Y3 Spring Break

You are almost finished with your degree – this can feel both exciting and a bit scary. Whether you have a plan for life after graduating, it is really important to reflect on the value your degree has had on your employability. To help plan your future, reflecting on your degree experience can help you see what you have learned and developed during your time at university.

Feeling confident about how your degree is valuable and has helped you develop transferable skills can help you see where your strengths are which can influence future careers – so you can highlight your strengths in a future career! You can also start to think about your options for the future based on the skills and experiences you have enjoyed using during your degree (or avoiding careers that use the skills and experiences you haven’t enjoyed during your degree!)

Checklist:

• Complete the mySkills assessment

• Explore Career Connect 

• Familiarise yourself with the Sheffield Graduate Attributes

• Decide what you might want to try next semester 

• Explore part-time jobs/volunteering opportunities on Career Connect 

• Explore jobs and graduate jobs on both Career Connect and other sites

• See which events you might want to attend 

• Access any support and services that you need to 

• Ask questions you have about your employability and future career choices

• Use the activities, guides, and question prompts below to explore and reflect on your employability

PLAN: 

Reflecting on how your academic skills are valuable and transferable can help you feel confident in communicating how your English degree is valuable to a future employer. This confidence can help you ensure that your next steps suit you, your needs, skills, experiences, and ambitions. Explore the links and activities below to start exploring your academic skills and how they transfer to your future career. 

• Why might your academic skills be valuable and transferable: 

The academic skills you develop in your degree 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. 

• 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 think about 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, planning, organising, and 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 roles that require 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 in order to feel confident in your ability to manage your workload, meet your deadlines, and prioritise your wellbeing. This skill is one that you might not feel 100% confident with but you have made a conscious effort to develop this skill.

• Activity Two:

  • Now you have identified which skills your degree 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 degree 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 helps 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 degree. These skills have been collated by Chat GPT as skills that are common for English Degree graduates. 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. 

  • Writing and Editing

  • Research, Critical Thinking

  • Communication

  • Analytical Skills 

  • Cultural Awareness

  • Creativity

  • Attention to Detail

  • Time Management

  • Interpersonal Skills

  • Digital Literacy

  • Project Management

• Where you can find jobs:

There are lots of different websites you can explore to find job vacancies - if you are unsure about what roles you might want to find you can use these resources to help you figure out which jobs might suit you best:

• • Explore this university page 'Use your subject'

  • Use Prospects to explore job profiles to work out what careers are out there for you 

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

  • You can also explore job sites to see what jobs are out there:

    • Career Connect 

    • Targetjobs

    • GoinGlobal 

    • Jobs listed for the Sheffield area 

    • Yorkshire Graduates

    • Organisation's websites also might advertsie job roles 

    • LinkedIn 

    • Job Websites such as Indeed, Reed etc. 

  • It is also important stay safe while you job hunt and apply for roles, the university have a useful page dedicated to giving you guidance on how to 'Stay safe when job seeking'