Week 5 - Why Do A Work Placement?

To goals of this session are to understand why you should do a work placement, what the benefits of one are, how to apply for and arrange a placement and how to make the most of one if you get one.

No relevant work experience = No chance of getting a job

placements offer an increased understanding and awareness of the world of work and accelerated personal maturity and will help to build on the self-management and problem-solving skills typically gained at university with the ability to work collaboratively. from this, a clear outcome is the ability to effectively evidence their placement skills and experience on their cv.

what is the benefit of the quality placement?

Networking with the people from your internship such as management within the organisation you worked with, as they are a good source for getting a job in the future.

Enhanced Employment Prospects

Increased ability to compete in a difficult graduation marketplace.

having completed a placement can lead to direct employment following graduation

can also have a large economic stake in succeeding later on in life.

Usually completed during a term time stay and can be parts of a compulsory element in some degrees, however during covid I assume this will not be the case for the most part.

can get academic credit for completing an assessment

Arranging a placement

while currently nearly impossible during COVID-19 normally to arrange a placement you would normally arrange with your school placement officers etc. Additional options such as work fairs to search for suitable options. Always speak to your program leader however ours has instructed us that we should refrain from contacting the main sources individually due to COVID-19 and to instead go to more alternative options until the industry opens up again.

I will be using this session's information to help pursue a post covid work placement and will try and transfer all the skills that have been demonstrated into my work once to opportunity arises.