…for dancing in the streets, maybe, but it’s also a great time for building up your work experience.

It could be a formal, three month internship, a few week’s work experience, a volunteering scheme or some ‘portfolio’ work, spanning a number of different jobs.

It’s all work experience that can help build your CV, your skills and strengths, and your insight into various types of work and sectors. These are the things that can inform your career choices and identify what further information you need to make those future decisions.

If you’ve already got your summer sorted, that’s great, but if not, read on…

Good starting points to find work over the summer, include our web resources and info sheets.

The Look for Work section of our website gives useful jobs sites for internships and part-time/temporary work.

The Internship Bureau works with local employers to create project-based, paid summer internships. Vacancies for these types of opportunities are beginning to be advertised on Careers Gateway, so look out for them under the ‘Exclusive opportunities @York’ tab or make sure you’re receiving our regular emails. You can tick the ‘Placements and Internships’ option on your personal profile in Careers Gateway.

Look out for volunteering opportunities in York (or your home area) for over the summer vac. You can check out www.do-it.org for some ideas in your particular UK location.

Why not also take the chance to develop particular skills or knowledge. It could be through a MOOC (free, online courses), online journals, professional associations’ websites or discussion groups and forums.

Finally, if you’re planning to travel this summer, be sure to record your experience and the skills you develop during the time. You may have gone travelling for the fun and different cultures and food, but you’ll be using some important skills in language, communication, problem solving, social awareness, planning and even possibly resilience!

Remember, whatever your summer involves, everything can count towards your development – so get planning your summer steps.

If you need some further pointers or help with deciding what to do, call into one of our Drop-in Sessions in Careers (Tues – Fri, 11am – 1pm in term-time).