Last week York University’s Electronic Society joined Futureboard here at the office in Great Sutton Street for a skill session on Careers and Engineering.
The day’s plan featured workshops on:
- The state of the graduate market
- Different career paths with a degree in Engineering
- Stages of the job application process such as CV writing, assessment centre, online testing and interviews
- A group exercise focusing on problem-solving and weighing of pros and cons
Second-year Engineering student Naomi Gildert, 19, from the York Electronic Society, says the skill session was “a great, fantastic opportunity”. As the Society’s secretary, she was approached by Futureboard and decided to bring everyone down to London to practice their employability skills.
She adds: “It was an interactive, interesting session and everyone gained new skills from it. I spoke to a society member yesterday who said he’s really happy he took the time off work because he found the session so useful!”
Naomi says sometimes careers services at university are not very sector-specific in their job application advice. She says her experience with Futureboard was different: “Probably because they work so closely with companies, Futureboard’s advice was much more in depth because they know what employers look for in a candidate.”
Naomi says Futureboard’s session on the application process was particularly useful, especially for York University’s first-year students who are yet to start applying for jobs.
The York Electronic society also found the Group Exercise session very useful. Naomi says: “A lot of us have never been to an assessment centre and it was great taking turns at being exercise assessors – we found out about interesting marking criteria we never thought existed!”
Nick Barker, consultant at Futureboard, says: “It was great to speak to people at York’s Electronic Society. They seemed really engaged and I was happy to meet students at different stages of their university careers, from first-years to grads.”
Nick adds: “It was interesting to hear their questions about Skype interviews: we got to see their perspective and their side of the experience.”
Naomi, who is now ready to become the Electronic Society’s president, says: “I can’t wait to do [a skill session] again next year and bring more people to Futureboard’s office! You guys are awesome!”
Good luck with the York Electronic Society’s presidency Naomi!
Pictures by: Futureboard