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Making yourself attractive to

employers

Yasmina Mallam-Hassam

Careers Adviser

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Learning objectives

Help you understand what it means to beemployable

Learn how to evaluate yourself Learn about employer requirements

Build a strategy for developing your

employability

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Understandemployerneeds

Reviewyour

activitiesand

interests

Identify thegaps

Getinvolved

Network

Learn toarticulate

3

ATTITUDE/MOTIVATION

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Understanding employer needs

1. What is a graduate scheme?

2. In the UK 66% of graduate jobs will take

students from any degree True/False

3. Postgraduates have separate graduateschemes from undergraduates True/False

4. Experience gained outside the UK does notcount when looking for jobs in the UK?

True/False

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5. You can get a graduate job in the UK with a firstclass degree and no work experience. True/False

6. Volunteering/ unpaid experience is not valued byemployers. True/False

7. You have to wait until you graduate to apply for agraduate job. True/False

8. Employers who come to campus will recruit oncampus?

Understanding employer needs

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Think about what you are

interested in

Whatmodules doI enjoy?

Whatindustry do Iwant to domarketing?

What jobsam I

attracted to?

Finance..but which

area?

What skillsdo I like to

use?

Whatenvironmentdo I like towork in?

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Time to review

Competency Example

Communication Speaking to customers in part timework

Teamwork a group coursework

Problem solving Analysing a fault in a robot youdesigned

Organisation Helping create the international daystand

Creativity/innovation Creating a new marketing to recruit

members for the Malaysian societyAdaptability Succeeding in the UK education

system

Commercial awareness Coming up with a new idea formanaging stock in the shop whereyou work

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Identifying the gaps

A gooddegree

Skillsexamples

MOTIVATION

Workexperience

Videos on websitewww.prospects.ac.uk

Alumni careerscontactsLinkedIn

Part-time work

VolunteeringInternship

Placements

Careers fairsPresentationsSkills sessions

Drop In sessions

2:1 or above fromundergraduate (60%)

http://www.prospects.ac.uk/http://www.prospects.ac.uk/

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Attitude and motivation

Why do you want to work in this role? Do you understand the role?

What research have you done?

How does the role match your drivers?

Why do you want to work for this company?

What do you know about the company?

How does this link to your interests?

What have you done to research it?

Why do you want to work in this industry?(e.g. Marketing roles which could be doneanywhere)

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Finding work experience opportunities

Recruitment

Agencies

On campus roles andjob sources.

Volunteering

Direct approach

SpeculativeApproach

Academic projects

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Targeting employers

UKBA register of sponsors

Where can you make a difference? Skills e.g. Web design, Arabic language

Knowledge e.g. Indian manufacturing market

Sources of employers could include www.yell.com Yellow Pages Online

Leicestershire Chamber of Commercehttp://www.chamberofcommerce.co.uk/,

China Britain Business Councilhttp://www.cbbc.org/directory/search.asp?dir=3, Federationof Small Businesses Directory http://www.fsbonline.co.uk/

http://www.yell.com/http://www.chamberofcommerce.co.uk/http://www.cbbc.org/directory/search.asp?dir=3http://www.fsbonline.co.uk/http://www.fsbonline.co.uk/http://www.cbbc.org/directory/search.asp?dir=3http://www.chamberofcommerce.co.uk/http://www.yell.com/

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Give yourself something extra

Student clubs and societies e.g. ISA, finance society

Student representative

Student mentor or buddy

Student outreach and recruitment (28-10-11 closingdate for applications)

Careers and Employability Centre programmes

Careers management skills

Work shadowing

Insight into management (2nd yr UG)

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/admin/ar/wp/internal/students/index.htmhttp://www.lboro.ac.uk/admin/ar/wp/internal/students/index.htm

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Employability award

Enables you to evaluate your skills

Allows planning to undertake activities to meetskills gaps

Appears on academic transcript

100 points to achieve the award

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Networking

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The art of the information interview

Enables you to:

Find out about the activities in a job

Learn about a company

Build a network of contacts

Establish your motivation for a job area

Demonstrate motivation for a job role

Make new contacts with the company

Organise work experience/shadowingopportunities

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Your plan

Write three activities that you need to do tomake yourself attractive to employers. Make it

SMART1. ...............................................................

2. ..............................................................

3. ..............................................................