Diversity in companies is an extremely important issue in 2019, as I’m sure we can all agree. Companies are taking different methods to boost members of the BAME (Black, Asian & minority ethnic) community as well as trying to bridge the gender gaps in their workforces - to equip themselves for the 21st Century, and an ever-connected world of cultures.
One way employers are attempting to boost this is by setting no minimum entry grades for their graduate recruits. This strategy has more than doubled in the past 5 years going from 7% of ISE employers in 2014 to 22% in 2019. The amount of employers wanting a 2:1 degree has also dropped in this period from 67% to 57%.
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Here at Push we’re always banging on about how great part-time work can be. And not just for the extra cash, but that’s a bonus all in itself. Bring on that wonga.
And there’s loads of other benefits, too. Moving to a new area to study? You’ll meet loads of new people, make some new friends and being around locals is the best place to pick up insider info on all the best shopping and nightlife spots, best restaurants, top rated take aways, places to hit up and places to avoid. Pretty handy. Think about it. In a world of self-service checkouts, virtual personal assistants, driverless cars and automated factories, job security is looking like a thing of the past.
Are you going to be spending years studying and training for a job that Wall-E will be doing by the time you’re thirty? The Guardian are a bit concerned that lecturers in financially struggling unis will soon be replaced by AI technology in digital classrooms. That’s not all, a BBC article back in June came out with the shocking statistic that, by 2030, 20 million factory jobs alone will have been taken over by robots. Gap years used to be thought of as something only rich people or unreliable people did. These days, however, everyone is taking gap years, from young adults just out of high school to people in their mid-20s or 30s who want to take a sabbatical from work and travel for longer. A gap year should be seen as a way to achieve your goals, personal and professional, instead of a questionable gap in your CV.
This article will give you tips on how to present your gap year in a way that highlights the benefits and how you’ve learned from it. These suggestions can be used either in a traditional CV for job applications or in a cover letter or personal essay for students who are applying to higher education. If you’re a new student, chances are you’ve already experienced the sweet satisfaction that comes with seeing your bank account filled to the brim when your Student Loan arrives.
It may seem like a lot at the time, and the temptation to live like a king and blow it all on pizza/alcohol/Netflix subscriptions may be irresistible. Don’t worry, we’ve all been there. But, if budgeting isn’t your strong suit and you find yourself short on funds, or if your Student Loan doesn’t quite cover your living costs, you may decide to also pick up part-time work while you’re studying. A wise move. After all, even if you don’t think you need it, a little extra cash to burn never hurt, right? If you are looking for part-time work, there are plenty of websites out there to find the job that works for you. Nothing is safe in the digital age, and recruitment is no exception. Gone are the days where employers rely solely on face-to-face traditional interviews.
Now you’ve got phone interviews, conference calls, Skype interviews, online or virtual aptitude tests and cognitive tasks. So, how do you prepare? Getting a job, apprenticeship or a place at your dream uni might seem like pretty terrifying concepts right now, but they don’t have to be.
You might think you have no skills and a dire CV or personal statement, but you’re completely wrong. Everyone’s got something that will wow employers and admissions tutors, whether it’s dedication, time management and people skills earned from a weekend shop job or paper round, or sacrifice, compassion and maturity from being a carer to younger siblings or family members. 90% of apprentices in England stayed on in employment after completing their qualification; 71% with the same employer (so says the Government). That's great news, but if you're considering degree-level apprenticeships at a college or a university (yes really), you'll need to know the realities of them. In short, they are just like level 3 (advanced) apprenticeships: quality of skills on offer, healthy balance between course/work, wage paid and no guarantee of a full-time job at the end of the course.
There's 3 other factors that are huge, which the company funding the apprenticeship will rarely mention, particularly for apprenticeships at degree level: the brutal level of competition, the ease of access from you geographically, and most importantly of all: your genuine level of passion for what they offer (a mix of your curiosity, attitude, what you want from life, and your motivation). Chances are, at some point, you’re going to have to head out into the wonderful world of work. Cash in your pocket, and a rewarding career you enjoy. Win-win. But you have to earn that dream job, and the biggest hurdle is the interview.
Gulp. The “I” word is enough to fill anyone with dread, but don’t panic. To start, try to forget everything you think you know about interviews, and instead flip it on it’s head – sure, you want to impress, but you’re interviewing them to make sure the job is perfect for you. A paid contribution by our friends over at Stitch the creative clothing company offering innovative clothing for the made-to-order, retail and b2b markets. We think this is a useful and interesting article for all our readers and are happy to publish.
After completing my studies at university this year, I sat down to tackle what every new graduate dreads - applying for my first ‘real’ job and dusting off my CV. I began with the qualifications and previous work experience which I thought was the most relevant, and then moved onto extracurricular activities that demonstrated organisation and initiative - something all companies look for in an employee. This proved to be initially daunting, as the job in mind was for an account manager role at Stitch, a company that creates custom clothing. This role was new territory for me as my past work experience was predominantly practical creative work, and I feared I lacked too much in office practise to successfully apply for an administrative position. A paid contribution by our friends over at Future Fit Training the leading training provider of Personal Trainers, Nutrition Advisers and Pilates Instructors in the UK. We think this is a useful and interesting article for all our readers and are happy to publish.
The numbers tell the story:
And with the demand for personal trainers and weight loss consultants outweighing the supply, there are plenty of opportunities out there for those looking to become a personal trainer. The prospect of having to network as an intern can be terror-inducing. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be. With the following tips in mind, you’ll be a top-rate networker in no time!
Contributed by our friends over at HFE the UK's leading provider of personal training courses and fitness qualifications...
In 2018, it was reported that the UK's health and fitness industry was worth an approximate £5bn and the number of gyms reached over 7,000 for the first time. It's also estimated that 1 in 7 people in the UK is a member of a gym. All these figures point to one simple fact: the best time to get into the fitness industry is right now! Of all of the possible roles for young people available in the fitness industry, there's one that stands head and shoulders above all others in terms of appeal and mainstream popularity and that's of a personal trainer. There's no doubt you'll have a picture in your head of a personal trainer and you've probably seen a fair few when you've ever been to a gym. Now the common stereotype is that PTs just stand around and don't do very much. They've probably got a clipboard (or iPad if they're fancy), a stopwatch and they just spend time watching clients exercise. If you’re lucky they might even chime in every few minutes with words of encouragement. New Year, same beautiful old you. But if you haven’t been working in the past, 2019 could be the year you make your way into the world of work and bag a part-time job.
Obvious perk? Cash. You earned it, no one can tell you what you can/can’t/should/shouldn’t spend it on. Want to blow a week’s earnings on a massive Dominos order? Do it. Those chicken strippers will never taste better. (Not that we recommend you make it a regular decision, but if you’re going down this route, remember you get a pretty nice 35% student discount < https://www.dominos.co.uk/blog/students/>) Besides the financial independence though—because what could be nicer than having a few spare pennies to rub together—are all the extra benefits. Like… When everyone is telling you to make a choice on your future in school or college, it can feel like the most stressful time in the world. If you live to the average age of 81.5 years (in the UK), you'll make about 850,000,000 choices in that time...
Whether you’re writing your very first CV and cover letter, or working from an old one that’s full of ‘hobbies’ you’ve only ever done once, or questionable ‘work experience’, you’re now at an age where having a strong CV and cover letter is extremely important.
After all, who doesn’t want to earn some extra cash or, most importantly, get experience that’s going to impress companies when you leave school or graduate. Nearly all employers require a CV and cover letter as part of the application process. So, it’s important that you understand the basics of drafting them. To help you out, we’ve pulled together our advice on how to write a CV and cover letter. We speak to hundreds, if not thousands of young people every year who start off thinking they have nothing exciting to write about themselves. No excitement factor that might make them stand out from the crowd in a CV for a job, or a uni personal statement.
How wrong they are. Even if you’re not an Olympic medallist, a young Einstein, or the world-record holder for number of bubbles blown with a tarantula in your mouth, you can paint your years of experience in a way to make sure anyone hearing about them is left wanting more. A great place to start? A part-time job. If your plans don't involve uni visits and UCAS forms, there's still loads to do over the Summer to make yourself more employable.
If you don't have any work experience, it can be tough to get your first permanent job. But summer jobs, well, they're easier to get and then, ta-da, you've banked some experience and some cash for later. Let’s face it, we’re a nation of social media addicts. It has its ups and downs – there are only so many angles you can shoot avocado toast from. At the end of the day though, most of us wouldn’t be without it, the beautiful time waster that it is.
But what if we were to tell you that there’s a social media platform that, actually, is really quite productive? A platform that cuts out all the unnecessary relationship status updates and dog ear filters, and that is really quite useful when it comes to developing your future career? We're sure over the past year you’ve heard the abbreviation VR thrown about at just about any announcement of a new tech device. VR stands for Virtual Reality and it’s starting to creep into our lives whether you want it to or not. Now the question is, will virtual reality change how we gain soft skills?
It's not all about getting a good enough job to get by, or even to just start making a dent in those hefty students loans. But that should be fairly obvious, right? No point studying for 3+ extra years, only to fall into a job that's completely the wrong fit.
If it's not for you, chances are you won't like it. And if you don't like it, chances are you won't be able to force yourself to get up and go to it every morning for all that long. We've all heard it, right? The dreaded millennial Catch-22: to get experience, you need a job. To get a job, you need experience.
Unsurprisingly, high numbers of young people in the UK go through long unpaid placements, internships and work experience programmes to gain the experience required for their first full-time job. This may seem like an inevitable link in the career chain, but for many, unpaid internships are a pretty crappy thing. Primarily, unpaid placements work only on the basis that you have significant savings to support you while you're working for (optimistically) experience, or (pessimistically) nothing. |
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We're always interested to hear from talented young writers, so if you'd like to feature as a guest author then hit us up for more details.
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