Did you know that as a Newcastle University student, you have access to a department entirely dedicated to helping you prepare for the job market and achieve your dreams? We met with some of the team and asked them for their Careers Service highlights.
Our Careers Service Information Officers, Careers Consultants and START UP Advisers are here to give you bespoke, confidential one-to-one guidance and any information you need to explore your existing plans or generate new ideas.
Whether you want to find graduate-level employment, create your own skilled self-employed opportunity or go onto further study, the Careers Service can help you during your time at University and for three years after you graduate.
From advice on your career path, job applications, interviews and pitching, to workshops, events and webinars - the Careers Service can help you develop your employability and enterprise skills, celebrate your successes and find your future. At the moment, you can access this help from anywhere in the world, over the phone or online.
We asked some of the Careers Team to shine a light on aspects of the Service that you might not be familiar with. Find out their highlights below...
Gretel
Whether you want to explore ideas, go freelance or start a business, START UP can help you work for yourself at every stage, from pre-idea to launch and beyond. Create your own graduate opportunities with coaching from our expert START UP Advisers, who run their own businesses and portfolio careers, plus workshops, socials, peer-learning groups, mentorship, equity-free grant funding and further opportunities designed to help you lead a successful self-employed career.
As START UP Advisers, we focus on developing the founder as well as the business, so you can expect advice based on the goals that you want to achieve, no matter how big or small they seem!
A few years ago, I was endorsed for the equivalent to the new Start-up Visa myself, so it makes sense that a lot of my work focuses on promoting the Start-up Visa route amongst international students, and supporting them through the process of getting endorsement. I understand that it’s not an easy path to navigate, so they can expect lots of info and honest feedback at all times.
Working with clients pursuing portfolio careers its very energising. They get up to so many things and achieve so much on different fronts! Sometimes it’s challenging to keep up with what they’re doing but their creativity and their flare to spot opportunities and take advantage of them never ceases to amaze me!
Ailsa
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Careers Consultants work closely with students and graduates in many different ways. They offer guidance to students to help you decide the type of jobs or careers you might want to pursue or discuss changing or leaving your course. They also provide feedback on applications and offer interview coaching.
We carry out 1-1s but can also be seen presenting in your lectures, hosting workshops (we’re becoming pretty good with Zoom!) and adding to your modules on Canvas. We work closely with your Schools to ensure we can support you throughout your degree, whether you know what you want to do or not, and after (up to three years after graduation).
Many of us also have additional projects that we work on, I lead on our Careers Service first year and graduate support and events, and also work on accessibility and offering training to our colleagues. All this is carried out in collaboration with other teams in the Careers Service and throughout the University, such as Student Wellbeing and Alumni.
Kate
Our Careers Information Advisers provide 1-1 careers information to all of our students and graduates, advising on a variety of topics, including how to find and apply for graduate jobs, part-time jobs, placement years, internships and further study.
We can provide advice on finding opportunities in the UK, overseas and in specific sectors. We also feedback on CVs, covering letters, LinkedIn profiles and advise on how to prepare for interviews, recruitment tests and assessment centres. Essentially, we’re happy to advise on most careers-related questions you have!
Outside of advising students and graduates, we research and create all of the content on the Careers Service and Exploring Occupations websites. We also run workshops, speak to employers and get involved in other Careers Service programmes and events.
Anna
The Careers Service can help you find valuable work experience to develop your employability skills, increase your commercial and occupational awareness, apply your academic knowledge and make connections through internships, placement years, global work experience, work shadowing and graduate jobs.
To help you gain income around your studies, part-time and temporary vacancies are advertised to our current students on the MyCareer jobs database and our on-campus recruitment agency JobsOC can help you find casual work across the University. Increased remote opportunities are now available.
I manage the Business Engagement team and our key focus is to work with a diverse range of employers locally, nationally & internationally to ensure students have access to internship, part time, placement and graduate jobs across multiple sectors. We not only manage the thousands of jobs that you see advertising on our website each year, we organise and host Career fairs, skills sessions, presentations, panel events and more to help students enhance their employability prospects.
My team also facilitate term time and summer Internships for students within North East businesses. The internships are paid and are an excellent way for students to gain work experience to develop their skillset. Often the best graduate jobs come from a student working on an internship project with a local north east employer whilst they study with us.