How your student job can support your long-term career
A student job is a great way to fund your studies, meet new people and gain skills. But what exactly can you do to make your student job support your career?
Make connections
Whether you’re doing regular part-time work or a one-week internship, you never know who could help you out after you finish your degree.
We know networking isn’t for everyone but there are loads of online tools to help with this. Instead of making idle talk around the buffet table, LinkedIn is a great tool to maintain your network. When meeting people at your student job add them on LinkedIn and keep up a conversation with them.
Find something you’re passionate about
Getting a part time job can help you learn more about yourself and learn exactly what sort of job you’d love to do. Whether you’re looking to become an accountant, linguist or the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, find something you love to do and you’ll get more out of it.
As one of our Campus Representatives you’ll get a chance to try your hand at a range of skills including public speaking, events and media relations. It’s a great opportunity to find your passion. You certainly won’t feel like you’re wasting your time.
Develop soft skills
Soft skills are interpersonal skills such as creative thinking, time management and adaptability. All jobs you apply for after university will look for you to be able to give examples as to when you’ve used soft skills in the past.
By developing soft skills, you will stand out in a competitive job market and impress hiring managers with just how much you can do. Take a minute to think about the areas you would like to work on and have these goals in the back of your mind when you start your job.
Get career prospects
When researching student jobs, always keep your eyes peeled for what the job can offer you. Lots of positions may lead to opportunities to work on their graduate schemes. Many of the Times Top 100 Graduate Employers offer internships for students which can develop into an offer onto their graduate programmes.
Practical application of your degree
After hours of revision, endless amounts of coursework, pile after pile of extra reading all you need is that ever-elusive experience. Undergraduate internships are a great way to get this with a job you’re interested in.
Getting a student job where you can gain hands-on experience helps you get an insight into that industry whilst also gaining skills for your CV. On the Teach First STEM Internship you won’t just be making cups of tea, you’ll be learning about educational inequality and heading into schools to teach your very own mini-lessons.
Our undergraduate programmes are paid opportunities to do all of the above. Applications for the Taster Experience and Campus Representatives are currently open.