When I first joined UWE to study Business Management, I knew I had a passion for the subject, but I wasn’t sure which career path I wanted to take. With the support of Careers and Enterprise and browsing the Placement job portal Infohub, I found a role as a Recruitment Coordinator at Bristol based PeopleScout. After a great placement year, they offered me flexible part-time work around my final year studies as well as a graduate job offer!
Dan Bearman, BA (Hons) Business Management and Leadership
‘Not only is it a great chance to start building your network, but you will also have the chance to make lots of new friends.’
These relationships help to open so many doors for you both inside and outside of work, and I guarantee you will have a lot of fun with team night outs and company social events too.
‘With such a great support team at UWE Bristol, you are never alone whilst on placement. ‘
You can reach out for a check-in meeting or advice at any time, and someone will be there to help. Completing the placement module coursework also helps to expand your classroom knowledge and piece the theory that you have studied into your day-to-day work, further enhancing your learning.
A placement year doesn’t have to define who you will become in the future, any experience is better than none.
It’s not only the chance to find something you love, but you may also discover areas of work that you are not so fond of, and being able to learn this early on in your career will help prevent you from making similar mishap decisions in your early career once you have graduated.
‘Graduate employers will gladly hire people without relevant work experience if they have proven they can succeed in another role.’
A lot of interviews involve situation-based questions where you are asked to describe an example of when you have achieved something. Mentioning working towards your degree is a great example that all students can use, but if you can also reference recent full-time work with real-life examples, you stand an even better chance of demonstrating your abilities having proven yourself previously, thus making you a much more justified hire for any graduate job role.
A sandwich year help gives you the mindset required to perform in a job after university, get a head start on your peers, and you will be able to exceed even your own expectations. I would recommend all students that are offered a placement year strongly consider all the good that will come from it.
Since graduating from UWE, Dan is employed by ForgeRock as People Operations Specialist.