Work experience can give you an insight into a career, enable you to build necessary skills and knowledge and show that you are reliable, proactive and willing to learn.
It can help you make useful contacts for the future and sometimes even lead to a job offer. Employers are increasingly looking for people with relevant work experience; in fact, entry into some fields is practically impossible without it!
It is never too early to arrange some work experience. Your first year or second year is an excellent time to build your experience as, later on, it is likely that you will have a heavier university workload and you will be busy applying for graduate jobs or postgraduate courses. There are some schemes specifically for new graduates.
Your experience could be anything from a year long, structured sandwich year placement to a day of work shadowing. The length of your work experience really depends on your personal circumstances and the requirements of the employer.
Employers wishing to offer students or graduates work experience often advertise via the following sites and schemes:
Every year some of the larger, well known companies recruit sandwich year students for their industrial placements. Some also run shorter work experience or work tasters, often in the summer holidays. Use the Prospects and GET graduate directories (available in print and online) and the free brochures in the Careers Centre to search for companies of interest.
Also have a look at our careers information related to your subject and contact Charge, a University of Wolverhampton student society which can help you arrange visits to employers.
Useful information can be found on the National Council for Work Experience and also consider speaking to a Careers Adviser who can suggest ways of getting work experience to enhance your career prospects.
