dear NAMED PERSON I AM (WHO ARE YOU AND WHY ARE YOU WRITING?) ... e.g. a second year Business Management student at Cardiff, committed to a career in accounting. YOUR COMPANY IS GREAT (!) e.g. with clients such as xxx the company has an excellent reputation for the quality of its work. I particularly admire your xxx and would love to learn xxx. I AM SUITED TO THIS WORK AND YOUR COMPANY e.g. you will see from my CV, I have excellent numeracy skills developed acting as treasurer for the Business Society. I have also gained leadership skills, developed in the volunteering sector where I was responsible for a group of young adults cleaning the local river. I am looking forward to applying these skills in a commercial context. EXACTLY IS WHAT I WANT IS e.g. I would value the opportunity to gain work experience for however brief a period during the summer. I am available during the following weeks ... I CAN BE CONTACTED AT e.g. should you feel there may be a suitable opening I would be happy to discuss these with you, I can be contacted by letter at the address provided above, alternatively telephone xxxxxxxxx or e-mail xxxxxxxxx. Yours sincerely. Your name
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Advice on how to prepare your CV can be obtained from CV workshops held in the Careers & Employability Centre and in many Departments through Career Management Skills Workshops. Further examples of covering letters can be found in the Careers & Employability booklet CV & Covering Letters, available on-line at www.cardiff.ac.uk/careers You can also get your CV checked by a Career Consultant (book on-line for an appointment). Applications Forms / Interviews / Assessment Centres all these processes are designed to extract the right information needed to select or reject you. In all situations it is essential that you are able to sell yourself and your skills in a positive way. You need to exude enthusiasm and confidence as well as demonstrating your knowledge of the organisation you are applying to. Firstly think about your skills in relation to those required by the organisation. Future Fit; a report produced by the Universities UK and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) in 2009 define the main skills requires by employers as: Self Management Teamwork Business and Customer Awareness Application of Information Technology Communication and Literacy Application of Numeracy Problem Solving

There will be questions on how you have developed these skills whilst at University, through extra curricular activities. Examples you can draw on could include your past work experience or involvement in extra curricular activities, this may include a part-time job at Tesco or playing football for the university team, everything counts. When answering questions always follow the STAR approach to highlight your skills. Situation Put the example in context when and where did this happen? Task/Target What was it you were trying to achieve? What did you have to do? Action How did you do it? What did you contribute? How did your contribution make a difference? Be sure to make particular reference to the skills(s) in the question. Result/Review What was the outcome? What did you learn from this?

Using the STAR approach is a useful way of being concise and to the point on an application form and prevents waffling in interviews. If used it will really enhance your answers and bring out your skills.

The Importance of Commercial Awareness Many employers state that students lack business awareness. When applying for internships / placements it is important that you have a broad understanding of business issues. According to KPMG, types of questions you could face at interview include: How do you keep your business knowledge up to date? What story has interested you in the business news lately? From your experience of working with customers, can you give an example of how by delivering quality service, have you increased sales?

You need to demonstrate the ability to understand the dynamics of the workplace and the factors that can affect it. Advice on applications forms and interviews can be obtained from the downloadable booklets available from www.cardiff.ac.uk/careers It is essential you attend these workshops if you are making applications/going to interview (run in your department and at the Careers & Employability Centre). Remember you can also get your application forms checked by a Career Consultant.

WORK EXPERIENCE
Think about the work experience wheel covered in the workshop Planning your Work Experience. What have you done that could help your application? Have you been involved in any extra-curricular activities during your time at University that could help your application? STUDENT EXPERIENCE CHART Placement Schemes Internships:

Work experience within a large organisation, usually paid. These tend to take place over the summer and last between 6-12 weeks.

Placement schemes:

A period of work experience (paid and unpaid) taken as part of your course or extra curricular activities. Can be arranged by the university or independently through placement providers e.g. GO Wales

Sandwich/Industrial Placements
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GO Wales

Assessed work undertaken in your penultimate year as part of a study programme. Generally paid.

GO Wales work with students and graduates to improve employability and offer work experience. Students can take part on the following:

GO Wales Placements

Paid work experience lasting 6-10 weeks in a variety of industries. Candidates are paid a minimum of 3250 per week.

GO Wales Tasters

Unpaid work experience in a variety of industries designed to fit around your timetable. First Steps Unpaid work experience for students (particularly 1st and 2nd years) usually for 1 to 4 weeks. Work Shadowing Observing an employee in their role to learn what it entails. Use personal contacts to source opportunities. CEPClassroom The Classroom Experience Project manages and offers Experience Project unpaid classroom based work experience opportunities to Cardiff University undergraduates and postgraduates who are looking at a career in teaching. Entrepreneurial activities Student societies Not just self employment, the Cardiff University Enterprise Team host a number of events where you can develop skills and gain real commercial awareness. Excellent for gaining valuable transferable skills from your 1st year, even better if you can take on positions of responsibility. Make full use of vacation work experiences. Customer facing work is very useful, as is gaining positions or responsibility. Working or volunteering for a year before or after studying. Paid or unpaid (if you choose this option make sure you make the year out count) A chance for you to contribute to the local community and to gain an understanding of the wider social issues. This can be undertaken in the evenings or at the weekend, in the UK and abroad. Opportunities within your course to undertake a real-life project that gets you out into different workplaces or communities. Often unpaid. The Cardiff Award encourages students to improve their professionalism and employability whilst gaining confidence and skills to be successful in the world of work. Participants are expected to undertake extra-curricular activities or work experience and attend a series of
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Vacation work

Year out

Volunteering

Project-based work

The Cardiff Award

Study/work abroad

Part-time work

bespoke employer sessions. Written submissions and presentations form a part of the process and the end result is a more confident, skilled individual that can sell their strengths to any recruiter. These can be exchange programmes organised through third party organisations, or are obtained independently. Useful for gaining experience of a different culture and language. Paid or unpaid. Casual work undertaken during your studies. Paid.

If you are lacking activities that could add value to your applications think about undertaking some short-term work experience. Ideas include: GO Wales Work Tasters www.gowales.co.uk Employer skills events run by Careers & Employability (for details visit www.cardiff.ac.uk/careers Student Enterprise run a number of events designed to increase your transferable skills www.cardiff.ac.uk/racdv/students Volunteering, e.g. register with Student Volunteering Cardiff www.svcardiff.org or log onto www.volunteering-wales.net for ideas. Paid casual work (register with Unistaff) www.cardiffstudents.com/jobs Take up a leadership role within a student society. Become a Student Ambassador for a graduate recruiter, many employ students to raise the profile of their company across campus, visit the Cardiff University Careers Facebook Group for opportunities.

MAKING THE APPLICATION

To summarise:

Do
Sell yourself be positive about past achievements. Include examples of part-time casual work. Research the company you are applying to (the Careers & Employability Centre is a good starting point). Tailor your application. Pay close attention to instructions.

Ensure you have a broad general understanding of business issues. Attend Careers & Employability workshops on CV writing, application forms and interviews. Book an appointment with a Career Consultant if necessary to review or for advice on CV/application/interviews and guidance of the application process.

Dont
Leave it too late to apply be aware of early deadlines. Let location put you off applying. Embellish any facts tell the truth. Assume its too late to find work experience that could add value to your applications.

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To help you with your planning and applications, follow the time scales provided below: WORK EXPERIENCE ACTION PLAN
Sept Decide On: Role Industry Company Careers / Company sites Fairs Careers & Employability Centre Get in early! Many deadlines for larger Apply for GO Wales / STEP Scheme, make speculative companies fall in Dec. Offers are made as applications applications are received Meet the people that are offering internships at Autumn Graduate Fairs, Employer Presentations and Skills workshops Recruitment Fair Be pro-active in your approach to work, identify the skills you need to develop; try and undertake some short term work experience e.g work shadowing or a GO Wales Taster and record your learning using a Personal Development Plan Avoid social blunders, bad jokes and bad ties; learn to sell yourself; attend interview workshops at the Careers & Employability Centre Book a Work Experience Group Appointment or attend the Work Experience Help Zone, and Careers/CMS workshops on applications forms, CV writing, interview skills and assessment centres Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar April May June July Aug

What Internship

Research Vacancies Submit Applications Meet Employers Improve your Skills

Practice Interviews Get Help

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APPENDICES

Appendix 1
SOURCES OF WORK EXPERIENCE Internships and Placements
Cardiff University Careers & Employability on-line Vacancy Bulletin The Careers Group Civil Service Work Experience Enternships www.cardiff.ac.uk/careers Search for vacation work and work experience opportunities on our on-line Vacancy Bulletin to identify large firms with structured summer placements and internships as well as finding work experience organised through Cardiff University Careers & Employability. Up to date vacancies for part-time, temporary, voluntary or vacation work from the University of London Careers Service. Opportunities for work experience in the UK Civil Service. Enternships provides ambitious and dynamic students and graduates with an opportunity to learn about business and enterprise through work placements in entrepreneurial and innovative. environments, from start-ups to global venture funds around the world News, Courses & Events within Climate Change, Conservation & Ecology, Low-carbon, Energy & Renewables or Environmental Management. Student resource for industrial placements. Provider of paid project based work placements in small and medium-sized companies in Wales. Visit the website, e-mail placements@cardiff.ac.uk or telephone to make an appointment. Apply for paid full-time and part-time work placements, summer internships, graduate placements, and free employability training. Advertises placements and internships in specialist industries e.g engineering, accounting etc. Up to 10-weeks paid IT placements for students studying IT-related disciplines (Wales only). International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Expertise. Excellent site, with a searchable database for work experience. Read reviews on past placements plus internships and placement vacancies. Provider of paid project based work placements into small and medium sized companies in England. Open to penultimate year students and graduates. A student placement company register on-line to receive placement information. Search for vacancies and provides useful advice too. A website dedicated to undergraduate internships. Organise 12 month work placements across the UK. 25 fee. Suitable for penultimate year students from engineering, science, IT, e-commerce, business, marketing, finance and logistics.

www.careers.lon.ac.uk www.civilservice.gov.uk/recruitment/entry/ undegraduates www.enternships.com

Environmental Jobs Fledgings GO Wales Work Placements Graduate Advantage Inside Careers IT Wales IAESTE Prospects Rate My Placement STEP Student Employment Services Target Jobs Top Internships The Year in Industry

www.stopdodo.com www.fledglings.net www.gowales.co.uk www.graduateadvantage.co.uk www.insidecareers.co.uk www.itwales.com www.iaeste.org www.prospects.ac.uk/workexperience www.ratemyplacement.co.uk www.step.org.uk www.studentemploymentservices.co.uk www.targetjobs.co.uk www.topinternships.com www.yini.org.uk

Speculative Applications
Speculative Enquiries Local Government www.direct.gov.uk Use the local employer directories available in the Careers & Employability Centre, or the Yellow Pages to identify relevant firms. Both websites provide a full list of local authorities in the UK. Useful for applying for work
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www.lgjobs.co.uk Personal Contacts

experience. Talk to final year students on your course; find out which employers were interested in them last summer. Dont forget to ask academic staff.

Other Useful Work Experience

Cardiff Works CSV Action Cardiff Tel: 029 2066 6737 or refer to their website www.csv.org.uk www.gowales.co.uk www.cardiff.ac.uk/racdv/students www.sifeuk.org Cardiff Council in-house temporary employment bureaux. Information and application packs available on 029 2087 3087. Places volunteers in education projects across the city.

GO Wales Work Tasters Student Enterprise Students in Free Enterprise

Student Volunteering Cardiff Una Exchange University Job Shop

www.svcardiff.org www.unaexchange.org www.cardiffstudents.com/jobs

VCS- Voluntary Community Services

Volunteering Wales Wales Council for Voluntary Action Wexo

Visit them at Ground Floor, Brunel House, 2 Fitzalan Road, Cardiff, or telephone 029 2022 7625, opportunities advertised on http://www.volunteercardiff.co.uk/ www.volunteering-wales.net www.wcva.org.uk

Go Wales Work Tasters provide undergraduates and graduates with support for short term, unpaid placements with employers in Wales. Join an Enterprise skills workshop to improve your team-working, negotiation and creative skills. Develop your skills to make yourself more enterprising and employable. Student teams working on social enterprise projects which create economic opportunity for others. Team presents annually at national and international competitions sponsored and recognised by major graduate recruiters. Based in the Students Union, SVC works with disadvantaged groups in the community. Although it advertises opportunities, often there are summer schemes running in Wales with international volunteers that require leaders. Based in the Students Union, University Job Shop places students in casual employment within the University and with local employers. During the Summer there are plenty of jobs, but a shortfall of students. All jobs are advertised on www.cardiffstudents.com or telephone 029 2078 1535. Offer help for people who want to volunteer in Cardiff with information on over 300 voluntary organisations in areas such as youth work, mental health, disability, older people, advice lines, environmental projects, administration and community work. Portal site for all volunteer agencies in Wales. Many opportunities advertised. The official website for the Wales Council for Voluntary Action, the voice of the voluntary sector in Wales. They represent and campaign for voluntary organisations, volunteers and communities across Wales also contains a job page. Unpaid placements across a range of sectors, mainly in London. 10 fee.

www.wexo.co.uk

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APPENDIX 2 : ACTIVITY - HIGHLIGHTING YOUR SKILLS

Think about your skills, how have you developed these and what experiences could you draw on to highlight these? Discuss in pairs then feedback to group. Use the space below to make notes: Notes:

R:\General\literature\How to Get an Internship'Placement booklet by JJ Aug12.doc

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FURTHER HELP
If you have found this booklet useful, you may want to pick up or download our other booklets, from: www.cardiff.ac.uk/careers Career Central is an extensive online careers resource accessible from our homepage www.cardiff.ac.uk/careers by signing in using your Cardiff username and password. You will find a wealth of information, activities, video clips and refection exercises covering all aspects of career exploration, job hunting, work experience and much more. Careers & Employability also runs a series of workshops in conjunction with these booklets. You can find out more about these on our website. We offer Career Management Skills (CMS) Workshops in many Departments. To find out if your Department hosts these sessions, contact your Department or School Office.

THIS BOOKLET IS AVAILABLE IN WELSH AND ON CD on request at the Careers & Employability Centre

Careers & Employabiity aims to offer a fair and equal service to all its clients, regardless of their sex, ethnic origin, age, sexuality, religion or disability. We are able to offer additional support to students who may benefit from extra help. Please contact us for further details.

DISCLAIMER The information and advice provided by Careers & Employability is given in good faith and all reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy. Neither Cardiff University nor the individual members of staff shall be liable to any person in contract, tort, statute or otherwise for any loss, distress or damage of any kind howsoever caused (except for death or personal injury caused by the negligence of Cardiff University or the individual members of staff). All information and advice is provided only on the basis of this disclaimer.

What is Careers & Employability?

Careers & Employability is part of the Universitys Registry, Governance & Students Directorate and will provide you with the professional careers-related support you need during your studies and beyond. The new Careers & Employability Centre opened in July 2010. It is free for you to use and is open weekdays from 9am - 5pm throughout the year. Whether you are just beginning to think about your future, have made some plans or simply havent a clue what you want to do there is an array of help available to you so please make use of it. Start today by reading this booklet and utilising the events and services on offer.

Where is the Careers & Employability Centre?

2nd Floor, 50 Park Place, Cardiff
Minutes from the Students Union and a short walk from most Academic Schools. Offering information, advice and guidance; appointments, drop-ins and workshops; A wide range of resources Employer events

As well as these services at the Centre we have a presence at Cardigan House, Heath Park Campus. We also have GO Wales situated at 5 Corbett Road, Cardiff. Please see the Web for further details: www.cardiff.ac.uk/carsv

GO Wales
Main Building

Careers & Employability Centre

Students Union

Glamorgan Building

City Hall

50 Park Place, Cardiff CF10 3AT Tel: (029) 2087 4828 Tel: (029) 2087 4828 e-mail: careers@cardiff.ac.uk e-mail: careers@cardiff.ac.uk