Making the Most of Your Placement

John Neugebauer, Jane Evans-Brain

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781847875686, 9781847875679
• eBook ISBN: 9781446243886
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

A new addition to the SAGE Study Skills series, this book is an invaluable resource for any business and management student intending to do a work placement as part of their degree. The text provides practical and thorough advice to help students select, prepare and navigate through organizational life.

• The book covers every step of the work placement process, from planning, making contact and interviewing, through to reflective learning and how to make the most of the placement experience and the opportunities it presents for future careers
• Each chapter features testimonials from students who have done placement years, offering experiences and advice
• Checklists to help students cover every consideration for commencing on their placement
• An extensive list of useful websites and contacts, as well as further reading suggestions.

SAGE Study Skills are essential study guides for students of all levels. From how to write great essays and succeeding at university, to writing your undergraduate dissertation and doing postgraduate research, SAGE Study Skills help you get the best from your time at university. Visit the SAGE Study Skills hub for tips, resources and videos on study success!

Chapter 1

Introduction

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Chapter contents

1.1	About this study guide
1.2	The wider picture of graduate job prospects
1.3	What are placements and internships?
1.4	Why you should consider a placement
1.5	When a placement may not be such a good idea
1.6	Large organisation or small?
1.7	Home or away?
1.8	Timeline to success
1.9	Summary
1.10	Further information

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1. 1 About this study guide

So you are thinking about doing a placement or an internship? If you manage this opportunity well, it will help both your academic success, and your future career prospects. This book has been written for undergraduates and postgraduates who have already planned, or are considering, a placement or internship as part of their courses. It has been written based not only on the authors’ personal experiences of working in organisations with university students, but also after research with a selection of universities, organisations, and students themselves. It has been designed to help you whether you are doing a specialist course requiring a placement, or a more general course, which may not even require a mandatory placement of internship.

Getting the most from your placement is not just about finding somewhere to work for a year, but also about making the most of the learning opportunities which this will present. So this study guide will take you through finding, undertaking, and learning from a work placement or internship. To do this, the book is divided into the following sections to reflect the different stages of placement.

Introduction

Chapter 1 is an introduction to placements – what they are, and why you should think carefully about whether a placement is right for your studies, and longer term career.

Section 1

In Chapter 2, we will give further guidance on how to find a placement, and, in Chapter 3, how to apply. Being shortlisted for a placement opportunity is one step nearer success, but you need to make sure that you maximise your chances in interview and in assessment centres. So in Chapter 4, we explain how to prepare for interview, group assessments, presentations, and the battery of tests which you can expect at assessment centres. In Chapter 5, we look at the important not-so-small print – tax, work permits, and what to do if you plan to work abroad for your placement or are a visitor to the UK.

Section 2

For many placement students, settling into a new organisation can be very different from the student or vacation employment experience. In Chapters 6 and 7, we discuss the practical steps of settling into your new organisation, and outline your employment rights and obligations. To support your learning and development in your placement, Chapter 8 explains how you can make the most of learning opportunities generally.

Section 3

It can be easy to think that university is somehow in another world, once you are in an organisational work role, and particularly easy to slip by or be ‘too busy’ to start academic work, especially if you have a dissertation to complete. In Chapter 9, we provide advice on planning and delivering your dissertation, and ensuring that you set aside sufficient time for this.

Section 4

And so after all the preparation and hard work finding and doing your placement, it is over. If you are still not sure whether or not a placement is right for you, or where or how long that placement should be, Chapter 10 closes this guide with the accounts of three actual students’ stories about their placements. They discuss what went well in their placement, the challenges they faced, and what they would have done differently.

1.2 The wider picture of graduate job prospects

For many organisations, engaging student placements and internships is not just about offering development opportunities for students, nor even about getting work done. Although these are both important, placements will often be an integral part of the organisation’s graduate recruitment process: organisations using this approach may recruit 70–90 per cent of their graduates in this way. But even where graduate recruitment is not part of an organisation’s objective, universities, organisations, and students themselves can testify to the value a placement brings to longer term job applications, and a renewed enthusiasm and application to university studies.

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Why organisations offer work placements – some examples of what employers say about their views of a successful placement

• A student who is willing to become fully immersed into the organisation and relevant department(s). For example, our current placement student has been carrying out testing on a new software system, this is a business critical system and his input has been valid and appreciated. (Financial Services Company)
• Referral for a conditional job offer on graduation at the conclusion of the placement. (LloydsTSB)
• We consider direct applications – so it is important that applicants research us in advance, and clearly show how they could achieve development with us, as well as giving something to the organisation … Placements must not be about photocopying or making coffee – so we find a role with tangible outcomes, such as in a project, or in research. (Zurich Financial Group)
• Placements are a very valuable experience. With new ideas and up to date skills, we learn as much from them as we hope they learn from us. (UK Border Agency)

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It has been estimated that approximately 29 per cent of UK students undertook some form of internship during their final two years of study (Universum, 2006). But this lags behind our closest European Community competitors where 66 per cent of German students and 79 per cent of French students undertook some form of internship. It is little wonder, therefore, that UK Regional Skills Partnerships include Graduate Placement Programmes as part of their Higher Education and Higher Level Skills objectives (see, for example, South West of England Regional Development Agency, Graduates 4 Business).

Students who have completed a placement or an internship are more likely to obtain a good degree than students of similar ability without a placement. And students who have worked on a placement and achieve a 2.2 degree are as likely to find graduate level careers as students with a 2.1 degree who have not completed a placement. So a placement has a double benefit in helping you to find a graduate level job, and in obtaining a higher degree classification.

But irrespective of the chances of improving your course marks, the value of a good placement or internship is in helping you to understand better the type of work you wish to do, and with whom you wish to do it.

The key is how to make the most of your placement and internship opportunities – finding the best placement opportunities, competing to get a place, and making the most of the learning, development and networking opportunities your experience offers. This book has been written in the chronological order of the placement process to help you navigate through each stage of the placement process.

We take you through all steps of your internship and placement, step by step, from search, application, placement itself, to making the most of your placement afterwards too. The book draws on hints and tips from students who have been through the process already, research with a selection of universities, and research with organisations themselves.

Think back to how long, as a student, you prepared for university. For a few, the idea of a university place may have been quite late into the final years of school, or have even come after school. But for most students, planning and preparations for university start three or four years previously: in choosing the right subjects, building CVs, and starting to think about the right courses and locations for your studies.

If you have chosen a course with a placement or an internship, it makes sense that similar care and thought need to be given to choosing the right placement, and making the most of it. Your placement year is likely to be very different from work experience you may have had as a student, as one student commented:

The change from a part-time job in a shop to my placement is astounding! … it can be lonely and very difficult at times.

But despite the challenges, the vast majority of students would summarise their placement experiences in the same way as this student:

Definitely do a placement. It will really boost your confidence and your capabilities.

The key is for good preparation and personal management whilst on your placement.

The first question to consider is whether a placement is for you. What are the benefits of deferring completion of your studies, and if you do so, how do make the most of it?

In 2007, the Association of Graduate Recruiters estimated that, on average, 29 graduates were chasing each graduate vacancy, and that for some organisations, the number was as high as 104 per vacancy. But UK employers frequently bemoan the fact that graduates do not have the necessary skills. Why?

Despite the improvement in degree classes, and the wide availability of specialist and general courses, employers regularly say that graduate applicants lack the skills and the competences they are looking for. For example, in 2008 People Management, the professional journal for HR specialists, suggested that two thirds of UK graduates lacked adequate communication and interpersonal skills, and 54 per cent lacked leadership and managerial skills. In a conference launching the Confederation of British Industry’s Higher Education Task Force, employer representatives said that more than a fifth of employers were dissatisfied with graduates’ soft skills, communication, and self-management. One representative was even more blunt – saying that students needed to ‘get up in the morning’.

You may have your own views about the validity of these opinions and statistics. Business dissatisfaction about graduate readiness for employment is not just a twenty-first...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledge
• 1 Introduction
• Section 1 Getting a Placement
• Section 2 Managing Your Placement
• Section 3 University and Placement
• Section 4 Placements in Perspective
• Appendix Useful Websites
• Bibliography
• Index