Graduates
Graduates
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Welcome to the new SEED website! We thought it needed a bit of a facelift. Choose your employability stage to get started!
Feel free to scroll through the page as you would normally, or use the table of contents below to jump straight to what you want to know.
What career options do I have with my degree?
What career options do I have with my degree?
Many students are surprised to learn that the majority of jobs don’t require applicants to have studied for a particular degree. However, there are somewhere an Economics degree would be seen as essential or highly advantageous. This may be because they require subject-specific knowledge, or because the skills are usually developed by studying for an Economics degree, such as:
Numeracy – handling complex data and applying statistical analysis methods
Problem solving and analytical skills – extracting information, drawing conclusions and making recommendations based on your findings
Written and verbal communication – presenting and explaining complex data (often to non-specialist audiences)
IT skills – using specialised software to undertake data analysis
These skills are highly-sought after for jobs in the Civil Service and the finance sector.
Suggested further reading:
‘What can I do with an Economics degree?’ (Prospects website)
Use your subject (The Careers Service)
What alternative career options do I have with my degree?
What alternative career options do I have with my degree?
Did you know that, for most vacant jobs, employers aren’t looking for someone who has studied a specific degree? This is because the role requires skills, knowledge and experience that could have been learned in many different settings. These include:
Communication (written and verbal)
Teamwork
Problem-solving
Organisation
Resilience
Many of these will be developed through studying an Economics degree (visit the ‘careers with my degree’ section for more information), others from previous work experience and involvement in extra-curricular activities.
This means you have a lot of career options available to you, and that you can research and apply for jobs that align to your strengths, interests and personal circumstances.
Suggested activities
Suggested activities
Take the Prospects “What Jobs Will Suit Me?” quiz to get some initial ideas for jobs to look into
Complete the Careers Service’s “How to Find a Job You Love” course (you may need to log in using your university account details to access this)
Sign up to be mentored by someone working in a job that you think sounds interesting (applications usually open at the start of each semester)
Visit the Career Connect event planner to see if there are any employer or alumni talks that might give you some inspiration.
Tell me more about postgraduate study
Tell me more about postgraduate study
Instead of seeking employment immediately after graduation, some students choose to pursue postgraduate study. This allows you to study topics you find interesting in greater depth whilst gaining further skills and improving your CV.
Masters degrees in Economics are typically 12 months in length, requiring students to take two semesters of taught courses and write a dissertation over the summer. Shorter and longer programmes of study are available at some universities.
PhD degrees are research-based programmes (typically 3-4 years in length in the UK) and generally require you to have completed a Masters degree first.
The School of Economics offers lots of different MSc courses, watch the videos below to learn more about two of them:
If you are interested in postgraduate study, you may want to consider these three key questions:
What do you want to study? – Do you want to specialise in a particular area of economics (econometrics or health economics, for example) or do you want to take a broad economics Masters degree?
Where do you want to study? – At Sheffield, within the UK, or internationally?
How will you fund your studies? – Postgraduate courses typically attract tuition fees and you may need to consider your living costs as well.
Finding a postgraduate course
Start with the following websites:
Findamasters (allows you to filter by subject, country, region and degree type)
Once you have narrowed your options, look at individual university webpages for more details. Applications are made via each university rather than a centralised system.
Funding
Tuition fees vary by course and university. You may wish to consider the following funding options:
Postgraduate loans for study in the UK. More information (including eligibility requirements) can be found on the Prospects website.
International students studying in the UK may be eligible to apply for a scholarship through the British Council.
University scholarships and bursaries (offered directly by individual universities). These may be awarded for high academic performance or widening participation. You can find information about these from each university’s webpages (this is the web page for Sheffield).
Sheffield alumni bursaries. University of Sheffield graduates receive a discount on Sheffield postgraduate fees.
If you are considering PhD study, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) provide “1+3” funding for a one-year Masters and three-year PhD. Apply through the University you wish to study at.
I'd like more information on working in the Civil Service.
I'd like more information on working in the Civil Service.
Sure. We've created a separate page for all information regarding being a Government economist because there's a lot to cover.
I'd like more information on working in financial services.
I'd like more information on working in financial services.
Sure. We've created a separate page for all information regarding working in financial services because there's a lot to cover.
I'm an international student. Can I work in the UK?
I'm an international student. Can I work in the UK?
All you information you need is in this talk, where we discuss the visa restrictions that apply when you’re working during and after your studies. You’ll also discover the different routes you can take into work, how to prove your right to work, and what kind of jobs you can do.
Please note that the information given was correct at the time (13th October 2021). Immigration rules can and do change regularly, so please contact the Immigration Support Service for up to date information.
How do I find opportunities?
How do I find opportunities?
If you want to do a graduate scheme, you'll have to find opportunities to apply for. Luckily, there are several things you can do:
Career Connect – the University's vacancy website available via your MUSE account (particularly good for smaller and/or local organisations).
Ratemyplacement and TargetJobs – used by most of the well-known employers.
LinkedIn – more and more employers are using this platform to advertise opportunities.
Bright Network – collects vacancies for internships, placements and graduate schemes alongside providing useful resources to help with securing offers. They also have run employability events in the past, so make sure you keep checking their website.
Gradcracker - tailored to STEM students, where they can explore career paths in apprenticeships, placements and graduate roles
Use your contacts – More and more graduates are finding jobs through speaking to their contacts. This could be friends, family, their friends and family… as well as other Sheffield graduates and people at a careers event or talk. They may be aware of opportunities within their organisation that are looking for new employees.
Set up your preferences to get alerts for graduate jobs in particular industries or locations. Also look out for the SEED newsletter in your email inbox that will contain vacancies that might be of particular interest to Economics students. You can find past editions in the SEED newsletter archives. Once you've found a graduate scheme you'd like to apply for, check out the "achieve your goals" section for advice on how to write good applications and prepare for interviews.
Still feel a bit confused? Think this page is missing something? Contact us at seed@sheffield.ac.uk, and we'll be happy to help.
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