I am sure that most people could relate to that awesome feeling you get when you hear the words ” You Are Hired” especially after a long job hunt. Yes that was me in May last year.
In this post I aim to briefly explain what made me want a placement, the help I got from careers fair, employer presentations, job shop (careers services), the career path I am in at the moment and how meeting employers at careers fairs can be very helpful.
I decided to go on a placement because I wanted to have a practical feel of the industry before committing to any particular field. It was also recommended by the school(lectures & personal tutors) and other students that had been on placements themselves.
The School of Engineering, Design and Technology organizes at least two career fairs that are mainly aimed for its students. The career fairs are a chance for students to meet employers face to face. I found the fairs really helpful as they gave me a chance to speak to some students who were on placements with those companies and they gave me honest opinions which was always good as it gave me a fee of whether I wanted to work for them. It is from these fairs that I really set my mind to get a placement and know which companies to apply to. There was representations from companies such as Cummings, Cooper Industries, BAE Systems, General Motors, GradCracker and so on.I applied to most of the companies that attended fair but unfortunately didn’t manage to secure a job with any of them. The company I worked for before and I am working for at the moment weren’t at any of the fairs but with the help of 2 other students from Bradford that were also on a placement with IBM we managed to make IBM represented at the 2011 Engineering and the Management Fairs.
The School of Engineering, Design and Technology has a placement officer who is dedicated to helping students with information and advice on placements and graduate jobs, which is true for other schools as well. The officer sent us updates on new jobs postings and organised seminars that equipped us with skills for job hunting CV/CL writing, interview(all types) and assessment center skills. The careers service also have these services, usually on Wednesday afternoons they always have something going on. I really like the mock interviews they gave and the assessment center sessions that were lead by employers themselves. It is with these resources that I managed to get a placement as I was well equipped.
I am an Electrical and Electronic engineering student but I decided to try and have a feel of what the business world is like by taking a non-engineering placement at IBM and I worked for them for 4months and enjoyed the experience. At that time I felt it wasn’t for me and I had to explore what the world of engineering was like for me to make a sound decision with the career path I intend to follow and hence I got an engineering placement with Arup.
At a mountain top in the country
Since I am on placement there isn’t much pressure to study, I decided to make the most of my weekend by going to the country side. Its always good for relaxing and getting away from the fast London life.
The shape of the clouds was interesting to me
I hope you have enjoyed reading the blog and its been helpful.