Work Experience

Employers are very keen on work experience – or rather, they’re keen on what it gives you:  the confidence and practical skills you need to succeed in the workplace. 

Whether or not you’re planning to go to university, getting good work experience while you are at school will stand you in good stead when it comes to getting hired. If you want to apply to a school leaver programme, your work experience will make you a much stronger candidate; if you plan to get a degree, you can draw on it when applying for internships and other placements. It will also give you a better feel for what you do and don’t enjoy and the career choices you want to make. 

What employers mean by the term can be broader than you might think. All sorts of activities can help to develop the qualities you need at work. 

1. Formal work experience placement. Often up to a week in a location arranged by your school or independently.   Typically unpaid, this is an opportunity to learn about the world of work and see it in action. 

2. School leaver careers fairs and employer events. A chance to meet either lots of employers in one go or a single employer, for example via an open evening at its offices. 

3. Employer’s insight day or week for school leavers. Some organisations that run school leaver programmes also offer you the chance to spend a day or more seeing for yourself what working there would be like and meeting employees  who have joined straight from school. 

4. Extracurricular activities. Being part of a sports team or another club or group such as a theatre group or choir.  Involvement in the Scouts or Guides, or Duke of Edinburgh award scheme. 

5. Volunteering and fundraising. There are stacks of volunteering opportunities out there. You could walk dogs for an animal charity, volunteer as a retail assistant in a charity shop, help with outdoor conservation projects, collect funds or support young disabled people on activity days. 

6. Competitions. Look out for competitions in areas that interest you, for example design, writing, maths or business.

7. Part-time jobs. A part-time job such as working in a shop gives you customer service and time management skills and helps to develop your commercial awareness. Doing a paper round or babysitting calls for responsibility and resilience. Employers like evidence that you can be relied on to turn up when expected and stick at what you’re meant to be doing till you’ve seen it through. 

8. Personal projects. If you’ve designed and made something under your own steam, such as a DIY or craft project, a website or a blog, you may well have developed the problem-solving and creative skills that employers look for. 

9. Positions of responsibility. Are you head boy or head girl, a sports captain or house captain? Have you been a student representative, taking prospective pupils and parents on tours and speaking to them, or been involved in the school council? Have you have a leadership or committee role in a group or club? This kind of experience hones the communication and leadership skills employers want. 

It’s important to understand how employers see work experience, as otherwise you can miss out on telling them about things you’ve done that would impress them and help you to land a job or a place on a school leaver programme. 

Use your initiative to boost your work experience You can contact reputable employers directly to see if you can arrange a few days’ work experience for yourself. This is known as a speculative application. 

Do you have an idea what you would like to do in the long term? If you are considering one or two particular careers, whether it’s journalism, engineering or medicine, this will help you to narrow down your search and decide where to apply. 

Check out our advice on different careers for ideas. Talk to family members, friends and contacts, look at your local newspaper and do an internet search for suitable employers in your local area. 

Once you know where you want to apply, you need to get in touch to find out whether the employer you are interested in offers this kind of opportunity and how to apply. Make contact by phone or email to say that you are interested in coming in for a few days’ work experience and to ask if there’s any preferred way of applying. 

Some organisations have application forms for work experience applicants; if this is not the case, ask if you could send in a CV and covering letter. Find out who to send it to and check how to spell the person’s name and what title you should use (Mr, Mrs or Ms, or some other form of address such as Dr, for example). 

"DAY 1

In the morning we went to the Oxford STEM centre for an introduction to the week and talk to the other students, there was 15 of us in total from many different schools. Then in the afternoon, we went to the INTEL office in Marlow. They manufacture motherboard chipsets, network interface controllers and integrated circuits, flash memory, graphics chips and embedded processors. I also learnt how they encrypt passwords and how hackers learn to decrypt them as well.

DAY 2

In the morning we went to Microbit Oxford Centre, where we got to play with and program micro bits and I had never used them before so I was happy that I had the chance to program one. We programmed it in python. After a bit, we got a talk from one of the creators of the micro bit and he told us about the challenge and journey of creating and making one for the BBC.

Later that day we all went to McAfee. This was my favourite part of the week, I've decided that I really like cybersecurity and I now have a high interest in it. We got a tour around the office and a talk from one of the interns and we learnt about her journey through uni up to her doing an internship at McAfee. Then we got the chance to learn how to hack ourselves, by typing code and commands which were later transferred to the computer through Bluetooth connection. It's scary how something could easily be hacked just by having your computer connected to an everyday Bluetooth device like a speaker or mouse. I was also shocked when they showed us that they store the viruses they found, in servers and there were rows and rows of hard drives stored with viruses.

DAY 3

In the morning we stayed at the Oxford STEM building and we listened to one of the workers of Imageworks, who talked us through the process of web designing and the creating and coding of websites and how to project it to costumers and take feedback. I thought it was very interesting and especially when he showed us one of the current game apps he was working on.

Later that day we went to STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and they study particle physics, scientific computing, laser development, space research and technology. They also had many servers but not to store viruses but scientists' research and information and lots of data. I was really interested in what they were researching and data they were handling. We then got to program Arduinos and used components like resistors and LEDs to try and make an alarm system and a temperature system with different LEDs.

DAY 4

The next day we went to the Big Data Institute which is a part of oxford university and the research and focuses on the analysis of large and complex data sets for research into causes and consequences, prevention and treatment of disease. We had talks from different workers, one was analysing data and trends of how sleep, exercise and rest was linked to risk of heart disease, another was researching into Alzheimer's and created an app to detect early signs of it in people, and the last talk was given by a technician who analyses data there and has to code things in his everyday work life.

The one tip they gave was that learning a coding language was very important.

DAY 5

This was the last day and the last company we visited was a small company named Olumalu, they are a web designing company that customers request web designs and specific tools needed on their website and Olumalu then code to their needs a website. I found it very interesting how websites are created from scratch and coded with languages like python, C#, PHP, HTML, Java and JavaScript. 

I found this week very useful and I learnt a lot about the computing, science and technology industry and this week gave me a massive insight into careers in computing which I look forward to striving towards. Thank you for this opportunity Mr win.

Rebecca"