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Top 3 tips to increase your employability over the holiday season while studying in the UK

With the holiday season fast approaching, it’s natural to be thinking of ways to recuperate after a busy term at university. This break from studying is also a great opportunity to start thinking about the direction of your career and small changes that could help propel you towards a graduate job. By choosing one of these ideas to look at over the holidays, you can enjoy your break knowing that you’ve also made some progress on increasing your employability.

Think about work experience.

Work experience is a topic that comes up time and time again as it can be difficult to try and think about adding to your work-load while studying however this is key to demonstrating your skills to employers. One way to start looking for how to add to your skills is to look at the job description for a graduate role you’re interested in and see where the gaps are in your skills. This will show you areas you can grow and give you direction when looking for opportunities. Work experience comes in many forms, try talking to your Careers Team for advice as they will have good local knowledge or links to opportunities. It’s also a good idea to consider a volunteer role which may be more flexible around your studies and give you valuable experience. UK employers aren’t concerned with if you have been paid for a role or not, they just want to see that you have the appropriate skills to work with them.

Update your CV

Have you started your CV? It might feel a little early depending on what year of study you are in however starting this document to log your skills is a good way to prepare for finding a graduate role. As you progress through your degree, you can add skills as you acquire them which means that when you find a role to apply for you have all these details at your fingertips and can simply adapt to the role in question. If you’re struggling with where to start, try GradLink’s CV builder which is a free tool to help you know where to start.

Research

This time away from university provides the perfect space to start some fact-finding before you return to your studies in the new year. Do you know what type of company you would like to work for? The best way to start, is to look at what roles are available and see who is offering those roles. Then, you can search for the company on LinkedIn and check out their website to understand what it might be like working for that organisation. You can also look at the employer profiles listed on GradLink, there you can search for jobs in your industry by country or look at a database of employers looking for international talent. By starting to understand what companies are looking for at this stage will help you to determine suitable jobs when you start applying for your graduate job.