Thinking of taking a gap year after graduating?

Taking a “gap year” either for self-fulfilment or career development can reap rewards.  To make the most of it, make your time out count:

Why take a year out?
Going abroad provides a chance to broaden your horizons, discover new cultures, and is a great way to network and make new friends. Picking up a language and teaching English are also motivators for some. Remember taking a year out, is not just about travelling – you may want to stay in the UK to pursue your passion for music for example, or volunteer for a while.

What about my career?
Activities undertaken on a year out can boost skills sought by employers, and can give you space to work out what you would like to do in the longer term.

If you are undecided on what you want to do next, make sure you do some thinking before you go (or come and speak to one of QM’s Careers Consultants!). A gap year is a great opportunity to pick up some work experience in an area that interests you.  You’ll find it beneficial in the long run if you make a good plan for what you want to achieve in your year out  – from writing a blog to becoming a yoga instructor – doing something productive on your year out is likely to be more impressive to a future employer than simply travelling from A to B and absorbing the experience.  Finally, be conscious of application deadlines and interview periods – and arrange your year out around this.

For further information on taking a year out – including gap year opportunities, taking a gap year abroad, having a gap year in the UK,  funding advice and more, see the excellent Prospects gap year webpages.

Vicki Tipton
Careers Consultant QM Careers

Do you live in West Sussex, East Sussex, Hampshire or Surrey and want a paid internship?

GraduteOn is an internship programme that is run through the University of Chichester. The programme provides graduates with opportunities for paid internships  across West Sussex and neighbouring areas. These opportunities may range from short-term, expenses only internships within the charity sector to fully-paid internships, in the private and public sector, lasting several months.

GraduateOn offers the opportunity to people from any university who have graduated within the last 3 years to gain graduate-level work experience.  Applicants must be eligible to work in the UK.

For further information see www.graduateon.net

Paid internships for graduates

The Step London Graduate Internship Programme is a way for recent London graduates to get paid work experience.  The internships will be project based, where you will be given responsibility for tasks that will allow you to gain REAL experience and insight into the working world

What it can offer you:

• gain experience in the workplace
• put university and life skills into practice
• develop technical and general employability skills
• enhance employment prospects

Internships available now include Marketing, IT,  Social Media,  Sales, Data Processing, and Licensing & Syndication.

Click here to find out more and to see the latest opportunities. Register your details to make sure you get updates of the latest vacancies. You can also read case studies about previous participants here.

Graduate Employment Headlines Can Be Misleading

Headlines going on about 25% of Graduates not being in full time work three years after finishing University could easily make you worried about your employment prospects after leaving Queen Mary.

Fortunately for you, but unfortunately for journalists, is the reality just doesn’t make good headlines. The fact is that a quarter of graduates are not sitting depressed on a sofa watching Jeremy Kyle all day, claiming unemployment benefits. In fact dipping below the headline reveals just 3.2% were “assumed to be unemployed.”

So what are the rest of them doing?*

• 6.5% of graduates are doing further study such as a PhD.
• 7.9% were working part time (this could be for any number of reasons, such as family commitments).
• 5.8% were doing a combination of work and study
• 3% were unavailable for work (some due to disability, but more commonly because they are backpacking round the world)0.5% were volunteering and working unpaid

*From the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

I admit that for the 3.2% it is not good news. But it is a much better figure then 25%.

If you are in any doubt about whether there are jobs out there for Queen Mary students and Graduates, just look at our jobs website. There are  opportunities out there.. .

Things are tough but perhaps not as bleak as the journalists would have you think.

Vinny Potter
Careers Consultant

Employer visit: Bank of America Merrill Lynch

I went to a pretty refreshing meeting at Bank of America Merrill Lynch the other day. The focus of the meeting was an overview of their hiring patterns for the 2011-12 session, and involved a realistic view of the challenges facing recruitment at the Bank, and by extension the rest of the industry.

By no means was this a downbeat session, but instead felt more human than some of similar events I’ve been to (particularly some of those pre-2008).

Several themes came out of the event:

1. Hiring is fairly level across Internships and Full Time hires with 310 Interns currently at the bank and 250 full time hires coming onboard for the 2011 intake. Hiring looks to have similar numbers for 2011-12.

2. Growth areas in the business are in Global Risk particularly looking at Market Risk. There is also a focus on getting potential hires interested in a range of areas within the business with around 35% of hires into the Middle and Back Office.

3. Emerging Markets are very much seen as the future of the business and this means particularly Central Europe and Latin America. Business level language skills appropriate to the regions are highly sought after particularly on the Sales & Trading desks.

4. Last recruitment cycle BAML had around 20,000 applications for the UK arm across Internship and Full Time positions, and around 65% of those were fromUK institutions. From the Platinum level of campus (of which QMUL is one), 1 in 25 applications were successful.

5. In Technology there is a strong desire to compete with other Banking technology divisions as well as against the large technology firms. A former QM Computer Science student I spoke to at the event said she found the Java skills she learnt on her course were really useful, and the Bank is moving towards Python as the main language, so it would be useful if applicants could demonstrate they’ve used this in some way.

6.  BAML are very serious about Diversity issues. If you feel you have a barrier that could prevent you applying or undertaking a role at the Bank they recommend you disclose this as soon as possible, this can be done even in a phone call to their recruitment team. For information about disability and disclosure, see our recent blog post.

Check out Prospects for more about future trends in banking and finance.

James Weaver
Employer Liaison and Events Officer

Improve your job hunting technique

The recent UK economic growth figures announced last week fell short of the official growth target however the Chancellor insisted that more jobs are being created.  This may leave you feeling uncertain as you search for graduate vacancies.  An important way to make you feel more confident in your job search is to reflect on how you are searching for jobs.  Here are some questions to begin with.

Have you come to QM Careers for initial direction for your job search – what are your career options and a shortlist of good websites to use?

Do you know how to use these websites, for example why would you go to a professional body’s website to look for jobs besides its vacancies page?

Do you know that not every vacancy is advertised and the ways to discover these hidden jobs?

These questions are some of the prompts from a New Scientist blog about job searching however these techniques also apply to students and graduates who are not looking for a science career so do have a read.

QM Careers is open throughout the summer, if you are a current student please bring along your student ID, if you are a recent graduate you must be a GradClub member to use Careers – currently we have a promotion to sign up to GradClub for FREE.

Graduated and feeling stuck?

Friends and family asking ‘So what are you going to do now…?’?
Relief and celebration that you’ve passed your degree turning to concerns about what to do next?
Feeling demoralised that your job applications are getting nowhere?

Graduating and moving into employment is a big deal. It’s an exciting, and yet tricky stage for many people. Challenging as your time at Queen Mary probably was, the employment market may seem unclear and daunting by comparison. So here are 3 tips to help you successfully take steps into work you’ll enjoy.

One Start with YOU. Take stock of your qualifications, skills and personality. Employers will value your degree, but they’ll also be interested in what you offer them as a person. On-line tools such as Sort _it will help you. Vacation jobs and travel may seem a long way from the type of career you are looking for, but actually through them you are likely to be building your communication skills, problem solving and commercial and cultural awareness to name but a few.

Two Stay Positive. Looking for work involves lots of rejection and no-one enjoys that. Try not to compare yourself to any friends who seem to have it all sorted at the first attempt. That’s very rare. Come and talk to a Careers Adviser (or Skype with us) to renew your focus and confidence.

Three Take Action. Do at least one thing each day to move your carer forward. Research potential employers, contact a friend with similar aims to share ideas, make an application, do some interview preparation…. Job searching is definitely more about effort than luck. And an action we’d suggest for today is to join Gradclub  as this offers a great value way to continue to access careers support over the coming months. For a limited time only QM is subsiding membership so it is free to join – but make sure you join now to avoid missing out on the special offer.

Internship scheme open now to 2008 and 2009 graduates

If you graduated from Queen Mary in 2008 or 2009 and have struggled to find suitable work, you are eligible to apply for a new Graduate Internship scheme.  The scheme involves a 4 week paid internship at a company, adding important experience to your CV and getting a foot into the door of the job market.  Although work beyond these 4 weeks is not guaranteed, some lucky graduates who impress may find themselves being offered a permanent or longer term position with the company they intern at.  For more information and to apply for the scheme, visit www.uel.ac.uk/keinterns.

Career Stories from QM graduates

Wondering what job to do after you graduate? Unsure of what different job roles actually involve? One way of getting ideas is to look at what other Queen Mary graduates have gone on to do and find out their stories of how they got their job and what it entails on a daily basis.  The QM Careers website has a page dedicated to the career stories of former QM students. From charity worker to investment consultant, law graduate to politics graduate, you can read what they have to say and get their advice for you as a current student about how to become a high quality job candidate. Find their profiles under the ‘making career choices’ section of our website at
http://www.careers.qmul.ac.uk/students/choices/Alumni%20Profiles/index.html