Tag Archives: UK

The expert’s advice – finding a job in the UK

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Careers staff in the Midlands International Group were asked what was the best advice they would give to international students looking for a job in the UK. This is their responses. The original post can be found here.

Be prepared to take up a range of positions and opportunities that quickly show your commitment to working and contributing within the UK.  Thinking over more diverse ways of demonstrating your interest in particular industry issues and employer needs can help employers see the research you have done.  This can work especially well if you can write and express succinctly how your previous experience, study specialisms and skills link to their needs.

Chris Steventon, Coventry University

Start early, be targeted in your approach, make the most of university recruitment fairs and UK recruitment agencies. Network, use any Mentors available at the University and contact Alumni from your course (try LinkedIN), especially if the Alumni is an international student who is now working in the UK.

Michele Zala, Nottingham Trent University

Understand the Tier 2 visa rules – UKCISA is a good website to help you to understand the requirements. Ensure you understand the Tier 4-Tier 2 Visa switching process and have the list or Tier 2 sponsors . Student Circus is a website designed to only advertise Tier 2 Sponsored roles (for Tier 4 students)

Make sure you speak to the Careers Service so that you can fully prepare for UK recruitment and selection activities, they’ll have resources to help with: Psychometric testing, job search, interview skills, assessment centres etc.

Teresa Corcoran, University of Nottingham

Make sure that you understand the graduate labour market in the UK – this means that you will have a better understanding of the job roles that you can apply for and the companies that may be able to sponsor you. Attend any session within your Careers & Employability Dept. that will give you an understanding of this. Attend careers fairs and speak with employers directly about opportunities.

Judy Turner, University of Lincoln

We can’t emphasise enough the value of gaining relevant work experience whilst studying. Not only in terms of building your networking opportunities to support your case for staying in the UK but also to show the added value of your UK qualification when you return to your home country. What kudos to be able to say you have real-world insight into UK business because of your work experience! Take advantage of paid placements and internships offered.

Merlinda Charley, University College Birmingham

Make the most of your time in the UK by developing employability skills.  Get work experience of any kind- apply for summer internships and part time work or join Societies.  Aim for fluency in English and educate yourself regarding the UK labour market and which employers recruit international students.  Identify key employers and seek an internship. Use the help offered by your Careers Service especially with preparation for assessment centres.

Ellen O’Brien, University of Birmingham

  • Have a good understanding of the UK VISA requirements
  • Understand the graduate recruitment process as well as the opportunities available to you and where to find them
  • Don’t forget to use your university careers service for information and advice
  • Attend as many networking opportunities such as careers fairs as possible.

Mark Blaber, Northampton University

While a degree is still a valuable asset to have, UK employers are overwhelmed by high class graduates applying for jobs each year. As an international student it is important to consider the additional value you can demonstrate through your application or CV, and be able to offer things that other people may not have. If you are someone who needs a sponsored visa, then you need to demonstrate that you are worth that investment, and that you can offer something that no one else can! So maybe think about doing some of these things:

Many students now see the benefit that undertaking part-time work or volunteering brings when applying for work after University, and a significant placement year available as part of some degrees offers a depth of experiences and on the job work skill development that cannot be gained anywhere else. Experienced workers are often preferred by employers, a degree along is not enough.

Clubs and societies are not just for fun, the network that you create during your studies may help you find work, or encourage you in a direction that you may not currently know about. Many University Societies offer students the chance to meet guest speakers and attend events that would allow you to meet people and make friendships that could influence your career – don’t miss out by not participating!

Soak yourself in the UK culture! It’s sometimes all too easy to stay in our comfort zones and stay within our own community groups. It’s a challenge to make ourselves broaden our friendships and engage with the wider community. Do think about seeking out opportunities to volunteer with local charities or companies, join community projects and whatever else you can find out about to constantly develop your language skills and the region you study in. Your international cultural awareness is a very strong selling point for many jobs!

James Heritage, Aston University

How to prepare for interviews and assessment centres in the UK

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The vast majority of job applications involve an interview at some point, while some countries require you to attend an assessment centre. The below information will help you with preparing for these.

Interviews

Our Make Applications page has information and links to help you prepare for an interview, including examples of questions. To quote:

Interviews may seem scary, but they don’t have to be.  By preparing well they can be a positive experience. Review your application form, letter or CV and build on the research you have started. Find out as much as you can about what the employer expects during their interview process and prepare and practise answers to typical interview questions.

Work out in advance what you will wear and how you will get to your interview; and on the day be positive and enthusiastic to make the best impression possible.

The Careers Network also delivered some workshops in Spring 2017 entitled Interview Workshop for International Students. Key points include that it doesn’t matter where you gained your skills as long as you can demonstrate them, how to answer ‘tell me about yourself’, the different types of interview questions and how to prepare for them.

In addition, pages 20 – 23 of ‘How to excel in applications and interviews’ also has information about different types of interviews and how to prepare for the questions you’ll be asked.

Video Interviews

The Careers Network has teamed up with Sonru, a leading provider of video interview software, to bring you the change to practise a video interview. Details on how to prepare for video interview and about Sonru can be found here. To quote from ‘How to excel in applications and interviews’:

Video interviews can sound scary, especially when you are responding to pre-recorded questions. But the more you can practise the more relaxed you will be for the real thing. These types of interviews may involve you talking face to face with the employer (like a Skype chat), you could have a recorded video of the employer giving you a question and you are allotted an amount of time to respond, or you may just have questions pop up on your screen for you to answer.

You may be given multiple chances to re-record your answer or you may only be given one chance. It is therefore important to establish what type of video interview you will be taking part in. Before your interview make sure to do the following:

  • Dress smartly – you may be at home but you are still being assessed as if you were in an interview room.
  • Take the interview in a quiet room with no distractions.
  • Tidy the space behind you so the employer will not see any embarrassing posters, clothes strewn on the floor or dirty plates!
  • Test your workspace: is the lighting correct? Do you have a reasonable enough internet connection? Do your microphone and webcam work? Is there any loud traffic outside?

Telephone Interviews

Telephone interviews may be similar to face to face interviews so remember to respond and act as if you were in the room with the employer. The benefit is that you can use notes to prompt you for difficult questions. However, be warned – too many notes can be distracting.

  • Try to smile when you talk, it will help vary the tone of your voice and make you sound friendly and approachable. Consider dressing smartly to help you get into your ‘professional’ mind set.
  • You will be told a time to expect your call so make sure you use a quiet room with a good phone signal.
  • Have a notepad handy to take notes, but don’t use a computer if the interviewer can hear the keyboard tapping!
  • Don’t worry if there are short silences at the other end, the employer is probably taking notes.

Assessment Centres

Assessment centres, (sometimes called second interviews), are often the final stage in the graduate recruitment process – and are increasingly used in placement selection too. They are usually held at the employer’s premises or a hotel and involve a variety of individual and group exercises designed to give you the opportunity to demonstrate specific skills and qualities against a predetermined set of criteria.

Find out if you need to prepare anything to take with you to the assessment centre. Some employers ask you to prepare a short presentation. Identify which skills and qualities the organisation is looking for and work out how you can best demonstrate these.  When you get there be friendly, positive and professional and be yourself.  Make a contribution to all activities so that the assessors have something to mark you on.

For more detailed advice, see our guidebook – How to excel in applications and interviews 2017.

 

If you would like help with any of the above, then please do not hesitate to book an appointment with the Careers Network.

How to use your internationalisation to stand out to UK employers

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The common denominator when applying for graduate-level jobs is that everyone has a degree, so being able to articulate what makes you stand out from other candidates will give you a large advantage.

The advice and prompts below will help you reflect on and articulate the advantages of being an international student to employers.

1) Check sponsorship if you are a Non-EEA student

This also includes making sure that the companies you want to apply to can sponsor visas. If you are applying to a smaller company that has never sponsored an international student before on a Tier 2 visa, you can speak to them about doing a few months work experience after you graduate using the Tier 5 scheme. However, to later apply for a Tier 2 visa you would have to leave the country and do this from home. You can also arrange an appointment with immigration solicitors Paragon for employment related queries.

2) Identify the skills you have developed

You can use the questions below as prompts if you are unsure what unique skills or experience you can offer as an international student.

  • Why did you decide to study in the UK?
  • How was your education system and prior experience different to UK students?
  • What were you hoping to gain or develop out of this experience that couldn’t be achieved by studying in your home country?
  • How are you a different person now compared to how you were before you started your studies in the UK? How might you communicate this to someone new?
  • What surprised you most about moving to the UK?
  • How might you share your knowledge of both your home country and the UK through your own lived experience with an interviewer?
  • What are some of the experiences that you’ve had, both at home and in the UK, that have shaped your cultural and global perspectives?
  • Looking at the skills you’ve developed, how and when have you used these?
  • How might you use your international background to re-imagine a problem or see something in a new way?
  • How has being an international student further developed skills you already have?

Answering these questions will help you start to identify skills, attributes and experiences beyond the obvious. For example, you may realise that not only are your English skills improved, but you are more confident and assertive using them in group settings to resolve problems and achieve objectives; or you may have adapted to work proficiency in a different culture or previously studied topics/subjects that other people have not.

3) Identify any concerns/worries you have that might hold you back

You may still feel there are things as an international student that will hold you back in the recruitment process, for example comparing your English skills against home students or that your qualifications and experience from your home country won’t be valued by employers.  It’s important to address these thoughts as they could be holding you back from applying for jobs with confidence, which will be covered in the next few steps.

4) Read our Marketing yourself effectively to UK employers PDF

This can be found on the Careers Network website and by clicking here. This outlines what employers in the UK generally are looking for.

5) Try understand an employer’s perspective

The first thing here is to consider what the employer you are currently applying to will be looking for in a candidate. This is a simple but effective way of improving your applications. The most common ways to do this is are to look at the job description and person specification on a job advert and researching the company to find out what they are currently doing and (if possible) their future plans and aspirations.

Some questions you could consider include:

  • What would the employer be looking for in my CV?
  • What kinds of qualifications/experience would most impress?
  • If I was recruiting for this post and had a large pile of CVs, what would make one stand out?
  • What is it about my last job(s) that the employer would find most interesting?
  • What is it about the answers to questions in section 2 (“Identify the skills you have developed”) that the employer would find most interesting? Why?

To really stand out (and if you have time), you could also do some extra work to find out what would interest the employer beyond what’s on the job description, for example, understanding what additional skills would add value. Ways you can find this information out include:

Once you have done this, you can start to think about how your skills and experience as an international student will help the employer now and in the near future. For example, the ICAEW identified the need for accountants who are skilled working with clients and colleagues from different departments in potentially different countries and time zones. In addition, according to a survey by the Intelligence Unit at The Economist, 90% of executives in 68 countries say cross-cultural management is their biggest challenge.

The second part of seeing things from an employer’s perspective is addressing the concerns you identified in section 3 (“Identify any concerns/worries you have that might hold you back”). Thinking about each concern from the employer’s perspective, how much is this an issue? Why might this be or not be? Our in other words, what might an employer’s worry be or would they not have an worries about it?

6) Impact

The next  step is to think about impact, i.e. putting it all together in a way that will impress the employer. When describing the value you would bring as an international student, try to be as specific as possible to the employer’s needs.

For example, it’s easy to say ‘as an international student, I have experience of working in different cultures’ but this sentence on it’s own might be easily missed. A better way is to explicitly link to what the employer is looking for:

Your job advert highlights teamwork as a key requirement. As can be seen from my attached CV I have demonstrated this skill in my previous job, and through recent group projects as an international student have gained further experience successfully leading teams of people from different cultures. From researching your company, I believe this skill is especially relevant to your increasing emphasis of developing the business outside the UK. 

Now think about your concerns – having looked at these from an employers’ perspective, do you still feel they are issues? If so, how could you address these in a way that would impress them? As an example, if you worried your applications will be rejected because you have no work experience in the UK and are applying for a job that requires a lot of customer service, you might think:

  1. I have excellent customer service experience in my home country, but this was in a different language and although I’m confident in my skills an employer still might be unsure that I can translate these into working with UK customers.
  2. I can write on my cover letter that I have excellent customer service experience and then emphasise that I am skilled at using my English skills in a professional environment by highlighting all the relevant activities I’ve completed, such as leading group discussions and projects, getting involved in extra-curricular activities, customer facing volunteering or part-time work, and so on. By doing these things I can also highlight that am I a motivated, self-reliant individual who takes ownership of my own development rather than someone who might need a lot of help getting used to working in a new culture.

In other words, do not focus on any negatives but instead think about turning your concern into a positive. This can be done by focusing on all the things you have done to work on the concern, as seen in the example above. Employers are not expecting you to be perfect and often will be impressed if you show the right attitude and attributes to do well.

7) Bridge the gap

You may still find that there is a gap in your skills or experience which is holding you back from getting to the job you want. After all, employers want to employ the best candidate. In these instances, it’s essential to make a plan to ‘bridge the gap’. This can include doing professional courses (such as Lynda.com) or getting work experience. If you decide to gain temporary work experience, set relevant goals of what you want to achieve during your time there and review these regularly, for example:

  • Use your language skills in a professional setting as you’ve never done this before
  • Share good practise from the sector in your home country to help your department develop new ideas, so you can understand the value your previous international employment can bring companies in the UK
  • Learn a new computer system that is used in the UK that you have never used before
  • Meet the managers from every other department so you can better understand how organisations in the sector work together, and thereby demonstrate to future employers you understand the different ways of working and where you can add value to them

There are lots of different goals you can set, and even if some are very small (for example, “speak to 5 customers”) they can help you move nearer to your career goals.

8) Get help from the Careers Network

You can access careers help from the Careers Network to help with any stage of this process, from deciding which types of jobs you would to apply for, completing CVs, cover letters and applications, preparing for interviews and so on. Even if you are not on campus, you can still access the service for support.

– Christian Jameson-Warren

All the best advice we could find about getting a job in the UK as an international student

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Knowing how to get a job in the UK can be difficult, so here’s a selection of the best information I could find online:

Understand the types of opportunities available

  1. “[T]there are two main types of vacancy to consider: graduate schemes and direct entry. Graduate schemes are typically offered by companies that are looking to recruit a number of graduates each year into a range of areas, such as finance, IT, human resources and marketing. A graduate scheme will usually last between 18 months and two years….  Direct entry jobs are often with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that do not need to hire a significant number of graduates every year, although larger employers do advertise some entry-level jobs…these vacancies can crop up at any time of the year. An immediate start is normally required so you’ll need to wait until you finish your degree to apply for these jobs.” – Target Jobs

You can book an appointment at the Careers Network to discuss the types of opportunities available in your sector in more detail.

Understand the UK recruitment process

  1. “The UK application process. The application process for most employers is outlined on their websites. It usually involves completing an online application form and CV, or submitting a CV and cover letter. These should be tailored to every organisation – but if you’re applying for similar roles in the same sector it goes get easier to prepare for each application…  [Many] organisations then ask you to complete online aptitude tests.” – London School of Economics
  2. “What is the recruitment process in the UK? Most graduate employers design their own, individual recruitment processes to fit their prorities and the specifc skills they’re looking for; however, they all tend to feature similar steps. You can expect to complete a combination of the following:
    • online application form
    • CV and covering letter
    • psychometric tests
    • games-based assessments
    • telephone interview or video interview
    • assessment centre
    • technical interview”

-Target Jobs

You can book an appointment for help with any stage of this process, as well as accessing our Make Applications page for advice. You can also access our guidebook, How to excel in applications and interviews.

Careers Online is the university’s own vacancy system. On this we advertise over 7000 graduate jobs, placements, internships, part-time work and voluntary roles a year. https://lboro.targetconnect.net/student/home.html.

Other websites for graduate-level jobs include Prospects, Targetjobs, Guardian Jobs, Indeed. There are also websites specific to different sectors, you can find out more details by visiting the Careers Network page relevant to your department.

Sponsorship – if you are a Non-EEA student:

  1. “Check with the firm’s HR or graduate recruitment team -Before starting an application, pick up the phone and ask them about visa sponsorship. It might seem quite daunting, but it shows you’re proactive and it will give you a definite answer. You don’t want to waste time on a great application to a company that won’t consider you. If it’s a big company they’ll have a graduate recruitment team, and if not then ask for their HR team when you call.”

If you are applying for a role after your studies with a smaller company may not have sponsored an international student on a Tier 2 visa before, you can speak to them about doing a few months work experience after you graduate on the Tier 5 visa scheme. However, to later apply for a Tier 2 visa you would have to leave the country and do this from home.

Think how to stand out to employers

  1. “[T]he graduate market is at its healthiest in years and jobs are available in a variety of sectors. Competition for graduate jobs is fierce but candidates with the right qualifications, skills and experience stand a good chance of employment. Language skills are increasingly important, making many foreign nations desirable candidates.” – Prospects
  2. “Use your internationalisation to your advantage. Think about what sets you apart as an international graduate, says Ellen O’Brien, international careers adviser at the University of Birmingham. “You may have language or enhanced numeracy skills that home students don’t have.” – The Guardian
  3. “Really stand out – This might sound obvious, and it’s something every graduate has to demonstrate, but with there being fewer places for international students you do need to go that extra mile to stand out. Spend your time making the application tailored to the firm and the role, as well as highlighting how good you really are.” – Bright Network
  4. “Use being international to your advantage – Being an international student may mean you’re multi-lingual (a skill English students often lack) and have work experience in other cultures. This can set you apart on applications, so make sure you’re really highlighting this.” – Bright Network

You can visit our Develop skills and employability and Skills employers seek pages for more advice on developing your skills, as well as speaking to a member of the Careers Network.

We also have a PDF, Marketing yourself effectively to UK Employers which shows what employers are looking for and how to ‘market yourself’ accordingly.

Gaining work experience

  1. “It is becoming more and more important for students to gain some work experience. As well as helping you figure our what job you want to do when you graduate, it will make you more employable in the eyes of graduate recruiters…It may also be a good opportunity…to develop [your] English skills in a professional environment.” – TargetJobs
  2. “There are many summer, seasonal and temporary jobs on offer in the UK and the majority of these can be found in the tourism, hospitality and retail industries….Hotels, bars and restaurants require causal workers all year round…The retail sector also employs additional temporary staff to cover the busy Christmas period.” – Prospects
  3. “I had to make sure I was the most desirable candidate, so I volunteered in an after-school club and at a mental health hostel to make sure I had more experience than anyone else applying. My advice to others? Look for something you want to do but keep your options open. Apply for as many jobs and get as much experience as you possibly can.” – The Guardian

The Careers Network page for your school  will have links and advice about how to find experience relevant to your degree. You can also read our relevant PDFs – Preparing yourself for work during your studies, Preparing yourself for work after your studies – undergraduate students, and Preparing yourself for work after your studies – masters students.

Some of the websites you can use to find part-time work at Lboro include:

Loughborough Student Union – https://www.lsu.co.uk/yourunion/jobs/

Main university website – https://vacancies.lboro.ac.uk/

Careers Online – Careers Online – https://lboro.targetconnect.net/student/home.html

You can also gain voluntary experience by getting involved with LSU Action or with external organisations by visiting www.do-it.org

Networking

  1. “Network your way into a job. Use your university careers service, and go to international student-focused careers fairs and introduce yourself. “Use alumni networks to contact past graduates from your country who are now working in the UK,” says David Gee, global employability manager at the University of the West of England.” – The Guardian

The Careers Network have several activities and resources to help you with networking:

And of course, you can always book an appointment for help getting started with networking.

Finally…

You can also read Graduate Profiles of previous international students at Lboro to find out how they achieved their career aims and their advice. These can found found by scrolling down on this page.

I hope you found this useful, and of course don’t hesitate to get in contact if you have any questions you would like to discuss.

Christian Jameson-Warren – Employability Development Officer for international students