Work experience is a must-have on any CV, whether you’re a student or an adult. But as the time comes to make applications for college, sixth form or university, everyone going through the process needs some kind of work experience to prove that they can walk the walk as well as simply stating their competencies.
In this article, we’ll be exploring the different kinds of work experience opportunities available to students who are either applying for college or university, with a specific emphasis on what these institutions are looking for on applicants' personal statements or CVs.
This article is primarily targeted at students entering any kind of further education, but will also be worthwhile for the parents or carers of such children, and for students who are looking to head straight into employment.
What exactly is work experience?
Before we get into the best kinds of work experience for your personal statement, it’s important that we first understand what exactly is meant by the term.
Put simply, ‘work experience’ refers to any kind of experience involving one’s employment and undertaking of responsibilities in an employed context.
This criteria means that any kind of employment, whether it be full time, part-time, paid or unpaid counts as work experience.
The point of doing work experience isn’t just to work for the sake of working, but rather to be able to demonstrate real applications of your qualities and skills as a worker and learner.
For example, if you wanted to claim to be great at working as a team, you could use a real life experience that you had working as a part of a team to support such a claim on your personal statement.
Even better if you can refer to specific examples where you used your skills during your work experience.
If ever you’re unsure that something you’ve done might count as work experience, don’t hesitate to ask a teacher, since they will be more than happy to point you in the right direction.
What makes good work experience?
Now that we understand what is meant by work experience, it would be even better to know what aspects make for impressive and worthwhile work experience that colleges, universities and future employers want to see supporting your credentials.
- Relevance: Personal statements are limited to a certain number of words, which means that listing only relevant work experience is absolutely crucial when it comes to having the best chance of success in your application.
For example, if you’re applying to study an engineering course, the reader of your application probably isn’t interested that you might have spent the summer flipping burgers for minimum wage. But they would be very impressed to see work experience that demonstrates your creativity and problem-solving skills.
- Duration: Work experience is only as valuable as the hours you put into it. Even if you choose the best possible type of work experience, you couldn’t be said to be very ‘experienced’ if you only showed up for one shift.
Lasting work experience is great evidence of your commitment and dependability as a worker and learner.
- Complexity: It’s no use citing work experience if you only had a passive, easily replaceable role. Make sure when choosing work experience that you find something where you can be proactive, lively and versatile, which will naturally lead to a broader and richer experience, ultimately looking much better when put to scrutiny.
Common work experience opportunities:
With a solid understanding of work experience and how to make the most of it, it’s time to have a look at some of the more common forms of work experience that have frequent opportunities for young learners to partake in.
Charity shop work
Charity shop work is a classic kind of work experience, and for good reason. It boasts opportunities for workers to be part of a passionate team that are driven mostly just by the kindness of their hearts, as opposed to a salary.
Workers will also learn important and broadly applicable skills in working with currency, customer service, organisation and more.
The lone and obvious downside of this kind of work is that you won’t be taking home any pay for this work experience.
Cafés, Bookshops and other local shops
The closest alternative to charity store work that will net you some cash is by working part-time for a local business. Although not always the case, working for a store where income is a priority means a more challenging and demanding experience overall.
Often, however, such challenges come with valuable and rewarding experience.
Tutoring
In the journey of education, most of us come to realise that teaching is a part of learning. Fittingly, taking up work as a tutor for students a few rungs below you on the educational ladder is a great way of obtaining work experience.
Being able to accurately teach the same subject that you hope to study, even if it’s at a simpler level, will be a very good indicator to colleges and universities that you are dedicated to your craft and have a very solid foundation which will be easy to build on in your further education.
On top of all that, you’ll be able to make some money at the same time.
Volunteering Work
Volunteering work is an exceptionally broad category of work experience, but that is part of its beauty. Regardless of what further studies you hope to take on, there is sure to be a certain institution or industry within which you will be able to find some volunteer work.
For example, if you hope to become a veterinarian or another medical professional after your studies, you could very easily volunteer to work in a relevant clinic. This would be a very powerful message to send on your personal statement, proving you’re driven to take part at every level.
For aspiring historians and artists, museums, which are often publicly funded, relish the opportunity to work with volunteers. The behind the curtain access and experience to exhibits might prove worth it alone.
Social Media Intern
One thing companies understand these days is just how much they don’t understand about social media…
That is, compared to the younger generations, who seem to be far more in tune with the online world that they grew up with. As a result, many companies that want to get their name and presence out on the web turn to young interns to run their social media pages for them.
This can be a wonderfully rewarding experience for some learners, who will develop skills in communication, feedback, and analytics.
Uncommon work experience opportunities:
Everyone is different, especially when it comes to our goals and aspirations, and as such the right kind of work experience might vary from person to person. With that said, let’s have a look at some of the more niche work experience that might just be what you are looking for.
Farm Assistant/Farmhand
If agriculture is in your future, there is simply no better experience available than getting first-hand experience working on a farm. Since we live in a highly urbanised society, it’s easy to forget how important our agricultural sector is.
It falls on the new generations of course to get the relevant experience to take over and make sure we can feed our country.
Conservation work
Animal conservation and nature conservation work is extremely fulfilling and rewarding work and fortunately, it is available as work experience to interested students, although availability might vary greatly depending on where in the country you live and study.
If you live in a particularly urban environment, this kind of work might not be plentiful, but there’s always the possibility of volunteering in a zoo if there’s one nearby… You never know!
Primary School or Nursery Volunteer
Although it’s not everyone's cup of tea, teaching, especially when it comes to younger children, is a career spoken highly of by its practitioners as a fulfilling, albeit stressful.
Due to the rather unfortunate shortcoming of the economy, there is a shortage of teachers in the UK, which means that conversely, there is no shortage of volunteer work available in schools.
If you think you’ve got what it takes to work closely with children, then you might be able to find some quintessential work experience for your future teaching career, or any career that involves caring for children for that matter.
Before we close out this article, it’s vital that I emphasise that this article only scratches the surface of all the work experience available. In fact, practically anything that fulfils the criteria we outlined near the beginning can count as good experience, just make sure you check with a teacher if you have any doubts!
Afterword
Thanks for taking the time to read this article about work experience opportunities. If you want to learn more about further education, or any number of different academic subjects, make sure to check around on the Superprof blog as we’re sure we have a good read waiting for you. We hope to see you again soon!
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