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When a student is pursuing a degree, he or she should already be thinking about career prospects. It is my firm belief that when you attend university/college doors to many valuable resources open that you should make use of to build a satisfying and successful career path. While we all know that prior work experience is beneficial it is not the only way to improve employability. There are many ways to ensure that when you graduate you are industry ready, you just need to show some initiative. A few things that will go a long way in helping you build the career of your dreams are:
Craft a perfect CV!
The first thing any student should do is to identify what kind of job they want to do and figure out how it relates to the careers/courses they are pursuing. The most basic thing would be to keep adding relevant projects they do during the course to their CV. This way they can keep a log of what they’re doing to increase the chances of their employability which can be really helpful as it becomes almost like a clear pathway for students to understand which direction they are heading towards from a professional point of view. Noting down the projects they are doing in various classes, extracurricular activities etc all adds towards their employability by making a CV impressive.
Build Resources
Employers prefer hiring people who are resourceful and independent. Hence, we strongly recommend students leverage n number of resources at their disposal and work independently to skill themselves better.
Participate in every opportunity coming your way
Students should be taking part in all opportunities that come their way, be it joining a student group or club or society or even starting a club by themselves. In doing so they work towards their employability indirectly. This way they expose themselves to different skills that they’re not going to get from their program of study by any means. These skills are actually what will come in handy when the students step out into the ‘real’ world as they would be the practical knowledge students have gained over the years through their peers and by themselves. There are times when these societies or clubs are in a crisis and how the students running them come up with innovative solutions to tackle the crisis is an ideal situation where students can learn a lot…. Something they wouldn’t learn inside a closed classroom.
Talk to your personal tutor
Developing a potential relationship between a tutor and a student plays a key role in a student’s life. Personal tutoring embodies the student’s relationship with the university, suggesting that
it has the potential to provide insights beyond that specific relationship to the institution and higher education context. Students need to understand that talking to their personal tutor is really important. Whenever they see something that interests them, speak to the Academics and see what comes out of that conversation. Having a bond with your personal tutor is no less than having a golden ticket to employability, Employers and a great Network. If a student is interested in a career in chemical engineering, no one is better for them to ask about that career than the tutor who is teaching the module on chemical engineering. The students don’t seek a career advisor blindly although they should talk to the people who are already doing the job or are in the same field they want to enter!
Forge a network
Having a strong network can be a huge plus when it comes to employability. Students should think about forging a network at the university level because it is the key time to do that. University is the best exposure a student can get to start building a network. Their peers at the university, if you’re moving into accommodation the people they are meeting there, and they go out, talk to people, try to build up a network. It is not just about adding people on LinkedIn, it is about having conversations, meeting people and forging those relationships can go a long way and one never knows who might pop back up with an amazing opportunity career-wise. Understand that every reaction is transactional so reach out to as many people as possible while on campus and work on creating their network!
The author is Head of Student Experience and Wellbeing, University of Birmingham, Dubai
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