Employability Award
Making you future ready
It is a tough and competitive graduate job market out there and you need to stand out from the crowd. We know it can be difficult to write about your knowledge and the qualities and skills you have to offer in the job market. We’re here to help.
The Student Futures Employability Award scheme is a great opportunity to help you understand your skills, strengths and weaknesses, to reflect upon them and then find ways to clearly and positively articulate these attributes to future employers.
The Employability Award scheme gives great insights into your strengths and weaknesses, it helps develop and refine your CV while also giving you some valuable experience and practice in presenting yourself and your work in a professional setting. It helped me rethink how I see my skills and how I can apply them in more ways than one. It was a very useful and fun experience, one that I would highly recommend to other students.
Why get involved?
If you get involved in a wide range of extra-curricular activities, in addition to doing well on your course, you are more likely to gain the skills and other graduate attributes that employers value, and the personal qualities that will help you to succeed in your chosen career.
You might already be doing lots of good things alongside your course – volunteering, or involvement in the Students’ Union and you perhaps have a part-time job, but are you clear about how this could benefit a future employer? The Employability Award will assess and provide structured feedback to you on all the key components in graduate recruitment and selection, including CVs, graduate application questions, presentations and interviews via the Student Futures team.
Year 1 students
If you are keen to get involved from the beginning of your course that’s brilliant, we can support your involvement.
Year 2 students
If you are looking ahead to undertaking placements or other forms of work experience that require you to get your CV in shape, then the scheme is perfect for you.
Final year undergraduate and postgraduate students
If you need to really get organised for the job market, this is a great opportunity for you.
What is involved, how long does it take and what will I be required to do?
It's a three tiered awards scheme, from bronze to gold, and provides recognition for different levels of effort and achievement in employability-related tasks. What better way to practice all these things and develop these important skills and gain an award at the same time?
Aim for Gold! If you are motivated and put effort into these activities in a condensed time period you should be able to get a Gold Award in three - four months.
Award Framework
Bronze Award
- Attend a one-hour induction event. These will run from mid-October onwards. Find out more and sign up
- Complete a work personality questionnaire
- Submit a 400-500 word careers reflection and action plan
Silver Award
- Complete Bronze Award
- Submit a CV which is targeted to a job you’re interested in
- Submit answers to selected competency questions – 3 x 300 words from typical questions asked by placement and graduate job recruiters
- Produce your LinkedIn profile
Gold Award
- Complete the Bronze and Silver awards
- Deliver a 10 minute presentation on a topic of your choice
- Attend a 20 minute interview
We look forward to seeing you at the inductions.
This experience has pushed me to do things which I should have been doing anyways but had not got round to, such as updating my CV and making a LinkedIn account. I’ve also gained self-confidence, can talk about myself, my skills and experiences, and sell myself better to potential employers.
