Tips and advice on improving your career prospects with the University of Sunderland in London.
Most of our students start their course with one main goal; to achieve their dream career, whether that be working in a big firm, running a successful business, or following their own passion. Read on to find out how you can make your dream career come true.
Find out how to achieve your dream career
When you are getting ready for an interview, one of the things you’ll hear a lot is that you need to learn about the company. But how exactly do you do this? Read on for tips on what kind of information you’re looking for, where to find it and how to put it to use.
Prepare for your next interview
Knowing that you’ve got an interview the next day can be really exciting. It’s something to look forward to, that you worked hard for. It can also be a bit nerve-wracking. With all those thoughts going on in your mind, you might find it a little harder to sleep than normal, which isn’t ideal.
Get to sleep
Job interviews take a lot of preparation, from learning about a company and practising your preprepared answers. That can make it easy to forget the little things like what you need to bring with you. We’ve put together a quick checklist to help.
Get prepared
What questions am I likely to be asked in an interview? How can I prepare for them? These are the kinds of questions university students ask when they start thinking about life after graduation. Get ready for your next job interview and prepare answers to the three most asked questions you can come across.
Prepare for your next interview
After you get the offer to interview, you'll be spending a lot of your time preparing, learning about the company and practising answers to common questions. But once you're ready, with an hour or two to spare, what do you do? And how do you combat pre-interview nerves?
Get relaxing
A cover letter is an essential element for anyone hoping to successfully apply for any job after graduation. In this article, we talk through the best approach to make sure yours stands out from the crowd and lands you that all-important interview.
Get writing your cover letter
When it comes to applying for jobs after graduation, you'll start noticing a trend among many employers. The use of application forms is a common way of ensuring hiring teams find out the most useful information about you in a way that's easy for them to process and compare with your competitors. The question, then, is how to stand out from the crowd?
Get filling out those forms
Starting out in a whole new industry can be intimidating, especially if you are not sure where to start. Of course, you’ve already made the best decision you could by choosing to study for your career at the University of Sunderland in London. But what else can you do to help you move into your new sector?
Change your career
The huge amount of careers advice out there can make it difficult to follow everything all at once. But what happens if you try just one thing at a time? We've given you several pieces of quick guidance for you to try at your own pace and get you ready for a high-flying career after graduation.
Get the guidance
Just because you're starting at the University of Sunderland in London doesn't mean you need to have your whole career planned out. We're here to help you think about your first steps.
Take your first steps
Studying at the University of Sunderland in London is your first step on a long career path to the top. But how do you stay on that path with each career move you make?
Take your next steps
Speaking a second, third or even fourth language is a great way to stand out when applying for jobs. The question then becomes which are the one’s employers most like to see on your CV?
Get speaking
University is the perfect time to start planning your future career. You're exploring the areas of your industry most interesting to you, meeting people that will stay in your network for years to come, and have access to our Careers and Employability team.
Start planning your career
The world has come a long way from that old film stereotype of looking for a job by taking a highlighter to the help-wanted section of a newspaper or walking door-to-door with your CV. The only way to find work these days is to do it on the internet, which means you’ll need to become familiar with the process to stand a chance at getting the job of your dreams.
Get searching
When you apply to study at the University of Sunderland in London, you’ll have to send in a personal statement. This goes a long way to showing off the kinds of things you’ve done that would make you an ideal student to join our community.
Write a brilliant personal statement
Our academic staff have huge amounts of experience not only as teachers but in the world of work as well. We’ve asked some of them to share their top tips for landing your dream job after you finish your studies.
Hear from your lecturers
As a University of Sunderland in London student, you’re already on the path to increasing your skills and achieving your career goals. So, what else do you need to think about when it comes to changing jobs in 2022?
Change careers this new year
At the University of Sunderland in London, healthcare is one of our most popular course areas. It’s easy to see why. With a focus on management in a sector that has become more important than ever, there are plenty of job opportunities across the industry. But what is it about working in the health and social care sector which has attracted so many people?
Get into healthcare
Looking for a job after finishing your studies at the University of Sunderland in London can be a daunting task, whether you're applying for your first role or using your new degree to change industries. Follow these five tips for finding the role for you.
Improve your applications
According to a recent study, one in ten people found their current jobs through social media. Find out how you can be one of them.
Get your next job through social media.
Want to become an expert at digital marketing? Thinking about starting your own business and need to know how you can get your message out there? Sign up for the free Digital Media Marketing course by the University's Careers and Employability Service.
Become a digital marketing expert
Writing your CV is a challenging thing. You have this one chance to convince the employer that you’re the right person for the job. Don’t be daunted though because, with careful thought, proper editing and avoiding these five mistakes, you’ll start finding yourself on the shortlist for interviews straight away.
Clean up your resume.
Coming to the University of Sunderland in London for your degree is one of the best career decisions you can make. That sounds like a big promise, but thanks to the skills, theory and practical knowledge you will be learning you’ll graduate prepared to enter the job market.
Get some experience
The latest in our series of ‘how to answer’ interview questions looks at a commonly difficult question employers love to challenge you with. Conflict is complicated enough but explaining it to someone in a way that presents your skills in the best light needs some serious thought.
Learn to deal with conflict
At the University of Sunderland in London, we want to help you get ready for the world of work, every part of it. We’ve written before of the importance of communication in the workplace, but what about the things we say without even speaking?
Work on your (non-verbal) communication
Going into a job interview, you should be prepared. You understand the company; you know the role. You can even talk about yourself and how suited you are for the position. But what of the things you’re not so great at? Do you know how to talk about your weaknesses?
Address your weaknesses
We all have things we’re great at. Skills that come more naturally to us than our fellow students, theories and ideas we understand with greater ease. If you are lucky, at your next interview you might get asked to talk about the things you’re good at.
Get negotiating
We all have things we’re great at. Skills that come more naturally to us than our fellow students, theories and ideas we understand with greater ease. If you are lucky, at your next interview you might get asked to talk about the things you’re good at.
Work out your response
Analytical skills are a vital part of any business and having them will make you a highly desirable candidate for lots of roles. It’s essentially the ability to gather, analyse and act on information gathered in your business, paving the way for growth and problem-solving.
Get brilliant at analytics
When you graduate from the University of Sunderland in London and start applying for jobs, it’s natural to prepare for upcoming interviews. Some of them are simple like ‘tell us about yourself’, others need a bit more thought such as ‘why do you want to work for us?’.
Prepare for some odder questions
For the most part, businesses are created to do one main thing – make money. Whether you’re hoping for a promotion or joining on the bottom rung of a huge multinational, you need to understand the processes which go into being financially viable.
Become commercially aware
There are few more common questions in a job interview than ‘tell me about yourself’. Although it might sound easy, who knows you better than you after all, what you say can set the tone for the rest of the conversation.
Ace your interview
Numeracy is essential in almost any workplace. Whether you consider yourself a maths wiz or the idea of a spreadsheet gives you a cold sweat, you can learn the skills you'll need to make yourself a top candidate for your dream job.
Improve your numeracy
You’ve been shortlisted for a job, congratulations! Now it’s time to prepare for the most common next step – the interview. There are plenty of questions you could be asked at this stage in the application process, but the truth is there are few that almost always come up.
Get ready for your interview
Running your own business is a busy experience. You’ll need to think about everything from market research and products to customer surveys and legal requirements. But there’s one aspect of your company you need to make sure is running as smoothly as possible – the finance.
Get finance tips
One of the biggest social media sites in the world and the number one place for professionals, LinkedIn is a must for anyone serious about their career. Whichever industry you want to work in, learning how to network through the site is a skill that helps you reach your goals.
Get started with LinkedIn
Marketing is an essential part of any business, whether you’re running a tourism company or a care home. That diversity means marketers are found in every industry and with degrees in all kinds of subjects.
Get into marketing
As a student or someone thinking about applying to study at the University of Sunderland in London, it’s easy to assume that you’ve got your career path already planned out. But if you haven’t, do not worry. Plenty of people begin their degrees not knowing what their future will look like.
Find your career
As much as your courses and extra-curricular activities are preparing you for the world of work, it's important to think too about the so-called 'soft-skills' that employers increasingly think of as vital when helping them decide who to hire. Check out our top ten and improve your chances of landing that dream job.
See the skills
Are you someone who dreads interviews? It’s not an uncommon feeling. The night before can be restless as you run over the following day in your mind. But that anxiety is not something you have to go through. The key to beating the pre-interview nerves – preparation.
Prepare for your interview
Life post-graduation can be a tricky thing to navigate sometimes. Many people enter the world of work not really having a set direction or at the very least a plan of how to get from where they are to where they want to be. That's where mentors come in.
Find your mentor
Whether you have years of work behind you or you’re coming to your subject fresh, it’s always a good idea to think about going for a work placement.
Why you should do a work placement
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