Okay, so ideally you’d like to have a holiday at some point in the summer vacation and rightly so. What with a full academic year of assignments, essays, tutorials, lectures and exams – you’ve earned the break.

However, with 13 weeks of vacation, it’s also an ideal time to get some work experience in whatever shape that comes. Work experience can give you:

• An insight into a particular type of work or sector
• Extra cash (yes, lots of internships and summer jobs are paid)
• Skills and experience to add to your CV and to use in future applications.

Lots of graduate recruiters offer summer internships of anything up to 3 months and these, more formal, structured schemes, are important in gaining experience and understanding of a large company. Some employers also use them as way of recruiting to their graduate programmes, so that’s why you’ll hear a lot about this type of work experience.

Typically, employers advertise these internships early in the Autumn Term for the following summer start, so by this time of year, many vacancies will have already been filled. However, some employers may still be recruiting or have last minute internships to fill, so you may see vacancies still being advertised now. Check out the work experience information sheet for job sites, where internships are featured.

Not everyone will either want or get this sort of formal internship, however. So, what other options are there?

Careers’ Student Internship Bureau works with a range of employers (typically in the York and North Yorkshire region) to create project-based internships of up to 12 weeks. The beauty of these internships is it offers an opportunity to work on a particular piece of work, giving you responsibility, as well as a focused challenge and get paid!

SIB internships are advertised on Careers Gateway under the ‘Exclusive opportunities@ York’ tab, with full details of how to apply. To get a taste of past internships, have a look at the case studies on the SIB web page.

To meet some employers with summer opportunities, come along to the Recruitment Fair on 12 June, 12 noon – 3pm in the Ron Cooke Hub on Campus East. More details available soon.

If you fancy doing something else this summer or want to get experience in a particular type of work, access the work experience information sheets for vacancy sites, tips and advice.

Finally, if you have any questions about internships and other types of work experience, come along to Careers drop-in, which runs 11am – 1pm every weekday (except Tuesday) in term-time. Just call in to the Careers building and have a chat.

Alternatively, join our online Careers Q&A about summer opportunities on 25 April. Log on any time between 11am – 1pm to ask a question.

So, book your holiday by all means, but make sure you grab some work experience this summer too!