Summer vacation jobs: make them work for you
Having a truly memorable summer isn’t just about heading to Ayia Napa. A holiday job can improve your understanding of working life and boost your prospects when applying for graduate jobs. Find out what other students have got out of their summer.
The classic summer holiday job is the perfect opportunity to get set up with a top-notch CV, real business experience and enviable industry contacts. It may not be as easy as lying around a pool with a huge ice cream, but it doesn’t have to be ‘work’ in the traditional sense. Working, travelling and volunteering all have their benefits, providing future employers with evidence of initiative, motivation, enthusiasm and discipline. Here are some personal views on summer working to get you thinking.
Prepare for your career
Summer holidays are the perfect opportunity to get some quality experience working for a company or in a sector that interests you. Alexa Sharples, an international relations undergraduate from the London School of Economics, investigated working in the energy sector through a summer placement at Shell International. Based within the attraction and recruitment (A&R) department she was given the task of overseeing a particular project.
The message from graduate recruiters is clear – all work experience is good.
‘My main responsibility was designing a framework to measure the effectiveness of on-campus brand and communications activities in the UK,’ she explains. ‘This involved working with and coordinating key stakeholders within A&R and other departments and spending a lot of time working with external PR and advertising agencies. Beyond my primary task, I also attended departmental meetings, spent a day working at a PR company, helped organise a masters student’s research project examining interns’ perspectives on the company, and aided in evaluating advertising outlets.’
Build on your degree skills
Jerome Trehan, a clinical psychology undergraduate at Lincoln University, took part in BUNAC’s Summer Camp USA programme. As a counselor and instructor in St Louis, Missouri, he worked with children from disadvantaged backgrounds for three months.
‘In the application form they asked where I would like to go and what type of camp I wanted to work for. I was happy to work anywhere, especially with disadvantaged children. They could not have put me in a more suitable camp for what I’m studying.’ As well as providing an environment where Jerome could work on his key skills such as communication and teamwork ability, his vacation work was a good opportunity to expand on knowledge acquired through his degree course.
Explore the world of careers
Daniel Goodacre, a manufacturing engineering undergraduate at Queens’ College, University of Cambridge found out the benefits of arranging an overseas placement with a reputable and established organisation when he applied to the International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience (IAESTE) programme. IASTE allows degree students studying science, engineering, technology and the applied arts to receive paid, course-related technical training abroad for eight to twelve weeks over the summer.
‘I wanted to complete a work placement in the United States and was advised that this was the best way to go about securing the illusive work visa,’ Daniel says. ‘However, when the list of possible placement countries arrived it occurred to me that I would never have the opportunity to work in, or perhaps even visit, any of them at another point in my life. This led me to shortlist working in countries such as Egypt, Croatia and Oman.’
‘I was allocated a position with the US engineering consultancy at their office in Oman and assigned to the Sohar Industrial Port project management team. My accommodation, meals and transportation to the office were all provided,’ Daniel explains. ‘I was involved with a number of aspects of the project, including allocating tie-in points to a number of the plots and coordinating the users so that services could be delivered to the location required. I produced charts to show the predicted construction progress and critical dates for roads around the site, and designed and implemented a drawing database to track the issuing and updating of construction drawings. I gained a great deal of engineering experience.’
Other benefits of organised schemes include the guarantee of continued support during your time abroad, good rates of pay and support with virtually every aspect of your experience, from accommodation to travel arrangements. Then again, if you’re more of a blag-your-way-into-a-job-at-a-llama-farm sort of person then there are also plenty of opportunities to organise your own work abroad.
Standard summer jobs count
The message from graduate recruiters is clear – all work experience is good. ‘It adds to your CV and helps recruiters as well as helping you,’ explains Catherine Scurr, recruitment manager for TTPCom.
Stephen Mulvenna, graduate recruitment manager at Sainsbury’s, believes that time spent travelling, volunteering or working abroad is an excellent way to improve your employability. ‘These experiences offer the chance to gain unique skills as well as improve your independence and familiarity with budgeting and planning,’ he explains.
However, not everyone gets an internship or goes overseas for a placement – sometimes you just have to do a job that brings in some cash. Catherine says that being able to show evidence of the experience acquired is the crucial thing. ‘Even casual work in a shop or bar during the holidays indicates a willingness to interact with the world, gain customer service ability and improve communication skills,’ she explains. ‘But what can really help us to differentiate between candidates is the evidence they give to back up claims of the expertise gained.’
Stephen agrees that the usefulness of temporary work varies from one candidate to another depending on how it’s sold. ‘Although it depends on the particular type of experience, how a candidate expresses their skills and sells themselves during the interview process is paramount,’ he says. ‘They must be able to show that they’ve made the best use of the available time and resources.’
To do this try taking on extra responsibility, such as offering to lock-up and set the alarm or manage a particular shift. You might not get paid any extra, but things like this can make graduate recruiters sit up and take a second look at you.
Finally, remember that it’s your most recent experience that’s significant to recruiters. Even if you’ve spent every other vacation trying to manoeuvre the TV so that you can see it in the garden, make sure your last ever summer holiday is one to impress, whether you tackle a bunch of rowdy Americans on a summer camp, take a placement abroad or join a company you rate for an internship.
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