1st year students

What is employability?

Simply put, this is whether you are likely to have the right skills to get recruited when you apply for jobs.

In other words, whether you have the skills that employers are looking for in the people that they hire.

Skills such as managing your own time effectively; working under your own initiative; your ability to work with other people; taking responsibility/ownership for a piece of work from start to finish are all important, but there are many more...

How to get 'employability skills'

By the very nature of studying for a degree you will get lots of opportunities to develop these sorts of skills - for example joining in with team activities and projects; conducting research and identifying key information; deciding on your own assignment titles; planning your time to make sure deadlines are met - these all require skills that are useful in the workplace.

A placement year as part of your degree is a great way to enhance your employability as it provides you with prolonged exposure within an organisation, where you will be given responsibilities as well as support to develop these skills - so if this is an option with your course, you should seriously consider taking this.

Part time and vacation work is another way to develop skills, with the benefit of gaining exposure to different types of working environments to check out what does, and as importantly, does not interest you.

However, pretty much any activity can give you skills that others could be interested in, even those that you may do purely for recreation, e.g. building your own website; creating your own music; helping out with youth groups; playing in sports teams; organising travelling plans and logistics, etc.

What should you be doing now?

The key is to get involved! Taking part generally will provide you with opportunities to learn and develop new skills.

If you have an idea of what you might like to do, but do not want to work whilst studying, try and set up some work shadowing or work experience to see what it is really like to work in that environment.

Record what you are doing! Use your 'Personal Development Plan' (PDP) as a tool throughout your time at University to help track your experiences and achievements. It is a simple way to identify what skills contributed to your successes - and what skills you were lacking when you experienced disappointments - as well as help you identify the things you like doing which could give you ideas for future careers options.

Speak to your Faculty Placement Officer to understand more about these timelines and process for doing the 12-month placement as part of your course.

Think ahead to your electives in your second year - Firstly, identify when you need to make decisions by then research whether any are particularly relevant to different career paths to make sure you are designing the most suitable degree path through these choices.

How the Careers & Employability Service can help


There is support available for you through a dedicated Careers specialist within your faculty - your 'Employability Coordinator', or EC as they are often referred to, is a member of the Careers & Employability Service, but they sit onsite at your Faculty so are easy to find.

Your EC will run a programme of events for you each year designed to:

  • raise awareness on different types of careers in your sector. Skills development workshops run in conjunction with the Students' Union
  • Ultimately prepare you to maximise your potential when applying for jobs in your final year

In addition, you can visit the Careers & Employability offices at Cooper House where you will find a bank of computers for you to use (at no cost!) to conduct your careers search, and an information library covering career and post graduate study options, and reading materials to help you prepare for the different stages of recruitment.

Through JobShop and jobs fairs, we also provide access throughout the year to local employers looking for part time & vacation staff.

Don’t know what to do?

Don't worry, there is plenty of time, but to keep your options open, you should start thinking about this sooner rather than later - if you don't know where to start, there are a number of places you can go to help you think through your options - we can point in the direction of lots of useful online resources that will help you narrow down what you are interested in.

Still stuck? Your employability co-ordinator should be able to give you some guidance as to how to structure your career search, and plan your time effectively.

It can be confusing, and some people find themselves questioning whether they are on the right degree course - if you are starting to ask this of yourself, make an appointment to see your Student Liaison Officer to talk through your concerns, look at your options and if necessary, identify any deadlines for changing course that you need to consider.

If you have the time, use temporary or vacation work as a way of testing out different types of working environment - For example;

Would you rather be office-based or outdoors?
How different is accounting work and marketing?
Would you rather work contributing as part of a team, or be responsible solely for your own output?
And what is the real difference in working in the public and the private sector?

Temp work can be enlightening to see what suits you and your preferences and what does not!