TARGETjobs News roundup

It’s that time of the week again, where we tell you all the latest graduate recruitment news and developments. This week Ross has been on holiday so I (Jackie) have been charged with writing the weekly round-up. I hope I make him proud.

This week there were lots of sectors grabbing the headlines, the automotive industry, consulting, law and IT.

However, before we get started on that we also have some more internal news and I would like to welcome our flurry of interns that have entered the building this week. 

We also want to welcome two of them on board to our blog. Our new temp marketing assistant, Nicola Mooney and our third editorial intern Laura Maclean. Like Ross and Alex, they will be writing regular blogs to write about what they are getting up to, as well as sharing some advice on how they are making a start in their career.

Now that those announcements have been made let’s get started with our sector news.

·         In the automotive industry there have been two big developments. Firstly, BMW Group announced earlier this week that it will be investing an extra £250m in its Mini manufacturing arm. This is to boost the car industry. Perhaps, this could be a good place to apply for your graduate job?

·        On top of that Bentley announced some more positive news by reporting a growth of 32% in sales worldwide. Another company to consider when applying for your jobs and work experience.

·         More good news came from the strategy consulting firm, Simon-Kucher & Partners which is expecting another record year in revenuesand planning to increase its workforce by the end of the year.

·        In more sombre news although the IT sector isexpecting record growth for IT vacancies, findings by the HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) indicate that six months after graduating, graduates with a computer science degree were the least likely among all degree subjects to be in employment.  This may increase the importance of having work experience on your CV when proving your worth to prospective employers.

·         Next in line is law, where unfortunately firm vacancies are set to drop, according to the latest survey from the Associationof Graduate Recruiters. However, salaries still remain higher than average. This will make the field more competitive, so make sure you get yourself prepared as much as you can. We can help with our law twitter feed and law webpages.

·        And lastly, there is good news for the construction industry where big construction companies arepredicting a 3.2% rise in starting salary.

If none of those sectors are of interest to we also explained how best to answer a very tricky interview question: what motivates you?

We also announced which graduate recruiters are at the top of their game; perhaps there are some you may be interested in applying to.

Finishing off with some good news from the HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency), who announced that more than nine in ten 2011 graduates are in work six months after graduation. 

And if that wasn’t enough as always check out the latest jobs here. 

That’s it for this week. Hope you have a lovely weekend.

To get graduate careers news at it happens, check out the TARGETjobs news feed. Alternatively, check out the roundup this time next week. 

Pestering People

Our editorial intern, Alex Ward is back with his first blog post. This is a great insight into how to potentially get your foot in the door in the publishing/media industry. 

As promised in the introductory blog, I’m going to give you some tips about getting work experience.

First of all, a bit about what I’ve done. As an aspiring journalist I’ve been applying all over the place to try and get that ever coveted experience at a newspaper. The hope is that my CV will be that much more impressive when it comes to employment. The thing is with no contacts and no way in, I’ve had to develop my own (rather blunt) method of getting my foot in the door. It seems to work – in the past twelve months I’ve added two local newspapers and a national one to the ol’ cv, with another national to come in September.

So what, I hear you ask, is my secret? At this point I’m being a bit self-indulgent – there is no secret, it comes down to making a general nuisance of myself.

Everybody will be familiar with the ‘contact us’ and ‘careers’ links on employer websites. I find that these are, generally, the gateway to an email inbox that is, in my opinion, a metaphorical paper shredder. My covering letter and CV are destined to sit around unread.

The solution to this is a good old fashioned chat. Fully utilizing (scrolling down) the ‘contact us’ section, my move is to call up the general switchboard of the newspaper I want and ask for somebody who manages work experience. In this manner, I have become very familiar with different companies’ hold tones. The Mail on Sunday has a particularly jazzy one.

Once through to a particular individual, I make my case. At a thousand words a minute, I’m fully aware that I’m probably wasting somebody’s time, so I make it quick. The response can be varied. I received an extremely brisk and patronizing response from one lady in particular who told me to go to my local paper. My riposte was equally as swift, noting that I had already completed two placements at local papers and was looking for something else. Her tone immediately changes. ‘Send us your CV,’ she says.

Within two days I had an offer of a placement, with the initially condescending woman, praising the commitment I had to my career.

I’ve learnt from my experiences that you cannot beat talking to somebody. It is a lot harder to decline somebody over the phone, than it is to press delete, or send back an automated email response thanking somebody for their interest.

Contacts are great. If you have them, it’s silly not to use them. If you don’t have them, it really isn’t a big issue. Start at the bottom, local newspapers a week at a time and, using my method you can move on to bigger things. If you genuinely have a passion for what you want to do, then making that call isn’t going to scare you too much.

The worst they can say is no.

Like what you've read? Why not follow Alex on Twitter for more of (hopefully insightful) tweets. 

@Alex___ward

TARGETjobs news roundup

Hello and welcome to the TARGETjobs news roundup. There have been some big things going on at TJ Towers this week; we’re developing more ways to broadcast the latest events in the world of graduate jobs.

The news from the recruitment sectors has been relatively quiet this week, but we have more than made up with this with some big announcements of our own – more on this later. For now we’ve got some interesting stories from the worlds of IT and engineering, accountancy and law:

• According to the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR), 2012 is the year to be an engineering or technology graduate. AGR members include a significant cross-section of companies from these sectors, so this is definitely good news.
• Meanwhile, those of you looking for careers in accountancy may be interested to know that 84% of Ernst & Young’s 2011 summer interns went on to take on graduate jobs with the company. It is aiming to increase this to 90% of its 2012 intern intake.
• A survey conducted by Legal Week suggests that Norton Rose and Allen & Overy (A&O) are the solicitors firms that law graduates most aspire to work with. Norton Rose has 55 vacancies this year, while A&O has 90. Follow TARGETjobs Law advice to make sure your application lands at the top of that pile.

There is also big news for anyone on Twitter. Last week we announced the arrival of our brand new @TjobsMarketing feed for anyone interested in jobs in marketing and the media. This week we are proud to announce the arrival of a batch of others:

Welcome to the new TARGETjobs Consulting twitter feed! We're here to give you the latest on jobs, internships and employers.
— TARGETjobs Consult (@TjobsConsult) July 3, 2012

Welcome to the new TARGETjobs Law twitter feed! We're here to give you the latest on training contracts, pupillage, and vac schemes.
— TARGETjobs Law (@TjobsLaw) July 2, 2012

Welcome to the TARGETjobs Engineer Twitter feed. We'll bring you advice, vacancies and industry news to help you start your graduate career.
— TARGETjobs Engineer (@TjobsEngineer) July 6, 2012

Welcome to the new TARGETjobsFinance twitter feed! We're here to give you the latest on jobs, internships and employers.
— TARGETjobs Finance (@TjobsFinance) July 3, 2012

But if those sectors don’t interest you then keep reading, we’ve got more sectors to add next week, and plenty more news from across the range of graduate employers:

• In some mixed news from the AGR we’ve found out that starting salaries for graduates will rise by 6% over the next year. However, the overall number of vacancies will decrease by 0.6%.
• We also had some advice for you about how to submit your job application. This also included an extended metaphor about the ways in which getting a graduate job is a lot like getting a partner. Tweet us if you can think of any more.
• And finally it’s time for the deadline roundup. It’s a relatively quiet week this week, but that only means you’ll have more time to put together the perfect application. Look at our recent series on common application pitfalls to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes. Check out the latest jobs here.

To get graduate careers news as it happens, check out the TARGETjobs news feed. Alternatively, check out the roundup this time next week!

TARGETjobs offers the largest choice of graduate jobs, internships and placements. Independent reviews on top graduate employers and career planning tools and expert guidance. Become a TARGETjobs blogger by getting in touch with jackie.balchin2@targetjobs.co.uk.

Settling in at TARGETjobs

After their introduction post last week, Ross is back with his first individual post letting you all know what it is really like to work at TARGETjobs HQ. 

After three weeks at TARGETjobs, I’m sufficiently settled to reflect on how I’m enjoying my time with the company. I can honestly say that it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. Everyone’s awful. Mum, can I come home now?

Kidding on. I’m really happy in the office: there is wonderful flexibility when it comes to fetching a hot drink. In saying this, I don’t mean to suggest that TARGETjobs is an absolute free-for-all where employees race around choking back free tea, determined to take advantage of an abundant commodity. Instead, I hope to convey an image of freedom within a bright, shiny building in the middle of a calm yet modern business park in rural Oxfordshire. In a corporate world of stress, restrictive suits and closely-monitored workers, TARGETjobs is a relatively relaxed working environment, which must have a positive impact on staff morale.

The first week or so largely involved being trained in different aspects of editorial, such as copy writing, proof reading, commissioning and writing in plain English (which will be ‘helpful’ in this job, as opposed to ‘beneficial’ or ‘advantageous’) as well as on a content management system (something that is increasingly important in the digital age).

After that, my main priority was compiling 150 company blurbs for The Guardian UK 300 list of the most popular graduate employers. It took me quite a while to complete this task and finalising the piece on the last company was pretty satisfying. I was buoyed to think that my efforts would contribute to a widely-circulated publication and was content to be allowed to sit in my job and write things in a pleasant environment.

I must admit, though, that there was eventually a level of tedium attached to constructing these pieces, for example ‘Friend, Mate, Chum & Pal LLP is an international law firm, with offices in London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Abu Dhabi and Crowmarsh Gifford. It recruits around 15 trainees each year from both law and non-law academic backgrounds.’ This structure was used many times throughout the blurb compilation process.

Writing for this publication enhanced my knowledge of the graduate opportunities available in a number of different sectors; it also helped me to clarify which careers would possibly be slightly more difficult to launch, one such example being: barrister specialising in commercial law. My research into pupillages available in different chambers led to my perusing the academic backgrounds of the latest recruits, most of whose qualifications absolutely blew me away. Although I should perhaps refrain from supplying disincentives to aspiring barristers at top commercial sets, entry into these chambers seems as competitive as a fight between well-matched armoured bears.

When I finished writing the blurbs I wrote a news article about the results of a survey on popular solicitors’ firms. It went on the website a couple of days later and looking at it made me feel a bit lovely.

Next day, when explaining to my friend what I’d been doing at work, he said, ‘Here…that sounds really good.’ I felt that this was a fair appraisal.    

Ross will be back in two weeks time, but if you can't wait that long until your next insight into working at TARGETjobs HQ Alex will be posting next week about what he has been getting up to and what he is learning. And if you want to keep up-to-date with our latest posting why not following us on Twitter @targetjobsuk 

   

How I won the TARGETjobs Undergraduate of the Year in Low Carbon Technology (Part two)

Declan Bryans is back with more about his journey from TARGETjobs Low Carbon undergraduate of the year applicant to Low CarbonUndergraduate of the year winner. This week he discusses his arrival at the award ceremony having found out that he was short-listed and finally winning the award. 

Upon arrival at the award ceremony, the place was massive and the building was beautiful. After registering we were all escorted upstairs to a glorious reception which even had their own miniature orchestra playing, very suave indeed. Once I had met up with all the other finalists and EDF Energy representatives we were shown our seats for the lunch. The whole afternoon was wonderful, and an excellent way to celebrate my 21^st to boot. After a delicious lunch the point of the afternoon came where the award winners were announced and you could practically feel the mixed emotions in the air from excitement to fear. I’ll be the first to admit that doubts started crawling into my mind and the fact our award was one of the later ones to be announced the doubts kept building up.

Eventually, the moment came, the next 20 to 30 minutes felt like a couple of seconds, my name was called out as the winner, I was then up on stage accepting the award, getting pictures taken to giving a journalist a note of how I felt; the journalist was really good as she managed to translate my exasperations to legible English. The next few days after that became a blur. My university was ecstatic that I had won and I have received multiple emails congratulating me on that fact. It felt good. I was soon up on the website as one of the success stories I have read when I was in first year, feeling determined to replicate that success in the story I had just read and now I have.

I am extremely excited to be working with EDF Energy and I will continue to blog about my experiences with them throughout the summer. I have been asked to give advice or tips to anyone looking to enter this competition and I have this to say. Just do it! It’s worth a try and give it your all, if you’re not successful it’s an experience and there is always next year. Thanks for taking time to read my blog, I promise I will practise and get better for the next blogs to come!

Congratulations to all the award winners and finalists for the Undergraduate of the Year awards 2012.

If you feel that you have what it takes to be 2013's Undergraduate of the year in your sector category, why not pre-register your interest here. http://undergraduateoftheyear.com/