“General [non-degree related] experience is really important as it teaches transferable soft skills that we find very valuable in the workplace. Retail and customer service related experience is very useful and enables them to perform better within their graduate roles. A varied mix of different types of part time work would be optimal. It gives them a broader skill set and commercial awareness.” – Lorien Adey, Midlands Student Recruitment Officer, KPMG.” Many of you may wonder about the value of Work Experience, especially if it’s not related to the type of work you want to do as a graduate. The … Read More
What about a career in academia?
It’s a good question, but what does it mean? If you’ve completed your Masters degree, then you might be thinking about a PhD, but if you do decide to pursue that option, where might it lead and what could you be doing in the longer term? Perhaps you see yourself as an Academic Researcher? Although this is a blog, I’m going to signpost you at this point to another blog (think of it as “blog to blog networking”!) – the www.jobs.ac.uk website published a very interesting blog in 2016 (“Got (or getting) your PhD? Great! But, how likely are you … Read More
5 things you can do to boost your CV
Applying for placements or graduate roles with a CV that’s barely there? We hate to break it to you, but your chances of being successful are very slim. It’s not all bad news though, because you can do something about it – the answer is to get some work experience! Now, before you tell us you already did a work experience week in Year 10, hear us out. There’s no such thing as too much work experience and the great thing is, employers want to see it on your CV. In fact, in a lot of placement and graduate interviews, … Read More
The sector that might surprise you…
For those of you that haven’t met me, my name’s Sarah Collins and I work in the Careers+Placements team. I’m one of a team of business-facing staff, which means I spend most of my time talking to and meeting with businesses to talk about how amazing you, our students and graduates, are. One of the things I’ve found really interesting since working here is that there are thousands of businesses interested in employing you, and sometimes they don’t quite know how to connect with you and let you know about the types of jobs they have. This is especially true … Read More
Happy new year – time to take charge of your careers!
I’m probably not the first to say this to you and, I might be the last, given that we’re now well into January. However, here it goes… Ok – so now that’s out of the way, what does the new year mean for you? If you’re fortunate, you might have a graduate role or be undertaking further study and you will know what you’re doing in the coming months and possibly for the rest of the year. However, if you haven’t secured an opportunity yet, then you might have some uncertainty. If you aren’t sure what the future holds, then … Read More
Nine careers-related New Year’s resolutions you’ll want to keep
So it’s that time of year again when we’re making resolutions with good intentions, only to end up breaking them before January’s even over. Instead of the usual exercise more/eat healthily/get more sleep resolutions (although those are great ones if you can stick to them!), we present you with our list of careers-related resolutions you’ll definitely want to keep this year. Update your Aston Futures profile We know go on about this all year round, not just in January. But that’s because it’s so so important – you’ll change during your time at university and so will your priorities and … Read More
Last-minute grad scheme applications and what to do if you’ve missed them
We’re almost at the end of term – the leaves have fallen off the trees and the Christmas Market is back on New Street; it’s only going to be a few weeks until we reach the shortest day of the year and then the days start getting longer and we’ll be heading towards summer. Yay! However, if you know anything about graduate recruitment, you’ll be aware that lots of larger employers focus their recruitment on the autumn period. That’s why we have so many careers fairs and so many employers are on campus at this time. If you’ve looked on … Read More
MSc Graduate in Focus: Tendayi Madziwa
My name is Tendayi Rodwell Madziwa and I graduated with an MSc in Supply Chain Management in 2018. The MSc that’s offered at Aston University is very attractive to employers because of the modules that the course offers – Aston is one the best UK Universities for this course. I liked studying Project Management, Operations Management, and Strategic Finance modules. Recently, Supply Chain Management has become one of the most important business functions within firms. It is also of increasing importance with the Brexit uncertainties. I am currently a Graduate Researcher intern with Aston’s Careers+Placements team. As part of my … Read More
MSc Graduate in Focus: Nicolle Mudzongo
I recently graduated with a Masters in International Business from Aston Business School. My reasons for choosing to study International Business at Aston University were: I wanted to gain a deeper understanding on how businesses navigate in an increasingly global market. It gave me the opportunity to develop skills that would enable me to work effectively across borders. The location of the campus (seriously). Not only did I have a great time during my studies, but I also had the chance to gain and improve upon key skills and competencies, such as communication, presentation, and research skills. The individual research … Read More
Enhancing your employability at Enactus Aston
Have you noticed an increase of homeless sleepers in Birmingham city centre? Do you want to make a difference to the livelihoods of refugees by mentoring them into employment? From one student to another, joining Enactus Aston will not only enhance your employability through volunteering and learning new skills, but will give you the platform to create a better world. Creating change as a student can seem like a hard task… Join a student-led not-for-profit society Enactus Aston provides students with a network of global businesses and academics to provide guidance, ambition and the right skills to create solutions to … Read More