Summer is a time for you to be thinking about your dissertation, and this should be your focus – you can also dedicate some time to think about your employability by building on your exploration and reflection from Semester One and Two.

Your employability focus this Summer is ‘Plan’- this time is for you to consider your next steps. Making a plan for your employability development doesn’t just have to be thinking about your after your masters; you can plan to make time to continue exploring and reflecting on yourself, your options, and the resources you can access to support you in making plans for your next steps.

Use the checklists, questions, and activities to help you plan your employability development.  

Checklist:

• Use Career Connect to explore events, resources, and vacancies

• Complete the mySkills questionnaire

• Familiarise yourself with the Sheffield Graduate Attributes

• Explore the support that is on offer to you at the university

• Ask questions that you need answers to

• Understand your options for the future and deadlines you might need to consider

• Update your Career Connect to get access for after you graduate

• Answer the reflective questions

Activities and Guides:

The Activities and Guides page offers you information, activities, and prompts to help your thinking throughout your employability journey. Use these activities and guides in whichever way suits you best.

PLAN: 

Planning for your next steps can feel like an intimidating thing to do. It can be really useful to think about the skills and value you have gained from doing your masters. This can help you plan any skills you want to continue developing, experiences you want to gain, and reflect on what you have/haven’t enjoyed about your masters. Knowing all these things can help you plan your future to suit you best. Remember to use your reflection from Semester Two to help you with your planning. Use the information below to help you feel confident about your transferable academic skills, work through the activities to help you communicate your skills in your future options, and then create an action plan. You can still access the support and services from the Careers and Employability Service over the summer (and find details below on how to continue to access this support even after you graduate).

• Why might your academic skills be valuable and transferable: 

The academic skills you develop in your masters might be skills that you feel most confident with, therefore deciding how they can be transferred into the workplace can help you find a job that you feel confident in doing, and finding something that you are good at! 

Taking some time to identify these skills, how you have developed them, and how confident you feel can be a useful first step in deciding what career path might suit you. You can use the activities below or explore the Activities and Guides page for more resources to help this thinking. 

• Resources and websites that can be helpful in deciding what careers you could do and which might suit you best:

  • • https://www.prospects.ac.uk/ - This site has job profiles that break down what qualifications/experiences you need. It also has a quiz to help you find the right career for you. 

    • https://targetjobs.co.uk/ - This site advertises jobs, internships, career guides and advice. 

    • https://online.goinglobal.com/ - This site shows you global job opportunities. 

    • https://www.milkround.com/  - This site advertises jobs, internships, career guides and advice. 

    • Higher Education career websites

    • Companies own websites

    • General job sites, such as Indeed

    • Job sites that specialise in particular careers or specific countries, cities or regions

    • Recruitment agencies

    • Social media, including LinkedIn and X (Twitter) What did you enjoy the most?

    • The Arts and Humanities Careers Hub also has a page dedicated to 'Where to find graduate jobs as an A&H Student'

• Jobs outside of academia:

  • Useful link: https://students.sheffield.ac.uk/careers/researchers/planning 

  • This site has a really interesting focus on how to present the skills you have learnt through your PhD study outside of the academic world - this is aimed at PhD students, but I think it also has some important points for PGT students - as PGT students we can find ourselves in the middle between having more developed academic skills than those with an undergraduate study but also not quite being at the level of PhD researchers. This can mean that we have to pick and choose the resources that might not be directly aimed at us but can help us with some of the issues we are facing. For example, using the ‘researchers’ section of the Careers and Employability Service Site, we can find the resource ‘Articulate your skills’ to help us see what value our masters have added to our skills and experiences beyond providing us with an extra qualification. The site breaks down how to articulate your skills by providing these steps:

  • What skills might an employer want (these could be general ideas or specific skills noted in a personal specification in a job advert)

  • Then you can think about what skills you have already - you can use the mySkills questionnaire as a way to understand where your strengths are and what you might need to work on. 

  • You can then think about your values, interests, and passions to see if you have any priorities for future careers/jobs - this can help influence what you apply for and how you can market your whole self when applying for jobs

  • Once you know which industry you might want to apply for jobs in, you can research what language, terminology, or specific jargon that might be important for you to include in your applications 

  • All of these steps can help you when you are writing applications, CVs, Cover Letters, and in interviews 

• How to develop your skills:

Knowing how to continue developing your skills outside of your masters can help you not only identify exactly how your academic skills are transferable into the workplace but also help you develop your professional skills and experiences. here are a few ways you could dcveelop your skills alongside your masters: 

• • Work experience - internships, placements, part-time jobs 

  • Volunteering 

  • Online courses

  • Find ways in your summer studies to develop specific skills 

  • Workshops, seminars, conferences 

  • Set yourself your own research into skills you can develop - for example, if you are interested in developing your marketing skills, you might want to research a company you like, decide what you think their marketing strategy might be, what are they putting out on their social media, what does their website look like/include and what do you think is working well and what would you do to improve this - here you can use your critical thinking skills, research skills, and analytic skills you have developed in your masters and apply this to this task - you could then use this research and understanding to develop some relevant marketing skills (communication, analysis, research, strategic thinking) and talk about this in a future job application. 

• Communicating Your Skills 

• Activity One:

  • Read through the Sheffield Graduate Attributes. 

  • Using the 'My Learning' section of the SGAs, Pick out 5 of the skills below and consider why they might be valuable in a non-academic role. 

For example: ‘Academic Writing’ might feel like a skill that is limited to the academic world. But if we break this skill down, we can think about what it means to be good at academic writing - really, this skill is about the ability to write to a brief, write in a specific tone, write long-form text, plan and organise a written piece. Suddenly, academic writing becomes not only multiple skills but actually a skill that would be valuable in a range of roles. Any role that requires written communication, communicating with a wide variety of people, report or content writing, and designing material would value academic writing skills. 

• • Now look at the 'My Impact' and 'My Self' sections - Which skills do you think you have used during your degree, how confident do you feel with these skills?

For example, ‘Positive mindset’ might be a skill that you have developed throughout your degree to feel confident in your ability to manage your workload, meet your deadlines, and prioritise your well-being. You might not feel 100% confident with this skill, but you have made a conscious effort to develop it.

• Activity Two:

  • Now you have identified which skills your masters has helped you develop, you can think about how these skills can be applied to a CV/Cover Letter in the future. Using the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) technique, write how your masters has made you good at one of these skills. You could add this to your ‘Development experience’ section on mySkills if you want to record this. 

For example:

Situation: During the Easter Vacation, I had multiple projects, deadlines, and family commitments to manage during the three week break. 

Task: I needed to organise my workload, implement a plan that helped me manage my time effectively, and maintain a positive mindset to motivate myself. 

Action: At the beginning of the Easter Vacation, I sat down and wrote a to-do list. I made sure to factor in my family commitments, deadlines, and breaks. As the first week progressed, I had to adapt my plan as my priorities changed and developed. In order to prevent myself from becoming overwhelmed by these changes, I made sure to keep my scheduled breaks and rest days to make sure I am able to maintain a positive mindset when progressing through my workload. 

Result: Finding this balance between working and resting meant that I was able to meet all my deadlines and feel positive and motivated for the next part of the semester. Feeling motivated and productive ensured that I was able to keep a positive mindset and feel confident in maintaining it during busy periods in the future.  

• Activity Three:

• Write an example of how you have used the skills listed below during your masters degree. These skills have been collated by Chat GPT as skills that are common for Arts and Humanities PGTs. These can be examples where you have learnt a new skill, developed a skill you already had, or an example where you have confidently used this skill. 

  • Communication Skills

  • Teamwork and Collaboration

  • Problem-Solving Skills

  • Time Management

  • Adaptability and Flexibility

  • Critical Thinking

  • Technical Proficiency

  • Interpersonal Skills

  • Leadership Skills

  • Emotional Intelligence

• Your Action Plan

Write yourself an ‘Action Plan’ where you identify which skills you want to develop the most. These might be the skills that you feel will benefit you the most in the future, or skills that you haven’t yet had the opportunity to develop. 

Once you have your list of skills, think of ways that you could develop these skills. This might include:

• • Finding work experience 

  • Doing an online course or workshop 

  • Actively developing these skills during your summer studies 

  • University Resources

  • Attending Conferences and Seminars

  • Online Communities (like LinkedIn groups)

  • Volunteering

  • Researching other ways you could develop these skills

• Useful Links:

• Careers and Employability Service

• Career Connect

• The Student Union Website

• Arts and Humanities Careers Hub