Careers support at university

Please note - content supplied by Maria Simpson, from Harper Adams University, for the Teachers' Guide to University brochure.

Universities offer many opportunities to learn, explore, and grow. For some students, navigating their way through a degree, and the graduate options beyond it, can be challenging. Fortunately, all universities have careers services to offer invaluable support for students. Many of them offer general and bespoke guidance that’s relevant to the course and to the student’s needs.

Your students can access careers support from the moment they enrol on their course.

While many students have a good idea about their next steps, there are many who need additional help and insight. We always recommend that students make the most of the careers support available during their time at university, and continue to use the services available to them beyond graduation.

Your students can even gain expert careers advice before their enrolment at university by attending Open Days. They can speak to the careers team to find out about their career options. This can be very helpful when deciding their course of study.

University careers teams can help your students at all stages of their job and career search. It could be helping them to find part-time work while they’re studying, or preparing them for their career after graduation.

For example, at Harper Adams, we help with:

• CV writing
• career planning
• volunteering opportunities
• part-time work
• labour market and employment resources
• online applications
• applying for further and postgraduate study.

The list goes on and on, but not everyone realises the extent to which a careers service can help.

For instance, we recently ran a mock assessment centre to prepare some of our students for the various tasks they may face during interview stages. We practiced interview questions, showed them how to share their screen and present PowerPoint slides on Microsoft Teams, and much more. We left no stone unturned.

In fact, following the activities and preparation, one of our students was successful in securing a job after being put through their paces at our assessment centre!

Encourage your students to access their careers service, or get familiar with where it is, as soon as they begin their university journey. They never know when they might need us. We’re here to help them every step of the way!