Every term Careers and Placements organises events on campus. Now that we’re in week 5, you may have seen emails and social media about some of our careers events so far or you may have been to an event or careers fair. We’ve organised over 100 of them for this term alone!  If you haven’t been to a careers event before or you’re not sure they’re for you, here we’ll explain what they are, the different types and what you can expect to happen at them.

Events in your department – information talks led by a Careers Consultant. These focus on career essentials but are tailored to the department you’re studying in. Some examples of topics covered include, making job applications, CVs, interview skills and career options. You’ll find details of these on your timetable and they’re also listed on Careers Gateway.

Skills and Information sessions: Highlight and explore a particular skill or profession e.g. teacher training applications, career planning, enterprise and assessment centre exercises

Employer presentations: promotional talks from a single organisation. Sometimes they focus on a particular skill sought by the company. They provide a good insight into the culture and recruitment process and if it’s a company you’re thinking of applying to, go and meet the staff and use the opportunity to find out as much as you can to help sharpen up your application. Likewise if you’re not sure whether you want to apply to the company, use the opportunity to find out more about them and whether they would be a good fit for you.

Careers Fairs: large scale recruitment events that focus on a particular sector. We run three fairs in the Autumn term – Law, Technology and a general Graduate Jobs and Internships Fair. At a careers fair, you will encounter large companies with established graduate recruitment schemes who take on a sizeable cohort of new graduate recruits each year.

Panel or networking events: these events bring together speakers from a particular industry and aim to give you an idea of what it’s like to work in that area and how to get there. We try to focus on sectors that typically you wouldn’t see at a careers fair. In the past we have focused on media, arts and heritage, environment and sustainability and also non-profit and public sector. We invite York alumni and individuals to these events who can talk about their own experiences of their role and sector. If you want to find out about a particular industry or what a role involves or just to get an idea of the type of person who works there and the culture of an organisation. You can get all the basics off a company’s website but you can find out so much more from meeting people in the flesh.

 

What’s coming up this week?

With input from graduate recruiters, come and experience some of the activities used at assessment centres. The event will consist of three employer-led workshops focusing on a particular exercise you could encounter at an assessment centre. Featured employers include Charityworks, Bank of England and Teach First.

You can see a list of what else will be happening under the Events menu in Careers Gateway or in the What’s On section on our website.