Make the Careers Service Part of Your Toolkit this Year

Phoebe O’Carroll-Moran, fourth year Mathematical Physics undergraduate student and one of our Careers Service Student Engagement Assistants, provides a great overview of how the Careers Service can help you:

Prior to my time working at the Careers Service, I wasn’t exactly someone who paid much thought to my future working-life. On some level, I saw myself passively cycling through four to five years of my Physics degree and then emerging as a fully formed professional, ready to take on the world. My experience as an Employ.ed on Campus intern there last summer completely changed this for me. Not only did it open my eyes to the opportunities I’d been sleeping on thus far at University, but it sharpened my previously hazy ideas about (a) what I wanted out of my future and (b) how I was going to get it.

In the Careers Service, the University provides us students with one of the best resources we could possibly have to plan for our future. Many students don’t even stop to consider it until they reach the perilous point of graduation and realise that they need help finding direction. By making the Careers Service part of your toolkit at University, by drawing on it as a resource similar to how we’d draw on our lecturers and tutors for academic support, we can emerge from University better-equipped to deal with graduate life.

Beyond my internship, I was lucky enough to secure a part-time job at the Careers Service as part of their team of Student Engagement Assistants. Our job involves answering students’ questions about the service and signposting them to different resources. If you happen to check our website during working hours, you can find one of us manning the new “Ask a Student” live chat service. You should come talk to us – we’re all very friendly!

Having a part-time job is an invaluable source of skills and experience, but balancing that with a full-on degree, volunteering and society commitments can prove challenging at times. The key, I’ve found, is to really understand what your essential tasks are. If your online coursework quiz is due in two hours, colour-coding all your notes can probably wait until later. It may sound obvious, but my workflow sped up five-fold when I stopped procrastinating my more intimidating tasks and started putting them at the top of my to-do list.

If you’re looking to get organised and integrate career planning alongside your academic work, whether it be through a part-time job, applications or otherwise, the Careers Service has got you covered. Our website is a good starting point for this, and can give you a quick answer on everything from a National Insurance number to how to write an effective CV.

If you’re looking to talk to us, never fear! Despite Covid-19, the Careers Service has ensured that students have the same level of access to resources and is here to support you online and on campus. For example, not only can you use the live chat service and ask questions on MyCareerHub, you can also attend the online Careers Information and Advice drop-in service for quick careers queries.

If you’re ever curious about what’s going on, you can also check out the roster of events that the service has put together on the events section of MyCareerHub. They run a wide range of events throughout the year from employer presentations through to skills sessions and careers fairs. Whatever your interests, there will probably be something that caters to you.

Hopefully I’ve encouraged you to make the Careers Service part of your plan for this year. Stay up-to-date by following us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram; we also highlight our favourite job and internship postings from MyCareerHub so that nothing flies under your radar. Whether you’ve just entered your first year or you’re preparing to enter the job market, it’s never too early to start thinking about your future.

Thanks, Phoebe.

All of our support is designed to help you Understand Yourself, Discover What’s Out There, Build Experience and Make It Happen.  Try our new toolkits – self-paced, bite-sized activities to support your employability. Log in to MyEd and Learn, then search for ‘Careers Service Toolkits’ in the self-enrol channel to get started.

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