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What 3 tips should international students take on this Spring Break?

With your spring break soon approaching, you have an opportunity to take some time from university and rest before the start of your summer term. We always advocate for small changes or additions to your employability plan to help push your career goals while you’re still studying. This break comes at a useful time for university students as you have time to pause before a final push for this academic year. To help you utilise this time, we’re sharing some ideas to help you position yourself for career success. These suggestions won’t take much time to implement and can also be carried out while travelling or around other activities you may have already agreed to.

Make a new connection

We often promote the benefits of a LinkedIn account from the start of your student journey as skills and connections be added to slowly throughout your studies. While a LinkedIn account is a valuable asset that allows you to link to your industry, alumni and news in your chosen area, there are other networking opportunities to look out for. Depending on where you are in your career plan, think about what would be most useful to you at this stage. The purpose of networking is to help connect you to your industry and gain advice and connections. This can be carried out through LinkedIn which shows you clearly where these links are, or you could try these in person. Are there any events next term that would help you to meet new people? This can help you meet other students and staff in person and broaden the pool of people you know in the UK. Use this break to research upcoming events and careers events and set up or add to your LinkedIn account.

Update your CV

It’s key to keep on top of your resume so that when it comes to finding a role you’re not creating a document from scratch, by adding your skills as you progress you’re less likely to forget what you have already done. Think about your studies and work experience so far and use this to create your CV, we also have a handy CV tool on our website if you want a template to follow. This exercise can be done at any point of your studies, the aim isn’t solely to begin building a document you can use for graduate roles but most importantly to help you spot gaps in your skills. When you know the areas you could improve or add to, it gives you the ability to look for work experience that will support these skills. Look at some role descriptions for the types of job you may apply for to help you focus on the skills you need for your dream role.

Find a summer plan

Once you have thought about your resume, what skills you have and have found some useful additions you’d like to strive for it’s a good time to think about how to implement this into a SMART plan. A SMART action plan uses five characteristics to help you achieve your goals in a realistic manner. It incorporates specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based goals to help you succeed. Some examples for how this could be used is with a summer internship, setting yourself a goal to apply for a specific opportunity that will add to your talent and help you when applying for a graduate role. For more careers advice and tips for international students register for GradLink today!