Recruiter seeks student or graduate for meaningful internship
Posted: April 18, 2012 Filed under: Application forms, CVs, Internships, Job hunting, Work experience 1 Comment »
Find your perfect job match
Recruiters want to feel special. They don’t want to think that they are just the latest in a line of organisations that you have shortlisted as a potential foot onto the career ladder. So, if you are busy hunting potential summer internships/jobs to apply for, remember that it’s absolutely vital that you tailor your cover letter and CV to fit each individual application. Do this, and the interviews will follow.
Here are our top tips for keeping recruiters happy, and for improving your chances of finding your perfect job match.
Always research the company (and the role) you are applying to – demonstrate in both your cover letter and CV that you have spent time getting to know the organisation and that you have the specific requirements they are seeking in their ideal candidate. We know this takes time and effort, but it really can make the difference between an interview and a rejection letter.
Don’t write to ‘Dear Sir/Madam’ (or, far worse, to ‘Dear Human Resources’ or ‘To Whom It May Concern’) if the name of the recruiter is given in the job ad – always address the recruiter by name where possible.
Don’t include vague aspirations on your CV such as: ‘After I graduate I would perhaps like to go into journalism or PR’; if you are applying for a journalism position, tailor your cover letter accordingly, otherwise you will look unfocused and aimless.
Avoid using clichéd expressions like: ‘I would relish the opportunity to…’; ‘this opportunity excites me’; ‘I would excel at any role I am given’… these stock phrases don’t really mean anything, and recruiters will have heard them all before. Give specific examples of what you would excel in, or what fires your interest, in the context of the role you are applying for.
Do use genuine, active verbs to emphasise your desire for the job or placement. If you would love to work for the organisation you are applying to, then say so. Make them feel wanted. Explain why, and exactly how you match the criteria set out in the job description.
Do be clear and concise; always limit the length of your CV to strictly two pages of A4. Recruiters haven’t got the time or inclination to wade through reams of waffle.
Do get someone to proofread both your covering letter and CV before you send it.
Work experience vs postgraduate study – which will get me a job?
Posted: November 17, 2011 Filed under: Internships, Postgraduate study, Work experience Leave a comment »
If, post-graduation, you don’t have the security of a job in hand, deciding whether to embark on postgraduate study or whether to try and secure work experience related to the career you aspire to instead, can feel like a gamble. Both are sensible options, but neither come with a guaranteed job at the end and neither come cheap; with rumblings in the press this week about the potential slashing of state support for all students entering fourth-level education in the Republic as of next year, the issue is a pertinent one.
There is no set answer, and both postgraduate study and work experience can undoubtedly be extremely valuable and enriching. But whether one is more useful than the other at this juncture will depend on the job, or the sector, you ultimately aspire to.
As a general rule, it’s unwise to embark on postgraduate study if you really don’t have a clue where it could take you when you’ve finished. Similarly, working as an intern in the area in which you ultimately want to forge your career is great – but doing something completely unrelated is unlikely to score you many brownie points with a potential employer.
If you are converting from one discipline to another, then a postgraduate conversion course is usually a prerequisite. In some sectors – engineering, for example – postgraduate study will form an integral part of your professional development. In others, such as publishing, fourth-level education may be attractive to employers, but it won’t necessarily impress them any more than bags of related work experience.
Talk to employers in the industry you want to move into about what sort of experience they look for in graduates, and what significance they place on postgraduate study. Will it make your application stand out? Will it give you a head start when you begin your career? Is work experience as valuable? Finding the answers to these questions could help you make the right decision.
An internship experience
Posted: September 29, 2011 Filed under: Internships Leave a comment »
As we say goodbye to Jocelyn Weale, gradireland’s editorial intern, she reflects on what she has learned from her placement.
In publishing – as in many other competitive sectors – getting that foot in the door feels a bit like finding a golden ticket. Collecting relevant experience is the only way to build up a career. Having recently returned from a year out in Berlin teaching English to hyperactive young children, I was unsure of what to expect from my first formal editorial experience. The classroom and the office are worlds apart, and that alone was going to take some getting used to.
As it turns out, during my time here at gradireland I’ve had the opportunity not just to learn and develop industry skills, but also a fantastic chance to observe the whirring cogs of a publishing house on a daily basis. Looking back on my first day, there was a heck of a lot to take in; I was surrounded by professionals with years of publishing experience, and it really drove home the fact that I was at the bottom of the ladder with a long way to go. But over the past few weeks I’ve come to realise that that isn’t quite true. By undertaking an internship you are still making progress.
My experience has been about a lot more than mastering industry jargon: I have gained an understanding of the role each person performs in a publishing team, and better still seen how group dynamics play out in the professional environment. Each day I’ve learned something new: whether that be how to mark up copy for designers, how to commission articles, or how a website works behind the scenes. The key is to be willing to learn and not be afraid to ask questions or even take the initiative to make suggestions. After all, everyone has to start somewhere.
Internships also provide the opportunity to network: I’ve found it extremely useful to listen to colleagues’ stories of how they got ahead in publishing, and I’ll definitely be putting their tips into practice when applying for jobs. Times are difficult economically speaking, but it doesn’t mean the opportunities aren’t out there. I aim to be proactive in gathering any relevant experience and translate everything I’ve learned at gradireland into my CV and applications. After two months I’m by no means a high-flying editor, but thanks to my time spent in editorial the next step is a little less hazy.
Get the company right and your career will follow
Posted: September 15, 2011 Filed under: Choosing your career, Internships, Job hunting Leave a comment »
If you’re unsure about which graduate role might best suit you – don’t panic. Very few people land the job of their dreams at the very beginning of their career. As you are likely to change jobs several times over the course of your professional lifetime, is it really a big deal if your first position isn’t The One? Rather than obsessing over specific roles, a much more useful strategy would be to make sure that the company to which you’re applying is the sort of place you can develop a career, and that you would be happy working there.
‘It doesn’t necessarily matter which role you start out in’, a young business analyst at a financial services company in Dublin told me recently. ‘I got my foot in the door at my company because I recognised the opportunities they offered.’
Delighted with his current position, he began his professional life in quite a different role. After graduating he didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do, but he knew precisely which organisation he wanted to work for: ‘I actually started out as an HR intern. This was quite different to my educational background and leanings but I felt that it would be a good strategic move.’ And it paid off: ‘Spending time in HR gave me invaluable insights into the company from the inside. After three months as an intern I interviewed for my current – permanent – role, and got the job.’
Ask yourself: Does the culture and values of any prospective employer chime with yours? Do they offer clear room for career progression? What training do they provide? Talk to recent graduates who currently work at the companies you are interested in to gauge the inside track.
You’ve graduated, what now?
Posted: July 25, 2011 Filed under: Internships, Job hunting Leave a comment »
What should be your next step?
If you have just graduated, do not yet have a job (or further study) lined up, and you are beginning to wilt in your search for employment, here are a few pointers that might help revitalise or re-position your search.
Job hunting: you have already read all the great CV writing and job-hunting tips on gradireland; registered on gradireland to receive job alerts; and utilised the gradireland Careers Report tool already, I’m sure. In which case, now might be time to reconsider your approach. Have you smartened up your online social profile (if you’ve even got one)?
To start with, create a complete and professional personal profile on LinkedIn and you have your CV on line for all to see. Then upload all of your email contacts so that you have a foundation of contacts to build upon: someone in your network might have relevant connections to give you some inside knowledge into the companies you want to work for. LinkedIn forces us all to do more research on jobs and companies. So much information is online now that it’s created an expectation that you’re doing your homework.
Internships: gradireland research has consistently found relevant work experience to be one of the most important things employers look for when recruiting graduates. But how should you go about getting a good internship? The main programmes currently running are listed below, with a brief outline on what they are, how to access them, and how they differ. Check out the relevant websites for full details.
IBEC Export Orientation Programme (EOP): this is IBEC’s graduate placement programme. This scheme allows Irish exporting companies to develop their international marketing and export capacity, while providing recent graduates of all disciplines with a valuable introduction to international business. The placement is typically twelve months duration, usually with a minimum of six months spent outside of Ireland. The EOP has a unique accreditation process and provides paid placements.
Graduates 4 International Growth programme (G4IG): this scheme is run by Enterprise Ireland and has a closing deadline of 12 August 2011 for applications. This programme places graduates with Enterprise Ireland client companies for 18 months, with a minimum 12 months spent overseas.
JobBridge: this is the new National Internship Scheme announced by the government this summer, with 5,000 six-to-nine month placements available. Eligible interns will receive an allowance of €50 per week on top of their existing social welfare entitlement, payable for the period of the internship. In order to be eligible an individual must be currently in receipt of a live claim (Jobseekers Allowance/Jobseekers Benefit/Signing for Credits) on the Live Register, and have been in receipt of this claim for a total of three months or more in the last six months.
FÁS Work Placement Programme (WPP): this scheme offers the chance to keep your skills fresh in a real work environment. Anyone who is unemployed is eligible to apply for the Work Placement Programme. If you are a graduate with a level 7 qualification you can apply for both the graduate placements and the non-graduate placements. Otherwise, you can apply for all non-graduate placements. The placement is unpaid. However, if you are already in receipt of certain social welfare payments, you may be allowed to retain your payment while on a placement.
The dos and don’ts of covering letters
Posted: March 31, 2011 Filed under: Application forms, CVs, General, Internships, Job applications and CVs Leave a comment »
At this time of year many students and soon-to-be graduates will be thinking about applying for jobs and summer internships. We’ve recently blogged about CV writing, but it’s just as important to get your covering letter right. (Some busy recruiters won’t bother looking at your CV if your covering letter is full of mistakes). In the spirit of research we’ve looked over some of the letters gradireland has received in the past to shortlist some tips on the dos – and don’ts – of covering letters.
- When applying by email (the norm nowadays) attach the CV AND covering letter to the email, and make clear in the subject line that it’s a job application. (This may sound blindingly obvious, but you’d be surprised at how many people don’t get this right.)
- Where possible, always address the recruiter by name. This will normally be given on the advert, but if it isn’t, give the company a call to get the right contact details. ‘Dear Sir/Madam’ usually looks lazy.
- If you’re unsure of the best way to address the recruiter once you’ve got their name, err on the side of polite formality: ‘Dear Mr/Ms Bloggs’ or ‘Dear Joe Bloggs’ is better than simply: ‘Mr Bloggs’; but avoid addressing them by their first name only. If the recruiter writes back and greets you informally then you can respond in kind, but always take your cue from them.
- Keep the content simple and don’t feel you have to write an essay. Clear and concise always beats long and flowery. Covering letters shouldn’t be more than a page long, and keep your CV at two pages maximum.
- Don’t just list all the experience you’ve ever had: instead, choose considered examples that correspond with the requirements given in the ad.
- Avoid adjectival clichés such as ‘challenging’ and ‘rewarding’ (yawn). Similarly, steer clear of annoying jargon like ‘leverage’, ‘implement’ and ‘solution’ (unless they are used in the ad)!
- Back up your skills with concise examples of how you’ve demonstrated them.
- Sign off correctly: it’s always ‘Yours sincerely’ if you’ve addressed the person by name; ‘Yours faithfully’ if you’ve written to ‘Sir/Madam’.
Make work experience work for you
Posted: February 3, 2011 Filed under: Internships, Work experience Leave a comment »Think that work experience is a waste of time and money? Think again. Although it can feel like a gamble – lots of hard work with no guaranteed return – in reality this is rarely the case; a well-sourced work placement really can kick-start your career.
We’ve spoken to dozens of graduates over the past 12 months about how they started out in the world of work, and one of the most interesting trends to emerge is the fact that, for the majority of them, work experience or internships played a vital part in securing that all-important first graduate job.
A business studies and marketing graduate now working in marketing undertook a two-month placement at Associated Newspapers through the FÁS Work Placement Programme in 2010. He directly credits the FÁS placement with helping him to find his job:
‘I’ve just started a permanent role as an account manager with a marketing sales company in Dublin. My work placement definitely helped me to secure my position: I gained buckets of experience that put me in good stead for this job; before the placement I was going to interviews with nothing to show for.’
A software engineer at IBM has a similar story. After a period of unemployment he undertook an 11-month work placement at IBM as part of the WAM work experience programme organised by AHEAD. ‘It was a genuine opportunity to get real work experience and responsibility…being offered a permanent position at the end of it was undoubtedly the highlight of the year for me.’
And a Dublin-based design engineer who did an internship between his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees was offered a job at the company where he’d interned once he’d finished his studies. ‘In some ways my internship functioned as a three-month interview: I’m certain I got my job because of it.’
Get more work experience tips at gradireland.com/work-experience and search for work experience vacancies at gradireland.com.
