Work placements
Work experience? Just the job
It’s never been more important for pupils in terms of university applications and today’s competitive job market. Paula Lester learns how to attain—and make the most of—the perfect placement
T
HE strangest request I’ve ever had for a work placement was from a pupil who wanted to be a rollercoaster designer,’ reveals
Roedean’s head of careers, Abra Reid. For- tunately, an old girl was able to put her in touch with an actual rollercoaster designer. No matter how unusual the request, Miss Reid is emphatic about the vital role of work experience. ‘It’s essential, particularly in a tight employment market. If you’re going to be successful, you need to have work experience. Employers expect it—if you don’t have it, you’re unlikely to be hired.’ James Virgin, manager at the Harrow
Association for alumni of Harrow School, who works with Harrow’s careers master Damian Cox to organise 90 placements a year for current pupils and recent leavers, is equally convinced that the practice ‘helps boys to stand out from the crowd’. ‘Some 36% of this year’s graduate jobs at Britain’s leading companies will go to applicants who’ve already had work experience with them, so it certainly ups your chances,’ he says. ‘Organ- ising work experience is one of the most important aspects of our programme at the Harrow Association—it proves valuable to the boys for the rest of their lives.’ Undertaking work experience, especially
when you’re unsure about your future career, can seem, at best, daunting and, at worst, dull. Not so, argues Lady Amabel Scott, 20, who enjoyed a spell at The Field when she was at St Mary’s School Ascot. ‘You hear all these terrible stories about work experience being deadly boring, but my time was far better than I expected. They gave me tasks to do that ended up in the magazine, which, at the age of 15, was thrilling,’ enthuses the Duke of Buccleuch’s youngest. ‘I was keen to be a writer at that point, and, as I love the countryside, The Field was a classic maga-zine for me to go to for experience.’ When it comes to securing the best and most
suitable placements for their pupils, both Roedean and Harrow make use of their net- works. With a database of more than 1,300
10 School Life, Spring 2013
old boys to turn to, Mr Virgin is adept at finding placements for Harrow’s Year 10 and sixth-form pupils. ‘Pupils come to see me and say, for example, “Can you help me get a week’s placement in investment bank- ing?”. And I can usually help, as we have Old Harrovian contacts at companies such as UBS and Barclays.’ Although many boys’ top career choices
include finance, property, law and medicine, engineering is becoming an increasingly popular option. ‘Six boys recently went to CERN near Geneva [home of the Large Had- ron Collider] for a very successful week,’ recounts Mr Virgin. ‘And boys who are interested in working in the media have worked as runners on films and TV pro- grammes. One boy was with [the cricket writer] Ivo Tennant at the media centre at Lord’s and others have worked with Johnno Spence [who runs a leading sports PR and marketing firm] on the racecourse.’
work experience, you’re unlikely to be hired
‘ If you don’t have A database of willing contacts for the
girls to choose from is equally important at Roedean. But this year, year 10 pupils will also benefit from a formal partnership with East Sussex County Council. ‘This is a great help to us, as the council is able to carry out health-and-safety assessments in regard to work placements and also verify public-liability insurance,’ says Miss Reid. For those whose parents are trying to
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persuade them to do a vocational degree, work experience can help to determine whether or not they want to go down that route. ‘In some cases, work experience has given the boys an opportunity to realise that they don’t want to do a particular job after all,’ admits Mr Virgin. ‘Some are under pressure from their parents to get into the
City or become a lawyer, and by doing a work placement, they at least get an inkling as to what doing that sort of job means.’ For Roedean’s Miss Reid, however, the
experience youngsters gain from working in a professional environment means more than where they do it. ‘The job that they’re actually doing during work experience isn’t make or break in terms of their future career choices. It’s important that the girls are confident in the world of work and placements help to achieve that.’ This sentiment is certainly true for 20-
year-old University of Leeds broadcast journalism student Helen Hoddinott. Having done stints at an advertising company and an NHS speech therapist while at The May- nard School in Devon, she landed the work experience placement of a lifetime during her gap year. Thanks to family friends and contacts, she travelled to Manila to work in the communications department of a concrete company, at the Philippine Daily Inquirer and for the ABS–CBN TV channel. ‘It was a unique, eye-opening experience,’ admits Miss Hoddinott. ‘I did things there
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