Keele Management School News 02
Thinking about a placement year?
All KMS undergraduate programmes can now be studied with a placement year between the second and third years of study. There is a lot of information and support available at Keele to help you to decide if a placement is right for you and to help you to prepare for the experience. What are the pros and cons of opting for a placement year?
A placement year:
You must be prepared to devote plenty of time to researching placement opportunities and working on your applications. Applying for jobs can be a full time job in itself requiring practice to get it right. However, with the help and support of your KMS placement officer and the Keele Careers and Employability team, this will be an opportunity for you to fine tune your job applications in a‘ safe environment’, helping you to become confident and adept at applying for jobs when you’ re looking for permanent employment. You will also hopefully have the chance to attend interviews and experience psychometric tests and assessment centres so that they are less intimidating in the future. This will help you to understand what skills and qualities employers are looking for.
Your CV and application letter is your first chance to convince an employer to invite you to interview. If you can get this right now and secure an interview or interviews for a placement year, you will be well on your way to having the right CV and application letter to secure a permanent job when you graduate.
The next step will be your interview when you can be faced with anything from a thirty minute face-to-face meeting to a two-day assessment centre. There is plenty of help, support and advice on hand at Keele to help you to be as positive, confident and well-prepared as you can be. Success at this stage will boost your confidence; you’ ll know you can do it when you get your next interview opportunity.
Having secured your placement, what are the advantages of working?
From a practical point of view, you’ ll be earning money for a while and you might be lucky enough to be able to save some of it to help cover expenses in your final year.
It’ s a great way to‘ try out’ a job to see if it’ s right for you and it’ s an opportunity to put your learning into practice. This was put into words by one of our students who took part in the applied company research project working for a manufacturing company“ This is when you discover the‘ I never knew that this really works, this doesn’ t work well and it’ s more complicated than that’. It is what employers are looking for in graduates, someone who not only has the knowledge but also the practical know how of why something works in a real environment and can apply academic knowledge to the organisation.”
In some very lucky cases it can even lead to the offer of a permanent job after graduation, but at the very least it will be your opportunity to build a network of contacts in an area you would like to work. It will enhance your CV and hopefully you will be more confident and positive for your job interviews in the future.
A placement year:
It’ s much more challenging to come up with a list of‘ cons’ for a placement year, but it will be time-consuming and hard work. You will need to be resilient; applying for placements is a competitive process and there may be set-backs along the way. You may even have to accept that you cannot secure a suitable placement. There are no guarantees.
Preparing applications and attending interviews will be time-consuming and could involve some expense, for example travelling to and from interviews and buying the right clothes to wear. If you are successful the world of work will be challenging. You will have to work hard, adjust to your new working environment and to your work colleagues. It may be a new experience for you to be working regular office hours, 9am to 5pm five days a week and this could take some adjusting to.
When you return to study, many of your friends who opted not to do a placement will have already graduated and you could possibly find yourself studying and living with a new set of friends. You will have to revert back from work mode to study mode and adjust to life without a monthly salary. The choice is yours!
Dr Teresa Oultram
“ I’ m really excited that Keele Management School is now able to offer work placement opportunities to its students. Keele already has an excellent track record for graduate employability but I am confident that the introduction of placements can only enhance that.
Many years ago, when I did my undergraduate degree, I was able to take a work placement. The benefits from the experience led to me having a successful career in industry prior to becoming an academic. During my placement, my confidence grew as I worked on challenging and meaningful projects which were implemented and led to improved efficiency for the organisation.
A work placement is an opportunity to develop many different skills such as communication, negotiation, producing reports, data analysis, team working, working with different people, plus many more skills depending on the role you take. You will also get the chance to see how what you have learnt at Keele translates to the workplace and in your final year, you will have practical experiences to relate to in your studies.
In today’ s competitive graduate market, being able to demonstrate employability skills when applying for jobs has become almost a requirement – work placement, along with many other opportunities at Keele will help you to gain those skills.”