If you know what graduate job you want to do, getting relevant work experience will boost your employability. If you don’t, what better way to experience different sectors and build your transferable skills?

Today, the key to landing yourself a great job is work experience, work experience, work experience! You must stand out from the hundreds of other eager applicants who are fighting for the same graduate jobs as you. Work experience will boost your CV and give you a taste of different working environments.

Work-experience opportunities

Although many formal summer placements are open only to penultimate-year students, there are plenty of other forms of work experience you can do, such as part-time work.

Your second term at university is also the perfect time to start planning some work experience for the summer months. Could you do some voluntary work, either in the UK or abroad, or informal work shadowing?

Work experience for freshers

There are many different types of work experience you can undertake to gain career skills and experience, and earn money at the same time. Starting when you are a student will give you more time and allow you to avoid any panic when you graduate.

Type of work experience	What it means
Internship	Work experience within a large organisation. Usually paid.
Mentoring	Working under the direction of a more experienced colleague and benefiting from his/her advice. Usually paid.
Part-time work	Work undertaken while studying. Paid.
Placement	Work experience of an agreed length taken as part of a study programme. Paid or unpaid.
Sandwich placement	Assessed work untaken as part of a study programme. Paid.
Sector-skills workshop	Skills workshop devoted to developing non-academic skills necessary for a particular employment sector. Unpaid.
Skills workshop	Identifies and develops key transferable skills. Unpaid.
Study abroad	Exchange with overseas university to gain experience of a different culture/language in addition to subject of study. Unpaid.
Work shadowing	Observing an employee doing their job in order to learn what it entails. Unpaid.
Work taster	Temporary placements to gain experience of a particular job. Unpaid.
Year out	Working / travelling / volunteering for a year before / after studying. Paid or unpaid.

Work experience for specific careers

Some careers have very set career paths and entry requirements that include substantial early involvement in the field. Prospective barristers, for example, can apply for pupillages. For some career areas, such as public relations and journalism, graduate schemes are few and far between, so work experience (usually informal) is a recognised way of entering the field.

To find out more about work experience and different career areas, read the sector-specific advice in the work experience section of the website.

Explore your work-experience options

If you know what you are looking for and want to get the started, go to our careers search and look for companies offering ’Work experience, placements and internships’.

Find out more

• Casual work experience
• Placements and internships
• Volunteering in the UK
• Work experience
• Work experience abroad