About work experience

What is it?

Work experience means different things to different people but in essence it is any form of work that you do before you start your career. Even experience you get as part of your career (after graduation) can be counted as work experience. The most important thing to remember is that all work gives you some experience, including bar work, volunteering and Saturday jobs. The experience could take the form of short term, long term (e.g. one year) or part-time employment, and could be paid or unpaid.

Formal work experience as part of a university degree comes under a number of different names, including:

Sandwich and industrial placements: a fixed-term period of assessed, paid work that forms part of your degree. It often lasts for a full year.

Work-based project: a specific piece of assessed work for your course, undertaken at an employer's premises.

Work placement: a period of work experience, which can be paid or unpaid, and is part of a course of study. This can be arranged through your university with an employer or by yourself and is for an agreed period of time.

Internship: a phrase that is increasingly used by large companies and refers to a placement within their organisation, usually over 6-12 weeks during the summer holiday.

Definition of quality work experience

We asked people who work in the field of work experience for a definition of quality work experience and this is what they came up with:

• the student is trained by the higher education institution (HEI) to identify potential learning outcomes;

• objectives are set (by HEI, employer and student);

• supervision is by a supervisor trained in the objectives and learning outcomes of work experience - academic supervision and visit/s take place;

• regular feedback is given;

• an appraisal is given during the work experience and at the end;

• where appropriate, a project is undertaken;

• learning and achievements are articulated by the student in written form;

• an assessment is made, including an assessment of development of skills (by HEI, employer and student);

• recognition, credit or a certificate is awarded.

This ideal will not be possible for all undergraduate work experience, for example in part-time term time bar work. The minimum that could be included within the title of 'quality' will include:

• objectives are set (by the student);

• feedback is given;

• appraisal is undertaken at the end of the experience;

• learning and achievements are articulated by the student in written form and assessment is made of skills development (by student) with employer endorsement.

Other types of work experience

Voluntary work: any type of work undertaken for no payment, usually outside of your course in your spare time.

Part-time work: paid or unpaid work, undertaken either during term-time, in the holidays or both for less than 35 hours per week.

For a project that is providing assessment and accreditation of part-time work look at the CRAC Insight plus programme.

Work shadowing: where you observe a member of staff working in an organisation, and so gain an understanding of what a particular job entails.

Shell STEP: vacation work experience where you undertake a specific project within a small-medium sized business for eight weeks during the summer.

Work experience for graduates

If you reach graduation without having any form of work experience, you may want to consider one of the following options for graduates:

Go Wales: for students and graduates that live and/or study in Wales. Services available include 6 - 10 week project-based placements, currently attracting a wage of £230 per week. This will add some excellent experience to your CV.

Go Wales also offer work tasters. These are unpaid, temporary placements designed to allow students and graduates to gain a little experience in a particular career or job. A work taster can help you decide what you want (or don’t want) to do.

Call the help line on 0845 225 60 50 for more information.

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP): enables graduates to work on an industrial project, normally for two years, but there are some one-year projects available. Most of the schemes are predominately for engineering graduates.

Teach First: attracts, selects, trains, places and supports top graduates to work in challenging schools and for leading employers.

Graduate Advantage: offers students and graduates short and long-term paid work placements with opportunities in all sectors of business and industry across the West Midlands.