Thank Farooq for that! Thinking about doing a Work Placement..?

Wednesday, 11th March 2009 1 Comment

This advice is written by Farooq (Faz) Asif, a final year student who studies at Aston University who spent his placement at General Motors last year. To see Faz’s profile click here.

Here are 3 good reasons why you should!

It’s a tough decision for some on deciding on whether to do a placement. For those on sandwich degrees, it’s an essential part of their course so your thinking here is cut out.  For others, the thought of taking an extra year to gain your degree and being a year behind the rest of your mates might have you thinking twice!  However, there are some very solid reasons for why you should do one.  Here are 3 reasons nobody can argue with!

Reason 1 – Get a taste of your future career

Doing a placement is a bit like taking a car for a test drive before making that purchase commitment.  You get to sit behind the wheel and take the career interest you have for a spin, to decide whether or not it’s really want you want to do after University.  It’s all fun and well doing marketing modules at University, or hearing your uncle tell you how fab his job as a Consultant is.  The truth is, the only real way to get to know what a career is like, is to try it out.  You’d be surprised at how many people in final year change their career ambitions because through their placement they realise that area wasn’t for them.  For others, it further encourages them to stick with their choice!  Me? Well, having done a Finance placement, I realised it wasn’t quite my cup of tea.  However by gaining some exposure to IT roles on my placement, I realised that was where I wanted to be.  I’m glad I discovered this during my placement and not during my first grad job, can you imagine that!

Reason 2 – Get a better degree grade

Lecturers are known to go on about how students having done a placement are more organised, better project managers and generally perform better during final year.  It’s not just a marketing ploy, me and everyone else I know who did a placement will vouch for this!  The skills gained and personal development you go through on placement really does prepare you for final year, I definitely feel a lot more confident, organised, focused and have better time management than during my second year (and comparatively – against some of my friends who didn’t do a placement, although don’t tell them that!).

Reason 3 – Get a better grad job

With more and more students churning out of the system with degrees, you need something that helps you stand out from the crowd.  Extra-curricular activities are great and recognised by employers.  A placement, however, comes into its own league.  Graduate employers love students who’ve done a placement, as they’ve got real world business experience to top their degree off.   Every single employer I have spoke to has been interested to hear about my placement year, even if it did not relate directly with their industry, the skills gained are definitely transferable.  It helps get you through the application funnelling process, prepare excellent answers for those competency based questions and gives you so much more to talk about in interviews.  There’s a fair chance that your placement employer may even offer you a graduate job too at the end of your placement, taking the pressure off for job hunting during final year.

As a student who’s done one and can definitely see the benefits, my advice would be to do one, for any or all of the above reasons!  Take a look around the RateMyPlacement website and read company reviews to find out which one would most suit you!  

Good Luck.  

Faz Asif

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