Where does the value lie in work experience?

Before university I worked on a building site and on the railways at different times. During university I sold ice cream, worked in a power station. I took a job relevant to my degree on graduating, but the experience those four jobs gave me mixing with people in the real world and seeing how employers operated was invaluable.

The one thing that took me time to conquer was using the telephone (we never had one at home so used one very irregularly). I would think hard about what I was going to say before I picked up the phone. It took quite a while to use it more naturally.

I did not do a placement at university but made good use of the long vacation. Thanks to a friend of my father I was offered a place working with a small specialist company and had the opportunity to repair and use specialist scientific equipment. It was not only very rewarding but gave me my first opportunity to work in a very different environment from my university. The downside was that I had to stop what I was doing and go home at 5pm prompt every day, even if I was in the middle of a job. It convinced me that I should look aim for a job that offered more flexibility. For my efforts, I was paid £5 a week. The next two vacation jobs I had to compete for. They were respectably paid and more relevant to my subsequent career in research.

When interviewing, I have taken an interest in what students have done before university, during the vacations etc. Working behind a bar or in a supermarket are easy options and help in development of interpersonal skills, time management, and so on, but better candidates often find more challenging and useful temporary work. It’s worth exploring to find out whether this was good fortune or the result of their determination. In the past I have seen students who have done worthwhile unpaid vacation work but with most students now living in debt, this might no longer be a valid approach, however valuable it can be on a CV. Work placements or how you spent the vacations makes for interesting discussion in an interview, or should do.

From an employer’s perspective, we love to see work experience on CVs, because hiring new employees can be a risky business and solid evidence of work experience helps to avoid worries about individuals not being able to “get stuck in” and get things done.

In technical fields, like engineering and science, we also tend to look for good A level and university grades, because not everything we do is simple and easy to understand and evidence of exam successes tends to correlate with the ability to learn new (role specific) knowledge and skills.

We also interview potential new recruits – but usually only if their CVs are good enough to merit further consideration. Also, increasing use seems to be made of aptitude tests and “assessment centers”, to check that individuals have all the right initial skills (e.g. written and oral comprehension plus numeracy) and the ability to work as team members within business units. As regards the latter, it is alway good to see CVs that refer to participation in “clubs & societies” because most employers are looking for individuals with both personal & team skills.

“Passionate” is always worth a sceptical look.
Apart from competence, the main problem i and others have seen in employing people is “attitude”. Do they care about the quality of their work, learn from and care about mistakes, go the extra mile, rise to a challenge, address a crisis or a difficult deadline by putting in the extra effort needed? Or are they 9-5ers who think they are entitled to a job? Something you may not discover for 6-12 months, once the honeymoon period is over.

As work forms a very large part of your life, best to enjoy what you do and get real job satisfaction which your own attitude and efforts can help.

The best work experience we have found is to take a degree which offers Year 3 as a year in industry .My son applied for about 30 posts and got 5 interviews with 3 job offers . He works full time, finishing in Sept 2018 and earns a respectable over min wage salary . The firm are keen for him to finish his final Uni year and give most interns a job with them with incentives for getting a 1st .