A guide to getting work experience
Following on from last week’s blog post about how to get a summer job, this week’s blog post will be about how to get work experience. After last year, many of you may need to get some experience under your belt or simply be trying out different industries to see what interests you. With workplaces largely reopened, many companies are resuming their in-person work experience schemes. Having some work experience under your belt is always useful to any possible future employers. It shows that you were proactive in looking for and taking up an opportunity to work and learn and that you have the maturity to be in a work-place. Even if you’re doing work experience in a field you may not necessarily enter in the future, these qualities are automatically recognised in someone who has taken on work experience from a young age.
But how do you get work experience? It is actually similar to getting a job in the sense that you have to send off a CV to various companies, but actually finding a company that runs work experience programs can be harder. Depending on the field you want to get into, certain areas will have an abundance of certain types of work experience. For example, if you live in London, you may find far more finance related work experience options compared to something like engineering or manufacturing which requires more physical space. However, there are always some different options!
If you have any contacts who are working in the fields that you are interested in having some work experience in, start with them first. These could be friends’ parents, relatives or family friends - just anyone you know that is working in the field you want to be a part of in the future. Ask them if they’d be willing/be allowed to take you to their place of work for a week or two so that you can get familiar with the type of work they do and get a feel for if this is something that you actually want to do in the future. You have to take that first step though and ask them.
If there isn’t anyone you can think of, or no-one can take you for whatever reason, start looking at the websites of firms that you’re interested in. Apply to as many firms as possible and check if they have any special work experience programmes for your age group. Make sure this is researched well in advance as well - a lot of firms close applications at least 3 months before their programmes begin and it always gives a good impression if you’re applying to these types of things well in advance. There will be limited spaces and competition is very tough, that’s why it’s a good idea to send out emails/apply to as many firms as you can think of in the hope that at least 1 will get back to you. In your email attach your CV so that whoever reads it can see what type of candidate you are and your credentials.
Don’t be disheartened by a lack of responses - most students apply to 20-30 companies to hear back from one or two. Also, even if a company does not advertise it on their website, they may still be able to accommodate you for work experience, so sending a politely-worded email to HR can never hurt! There are also many new virtual opportunities due to life being moved pretty much fully online for the past year which can be a great way to get some insight into industries that you may not be able to access in your area, or even doing work experience for international firms.
Remember: applying for and carrying out work experience should not just be something you do so you can add it to your CV, it should also be something you do for yourself - to give yourself an idea of what it’s like to work in a particular field and whether it's right for you. Don’t do work experience for the sake of it, instead, use the opportunity to really immerse yourself in work life. It is an incredibly different atmosphere to school so getting an accurate impression of what life at different companies is like can be incredibly helpful in making any future decisions you need to make.
Here are some useful links:
https://www.studentladder.co.uk/work-experience/
https://www.prospects.ac.uk/jobs-and-work-experience/work-experience-and-internships
https://www.pearson.com/uk/learners/fe-and-college-students/career-choices/careers-advice-topics/how-to-find-work-experience.html