Spotting the right route      

 

 

Which work experience?                       

Describes the value of work experience and the opportunities for both paid and unpaid placements, internships and training schemes.

Intermediate Labour Market

Any intermediate labour, involving work experience such as volunteering, placements, internships, and training schemes, can be a great route to a job. Employers value it highly. However young people often undervalue it. Most careers advice coming from schools, colleges and universities inevitably directs people more to full-time jobs that the intermediate labour market.

There are many different types of work experience:

After University or College

Doing paid or unpaid work for a specific short period within an organisation, often with support and training and a clear project, volunteer or job description.

Internship

This is another term for placement. It is mainly used in the US and Canada but is increasingly used by large companies and refers to a placement within their organisation. In France an intern is called a Stagiaire.

Training Scheme

Doing paid work with specific on-the-job accredited training.

At University or College

Sandwich course

Doing paid or unpaid work in an organisation as part of a university course, varying form 6 to 40 weeks.

Work-based project

Doing a specific piece of assessed work for a course, undertaken at an employer's premises. Sometime these are done by student teams working with employers.

Part-time work

Paid or unpaid work during a university course. This is best when it develops a variety of transferable experiences and skills especially teamwork, negotiation, communication and problem-solving.

Work Shadowing

Observing a member of staff working in an organisation, and so gaining an understanding of what a particular job entails. This can be from one day to two weeks.

Value of work experience

Universities and colleges are not the only places where learning takes place. A qualification is often just the starting point to an environmental job.

It is additional experience that gets you the job. It is impossible to overstate the value of work experience, whether paid or unpaid, in helping to develop expertise.

In the environmental sector it is not just the skills and knowledge you gain from work placements that count in your favour but the commitment and motivation such placements demonstrate. The biggest hurdle many graduates face is the requirement by employers that they have 2 to 3 years relevant experience before applying for even quite junior jobs.

How do you gain that experience if you can't get a job? How do you break out of this chicken-and-egg situation?

There are a number of options, some depending on whether you can afford not to work for money for a while.

Try to get involved in activities to boost your experience from the time you leave school. If you leave it until you begin to think about job applications in your final year it will be too late. Work pressures may get in the way and by then you will be competing with applicants who have shown long-term commitment.

Check out what the employers want you to have gained from work experience and see if there is some way you could acquire this knowledge and skills via another route.

Value for young people

• Additional money when funds are low and loans are high, especially as a student or under-employed graduate.
• First step into a career
• Foot in the door to a job, which can act as an extended job interview.
• Opportunity to learn about different employment sectors and their cultures.
• Develop key work skills

Value for employer

Cost-effective way of getting a specific project done, if it is not too demanding.

National Council for Work Experience promotes, supports and develops quality work experience for the benefit of students, employers and the economy. NCWE provides list of work experience providers accompanied with database to search by season, location and term, a student guide to assist with development and learning skills can be downloaded and a section on case studies.

Environmental Placements and Internships

This PDF file describes the value of work experience and different ways of finding opportunities for work experience – looking locally, nationally and internationally.

There are sections on:

• UK Environmental Placement Programmes
• Business Environmental Education Partnerships
• International Environmental Internships
• University Placement Programmes
• Graduate Placement Programmes
• International Placement Programmes
• Training Schemes
• Work-based projects