The hunt for a part-time job

Adam Coombs, student blogger

It finally hits you. Your student loan is not going to be enough to sustain your wild life of parties anymore. Well, maybe if you cut out food and decide that alcohol is more important than the rent, but most sane people would either cut back on going out or do what I’ve been doing for the past month or so. And that is to try and find a part-time job in recession-struck Britain.

Is teaching your back-up?

Anastasia Miari – student blogger

Teaching, for a lot of us, is a back up. If all else fails, then teach, right? If this is your mindset, maybe you should consider taking part in the Student Associates Scheme, as I did for three weeks this summer.

Along with a great number of students, before this summer I thought that teaching would be a brilliant fall back if my acting/ journalism/TV-producing career doesn’t exactly go to plan. Lets face it, the country’s not getting any richer and jobs aren’t exactly being handed out willy nilly. So, I decided that I’d see if teaching was actually for me.

The Student Associates Scheme is organised by The University of Manchester in

An Aldi poster can inspire your career plans too, honestly…

Helen McGuire – student blogger

There is a poster I walk past almost everyday in the John Ryland’s Library, and every time I see it I’m filled with a sort of sense of impending doom about the future course of my adult life. It’s a poster advertising careers at the discount supermarket ‘Aldi’. In the corner of the poster of doom it states that a graduate can get a starting salary of £40,000 and a ‘fully expensed Audi A4’. This poster always gets me thinking about what I’d want out of a career. Would I really be happy in a 9 to 5 job, working for Aldi and driving around in my Audi A4? Or am I prepared to sacrifice financial success for a more fulfilling career?

As a second year student, I’m just starting to think about what I want to do with my life. I still have no fixed career

Prices increase, opportunities decrease – find a solution now!

Student blogger – Priya Thakrar

I remember when I hit the age of 16. I’d be in town every Saturday handing my CV out to every shop I could – especially the clothing retail ones in hope of some store discount! I ended up working in a petrol station. Although I’d moan about this at the time, I now realise that the experience I gained from assisting in simple commerce such as on the till or shop floor has been vital to progressing my employability skills. It’s not that I’ve become an

‘Describe a time when you had to fill in an online application form…’

Angela Wipperman – student blogger

After mammoth amounts of procrastination, I finally took the decision to begin my graduate scheme applications this month. There is something very imposing about an application form. It is a clerical mountain – the last thing you want to do is begin the long and torturous ascent but once it’s complete you feel quite good, actually.

I drew up a  modest list of 25 companies to which I will be applying. I have found that with most of these application forms, done one, done them all. Over the last couple of weeks, and the last twelve forms, I have identified a few useful rules to approaching an online application form.

The Layman’s Guide to Careers

Tom Owen - Final Year BA Econ Student

Tom Owen – student blogger

It’s 3.28am. I should be fast asleep at this time but something terrifying is gripping my senses and the worry is stopping me sleeping. In 8 months, regardless of what I wish for, I should be making my way into the world of work, an entirely real and nerve-wracking prospect. It is often said the best way to deal with fear is to confront it. So, throughout this year, I’ll be teaming up with our award winning Careers Service to allow readers to track my journey through the final year of an BA Economics degree.

Introducing our new student bloggers

Back in July, we put out a call to our student readers for budding writers to join the blog team.  We thought it would be great if students-like-you could share their own experiences of what it’s really like to be looking for a job or figuring out what it is you want to do with your life in 2009/10.

The response was impressive, so we had some tough choices to make. We were looking for writing talent, but we also wanted to get a good mix of subjects and second/final years and male/female. In the end, we’re very pleased to welcome to the blog team our 6 student bloggers…

Budding student writers – join our blog team and get experience for your CV!

In September, the Manchester Undergrad Careers Blog will have been in existence for a year, and we must be doing something right, as we’re getting up to 1500 hits a month! So next year, we want to carry on writing the posts you seem to be finding the most useful (judging by the hits) but also introduce some new topics and themes.

For example, we want some of our students readers to be regular contributors to the blog next academic year, sharing their personal experiences of thinking about careers and job hunting. So, we’re on the hunt for any current University of Manchester undergrads (any year) who are budding journalists, creative writers or just want the opportunity to write regularly for fun!