Anna’s Careers Tips: For The New Term

SPS Employability Officer Annamarie shares how SPS students at Kent can make the most of the new term.

Students Working at University of Kent

Welcome back!

Things to do now if….you are new to SPS and the University of Kent then……make the most of your first year! Take some time to decide on some societies and other extracurricular activities that will not only be fun but will also have the added bonus of sharpening transferable skills you already have and developing new ones entirely!

Societies at Kent

Kent has lots of societies that you can get involved with and we mean more than just turning up. Look for opportunities to contribute to the student experience here and grow yourself, if you have a head for budgets and finance, see if there are opportunities for you to do something with this. It all adds to your CV as you move through your study.

MyFolio

MyFolio – This is the PDP package for the capable Kent student! A convenient repository for all of your experiences, academic and professional skills development throughout your time with us. Using MyFolio will enable you to extract all of that valuable information to add to your applications for placements, summer internships and years in industry. You will be amazed at just how much you can forget over three to four busy years with us, MyFolio ensures that you can extract the information as and when you need it.

Make sure that you attend Placements and Employability Lectures in the school and that you make use of the Central Careers and Employability Service.

For stage two students considering a year in industry, now is the time to start taking action. Attend employability lectures and the drop ins that will be made available. Priority will be given to those students who attend lectures. Please check your emails regularly! Anything coming from spsplacements@kent.ac.uk will be related to placements and employability and will contain information about drop ins and any ad hoc workshops that run during the Autumn Term. Regularly checking your emails is good practice and professional development for you all and can be used in applications as evidence of your organisational abilities and skill; attributes that are in high demand by employers.

Ensure that you are signed up to relevant job sites such as Gradcracker, RateMyPlacement, Cogent Skills or sites such as Indeed and that your search parameters are up to date.

Employability Festival 2019

This series of events runs from the Monday 7 to Friday 18 of October 2019 and is a great way to investigate employers, job sectors and roles that might interest you and set you on the path to managing your own skills development in a targeted way that gives you the ownership of the direction that you want to take!

Get to the Fair!

I cannot be emphatic enough when I say that all of you regardless of your course or your current “future” plans should go along. In fact, I expect nothing less of students in SPS because you are smart and engaged students. Nuff said! Looking forward to seeing you there and if you see me do pop over and say hello!