We have a guest post today from the Employability Points Scheme. If you haven’t yet signed up to the EP Scheme, read on to find out how you could get rewarded for doing all the extra-curricular things you already do to enhance your employability.
Enhance your employability alongside your History Degree!
In the graduate job market, it is now becoming increasingly essential to find ways to stand out from the crowd! Academic success remains imperative, but employers are increasingly looking for more and in particular, soft skills and relevant work experience.
To ensure you gain both these skills and experiences, the University of Kent created the Employability Points (EP) Scheme.
The first part of the scheme requires you to undertake co-curricular activities and some History-relevant examples may include:
- Join the History and/or Military History Society.
- Volunteer with a local Heritage organisation such as Canterbury Cathedral, Royal Engineers Museum and Historic Dockyard Chatham.
- Become a Student Ambassador and/or Academic Peer Mentor.
- Getting involved with the student newspaper Inquire.
- Attend conferences and open lectures.
- Join a Community Action Group such as Kent RAG.
By getting involved with these activities, you can log them on MyFolio and in turn receive ‘points’.
You earn as many points as possible whilst at you are studying at Kent and towards the end of Term Two, if you have earned enough points, you can use them to apply for EP ‘rewards’.
Rewards include internships (cost 200 points), work experience (cost 150 points), work shadowing (cost 100 points) and experience days (cost 75 points) to name a few.
Over 140 companies and organisations support the EP Scheme and for this year, we can already confirm the following rewards:
- Canterbury Cathedral – work experience in the Archives and Library
- Historic Dockyard Chatham – work experience in collections, education and outreach.
- Royal Engineers Museum – work experience in the archives, as well as an exclusive archival tour.
So far, we already have some amazing rewards confirmed for this year:
However, you may also be aware that as a History student you are developing some amazing transferable skills and in the past, students have undertaken EP rewards with local councils, government agencies, digital marketing agencies and much more!
For instance, the EP scheme is also offering amazing rewards with the following companies:
- Yoyo Design – project management internship
- Tunbridge Wells Borough Council – shadowing the Chief Executive
- DSTL – government research (TBC).
- Civil Service Fast Stream – shadow senior civil servants.
- MCM Net – content writing internship
- Waterstones – publishing and sales work experience
For example, Valeriya Leonteva undertook an Accounts Management internship with Reflect Digital in 2017 and you can find out more in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FhsUtdwbTI Also, History student, Chris Day undertook an internship with Medway Council working in the Housing Department – you can find out more here.
If you are rewarded by the EP Scheme, you will gain the chance to attend the annual EP Rewards Evening! Here, top scoring students are awarded Amazon vouchers by a variety of companies and we can already confirm that the Civil Service Fast Stream will award £150 Amazon voucher to the highest scoring student studying a heritage related degree! Last years winner can be seen below!
It may be the case you are already undertaking co-curricular activities and if so, you just need to claim your points to get rewarded! If not, there is literally hundreds of activities available for you to get involved with, and by doing-so, you will not only enhance your University of Kent experience, but you will be recognised and rewarded by the EP Scheme.
For more information, visit www.kent.ac.uk/employabilitypoints or contact the team via employabilitypoints@kent.ac.uk