A placement is the first step out into the world of employment within the career area I want to pursue. It is my first chance to see how the design industry works as well as the application and recruitment process. To prepare for this, alongside the work we have been doing in this module I also attended a Placement & Internship ready workshop as part of Ulster University’s Graduate Futures Programme organised by the Employability and Careers Team.
This week’s class was dedicated to tutorials, this was so that we could get advice both on our CV which was now ready for job applications and our early stage portfolio designs. I spoke with Hannah who was able to show me her portfolio site and give me some tips on my paper based designs, this was very helpful and I will incorporate what we spoke about into my portfolio design moving forward.
I attended this workshop so that I could be prepared as much as possible for the placement search that I am about to begin. I wanted to get as many different viewpoints and information as I could so that I would be ready for whatever the search might require of me.
The workshop itself was split into two one-hour sessions, the first on-campus and the second online. It was also EDGE award accredited if you attended both sessions and a follow-up CV review with an Employability Coach.
The first on-campus session covered the main aspects of finding a placement:
This was very similar to what we had covered in class in week 1, however as it was designed for students studying any degree it wasn’t as specific. It was interesting to hear more general advice though as it offers guidance on good practice in general and in conjunction with the more specific advice, we covered in class left me with a very rounded view of what I need to be working on to make my placement search a success.
We started with a discussion on the advantages of doing a placement or internship (these terms seem to be interchangeable with employers advertising roles as both, but I will stick to placement from now on as this is what I know it as.) The main advantages being: