Employment after university is an important and burning topic, exciting for almost all students. Especially strongly think about those who went to study abroad, made significant efforts and spent a lot of money: will it be worth it? Will my salary pay for my studies? How quickly can I start earning decently?
Our colleagues at Kaplan told how they help their students with employment and gave five tips that are helpful to each graduate, so here are 5 Kaplantipsto help improve your career prospects.
Join professional networks
Professional organizations, business networks, communities and groups are an important element in developing you as a specialist. You will be able to progress in your competence, see how knowledge from the university is applied in practice, get access to useful (and previously closed) resources, events, lectures, webinars. Established communication is a direct way to profitable employment and a good place, and the point here is not in the blat, but in the fact that good specialists are asked for familiar specialists in the first place.
Kaplan introduces its students to professional networks starting with the preparatory course. You can join:
- Project Management Associations
- Association of Chartered Certified Accountants
- Royal Statistical Society
- Institute of Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurs (if your course involves the module "Entrepreneurship" and you successfully complete it, you can even get official recognition of the Institute)
- Law Society of Scotland and others.
Create and constantly replenish your personal portfolio
Portfolio is needed not only by representatives of the creative world! This is a kind of extended resume, where you enter all your achievements, successes, experience, acquired skills and even areas that you are working on / want to work on. Having started to make a portfolio while studying, you will be ready to interest potential employers in graduation.
In the Kaplan Preparatory Course, students compile an online KapPACK portfolio, which consists of 5 sections:
- "About me": available education + extracurricular achievements, events, awards, certificates, diplomas, medals
- "Personal development": an example of how you met and overcame difficulties, how you learned self-organization and time management
- "Academic Research": How You Developed Research Skills, Critical and Analytical Thinking, Which You Have Already Learned at University
- "Communication skills": methods of improving conversational skills that you use - intercultural communication, active participation in classes, experience of debates and public speaking, presentations, round tables.
- "Knowledge, Skills, Experience": What did you learn in the KaplanPreparatoryCourse? How did you apply/prepare to apply this in your studies and in your life?
Get at least minimal work experience
Work experience even before receiving a diploma is a significant plus for the future employer: so you will show that you have already seen and understood how the learned theory behaves in practice.
Kaplan is registered with the Office of Student Affairs: If you are a student of KaplanCollege, you will be helped to find a part-time job for the duration of the preparatory course. And it is not so important whether the vacancy will be closely related to the future specialty or not: in any case, practical skills, observation, and smartness will be useful to you.
Students can become a student representative or ambassador - they help to invent, organize and conduct events, convey the opinion of classmates to the management team. Very useful experience, especially if your specialty is related to working with people, with personnel management.
Many Kaplan universities and colleges offer a year of internship as part of the curriculum, and the Graduate Route work visa, recently introduced for foreign graduates of British universities, will allow you to calmly look for work after graduation, armed with existing experience.
Pay attention to applied learning week and various job fairs, open days
Applied Learning Week is a special Kaplaneventthat is held twice a semester. Instead of regular classes, students are divided into groups and work on a common project, and at the end they gather all groups and share with each other the experiences, knowledge gained and the results of research /experiments.
This is a great opportunity to develop the ability to work in a team, conduct research, organize the work of the group, rank tasks, find information, use new technologies - and, in the end, get out of your comfort zone and increase your ability to work!
Learn all the skills, data, information you get
Throughout your career, you can change your place of work, position, even sphere and specialty several times, because it is so important to be able to transfer your knowledge and skills from one context to another.
The Pathways Preview Virtual Learning Environment Department is designed by Kaplan for those who are just about to join the preparatory course, which will help you get used to and get acquainted with the program before you start your studies, help you organize your time, join the network of students and get to know everyone.
For those who have successfully completed the preparatory course, Pathways Extra is provided - a constant access to their educational materials, developments, reports, online help on the level of the English language (so as not to lower its level, improve further). Access to the KapPACK e-portfolio will also remain (as will the ability to edit it), as will membership in professional organizations and communities.
The main advice is not to waste time in vain! Do not expect that a hundred books read and lectures attended will immediately provide you with a cool warm place: learn more, get maximum experience, go beyond comfort and familiar knowledge, and then you can become a truly sought-after specialist.
