Title: Introduction to Student Circus (13/09/22)
Duration: 1:00:00
Record the session - you'll probably get a little kind of permissions note on your screen now, so if you could just accept that. This is obviously a webinar so nobody can be seen or heard, but the recording will mean we can share this with other students that couldn't make it today. The second thing to say is if you have any questions as we're talking, as Drew's giving the presentation, if you could pop them in the chat that's the best way for you to ask a question, and every so often we'll pause and I'll kind of mention the questions to Drew, he'll take a look and we'll kind of tackle them as we go along, and there'll also be some time at the end to look at questions as well.
So the only other thing I wanted to quickly do before I pass over to Drew is just to remind you about some of the support that we've got on offer for you. So I'm just going to share my screen and a couple of slides. So I imagine most of you today have now finished your program essentially. I think most of you will have handed your dissertation in and you'll be kind of coming towards the end of your program. And so what I wanted to remind you of and make sure you're all aware of is that the Careers Network support continues after you graduate: we don't just support students, we support graduates as well. So for those of you still looking for work, exploring what to do next, whether to do further study, whether to look for work in the UK, whether to look internationally - we'd like to keep supporting you with all of that. So as a graduate you will still have access to all of our job listings, to events, to our appointments, and also with support for considering further study. And obviously Student Circus you'll still have access to that as a graduate. And you'll also have access to our online resources that help you with applying for roles - so our CV Checker, our practice video interviews, and our assessment centre support. So I'll pop some of these links in the chat shortly for you to maybe save on your laptops. And the last thing is just to remind you that in order to still have access to all of those things that I've just talked about, you do need to register for a graduate account with Careers Network. So I'm going to pop this link in the chat - it's the normal link you'll use to book events, book appointments, but you will need to apply for a graduate account. It's really straightforward and simple. We are also sending you out a reminder about this in the next few days so it'll also come through to your emails, but yeah it's just a quick reminder that if you want to keep accessing our services you need to register for a graduate account. Okay that's it from me, so I'm gonna stop sharing and hand over to you Drew, is that okay?
That's perfect. So I've just started sharing my screen, I hope you can see it? Yep. Perfect. Thank you, thank you. So thank you so much Naomi, and thank you to Cate for helping us arrange this wonderful webinar for your students and I'm delighted to be here to speak to your students to guide them in how to use the platform that is Student Circus, and more importantly give them certain tips and tricks - things to do, and things not to do - when they want to look for jobs especially in the UK. So as you know Naomi has given a short introduction about myself - my name is Dhruv Krishnaraj and I am the Director at Student Circus, but to be honest I'm out here not talking to you as a director, I'm talking to you as someone that has gone through the journey myself. So a couple of years back I was an international student myself so I came to the UK like all of you and I too wanted to find a job once I finished, but I did realise that it's easier said than done for multiple different reasons. As an international student we're traveling across the world, we need to basically adjust to a new way of life, academics, meeting new friends and creating a social circle, and more importantly finding the right jobs that hire international students. And that's why Student Circus was created to support all of you in achieving this exact thing. Over the last five years since we started Student Circus, Student Circus has grown to become the UK's largest job search platform for international students, where we work with more than 60 universities across the country just like Birmingham, supporting close to a hundred thousand international students via our platform. So we're here for you because we not only sympathise with what you're going through but more importantly we have been through the journey ourselves. So every feature that we bring out is to get you that much closer to your dream job in the UK or anywhere in the world. So as I said, and as Naomi has also given a short introduction, that Student Circus has a lot of different resources out for you - whether it's finding jobs in the UK, or finding jobs in your home country, or even finding out more about a third country's graduate job search market, Student Circus has everything under one roof. More importantly we have experts giving us intelligence, research and advice on a weekly basis that we pass on to all of you via our blogs, articles, webinars, etc so that you are up to speed with what's happening in the world of graduate recruitment. So before we go ahead, and before I take you through some of the tips and tricks, I just thought I'll give everyone a brief understanding of what's happening in the UK right now. So the first thing that every international student should know is if you want to find a job in the UK it's very important to first get a glance of the UK's graduate market on your screen you'll see a table which will share the number of international students that are coming in every single year over the last five years, and as you can see the number of students coming in has steadily increased from 450,000 in 2016-2017 to more than 600,000 in 2020-2021. Last year we had 620,000 in a single year alone, and this year we're still awaiting figures which hopefully will be released post October 2022, where we're expecting more than 700,000 international students. So what does this tell us? This tells us that the market is getting extremely competitive and therefore international students should be extremely proactive in their job search. Now, how do you start looking for jobs, and where do you start looking for jobs? What we've done for you is, I wanted to give you some context as to which are the top hiring sectors in the UK. Now as you can see this list is for 2021 because we currently are in 2022, and once we come towards the end of the year we will update this list for you as well. But starting off by looking at some of these sectors it should help give you a head start into where you should start finding the most number of vacancies out there. So as you can see, you know, finance, e-commerce, digital marketing, are some of the sectors which the UK has always had a lead on. More importantly because of Covid and the pandemic we've seen a lot of roles come up in healthcare, where the government is putting a lot of impetus on hiring at the NHS. Moreover there are lots of health-tech start-ups coming up in the UK, that have come, you know, they're developing cutting-edge technologies which are also hiring a lot of staff - so that is another avenue that you might want to look at. More importantly, when you look at the IT sector in the UK, the UK actually has a skill shortage in a lot of these fields, so if any of you on this call have some sort of a technical knowledge, a technical background, or a technical degree from the University of Birmingham - IT, technology etc is on the rise, and from my own personal experience I can tell you that almost a third of every job out there is in the technical or the IT sector. So there are lots of roles in this sector out there for you, but for an international student it's really important to first get a macro understanding of what's happening in the market, which other sectors you should reach out to, and more importantly, where you should start your job search if you want to look for jobs in this country. So as I said you know foreign international student you need to keep in mind that job search needs to be a very proactive activity out there for you, unlike other countries in the world where companies come on campus, interview students on campus, and give them a full-time job it doesn't work that way in the UK. So it doesn't matter which institution you've gone to, everyone has an equal opportunity to apply and get the right job, and therefore international students need to be proactive, because you not only need to understand how the graduate job search market works in the UK, but you also need to make sure that you have all the right tools at your disposal. By tools I mean a nice CV that is acceptable by industry in the UK, a cover letter - which I'm sure all of you know of - ready to send out to companies so they can start with the vetting process. More importantly as an international student I know a large number of you on this call will be interested in making UK their home for the foreseeable future. Which means that if you want to stay in the UK longer than the next two or three years - which is the duration of the new post study work visa, or the graduate immigration route - you will need to find a job that gives you a skilled worker visa, which is more of a long-term work visa that you will have to look at, and keeping in mind the way the market works there are not every employer out there offers or can offer a skilled worker visa, because not all of them have a visa sponsorship license. More importantly not all the roles out there are the ones for which employers are willing to offer skill worker visa, therefore international students need to keep all of this information in mind and start with their job search as soon as possible. The one golden rule that I will tell everyone is start ASAP. If you're going to spend time with your job on your job search or doing something else etc you will start realising that the earlier you start with your job search gives you more opportunities to apply for more number of roles, which gives you more opportunities and more chances of actually getting the right job. More importantly as an international student you will need to pitch yourself in a different way because you have a unique skill set. Most of you know multiple different languages, most of you have done some sort of a part-time job in the UK, a large number of you would have had some sort of work experience in your home country - all these things matter to employers, you just need to know how to put them in the right way on your CV and your cover letter etc and that's why the one thing that I would recommend all of you to do is reach out to the Careers Network, reach out to Naomi and her team, and they will be there to help you every step of the way and that's why you need to take charge of your job search and be extremely proactive with it.
So where does Student Circus fit in in all of this? So as I said Student Circus is the UK's largest job search platform for international students. That's because we are one of the only ones where international students can find the visa sponsored jobs that they're looking for in the UK. So all the roles on our platform are not only just from employers that have a valid visa sponsorship license, but they're also graduate level and more importantly are vetted to ensure that these are the roles where employers are accepting applications from international students - because guess what, there are a lot of employers that don't accept international students. Now I know it's a very controversial topic but what we want to tell students is don't worry and don't waste your time on applying for those roles where you don't have a chance. Spend time and make sure you put in a right application for those roles where you have a shot and you have a good chance at actually getting that role. Moreover on the platform you can apply not only for graduate related positions, you can also apply for internships placements etc. So again we are offering this platform to not only those students that are graduating, but also those students that are either in their first year, in the second year, in the third year that either have a placement year or don't, we have a wide range of different opportunities out there for you waiting to just go and get applied for. Apart from the jobs, we have a couple of other unique features specifically designed to help international students. The first feature that I would really highlight is called the immigration guide, so being a former international student myself it was really difficult for me to understand the UK visa rules regulations etc and it can get quite confusing because you don't have enough of time, you don't know who will give you the most authentic advice etc. So what we've done is after talking to thousands of international students, we've realised that as an international student you require the most authentic advice in the most easiest form available to you 24/7. So we've created some question sets that we've gone and partnered with, and asked our immigration partner which is one of the largest law firms in the UK called Pennington's Manchester Cooper to answer in easy simplified English. So foreign international students we know that you are extremely talented and you can find your way out because you've shown that by coming to study, so by giving you this basic information we know that it will open up a whole avenue for you to do further research or then go and reach out to an immigration professional by yourself or to the visa team at the University if you have any sort of further personalised immigration questions, as per law we are only allowed to answer generic questions on our platform, and that's what we've done by the immigration guide. If any of you have any sort of personalised immigration question I would recommend that you reach out to a legal professional or to the visa team at the University because then they need to have a chat with you, understand your previous case history, and only then can provide any sort of answers going forward. But being international students we know that you find your way, so we thought that this is a great starting point for you to take further advice. Additionally, as I said apart from jobs in the UK, Student Circus also has roles in 29 other countries across the world, because we know that international students - a large number of them want to go back home, they just don't want to stay in the UK longer term. So on Student Circus you can not only apply for roles in the UK, but you can also apply for roles in your home country. We hope 29 of these countries are one of your home countries, we are constantly adding more of these, but we have jobs and internships in these 29 countries for you. Additionally, to help you better prepare for your job search in these 29 countries we have something called country guides, because we understand that staying away from your home country, for you know, two, three, four, five years, might detach you from what's going on back home, and your country guides include information such as a mock CV, how does a cover letter look, etc, in that particular country, so you are on top of what's happening in the country you want to apply for your roles. More importantly as I said we constantly update our platform with the latest goings on in the higher education space in the UK, and world over we have a bunch of different and fantastic writers out there that help us with our research and our blogs page is one of the most viewed pages that we have on our platform, which is free to use for everyone out there. So please go there, go to our website, spend some time, check it out and I'm sure you will find a lot of the things that will benefit you in your professional journey. So how do students at Birmingham use the platform? It's super simple - you either go to studentcircus.com and select the University of Birmingham as your university, or you can directly go to the micro site that we've created specifically for Birmingham which is birmingham.studentcircus.com and sign up using your University email ID - yes the one that the university has provided for you. When you sign up you will get an email sent to your inbox, so keep an eye on that - sometimes it might end up in spam or junk, so please keep an eye on that as well. If it does, please mark us as a safe sender so you don't miss any more updates from our end. Once you verify the email you're good to go, you have access to all the different features that we have for you on the platform, but as I said one of the most important features that I know you guys will access is the job search page, and as you can see the job search page is designed to provide you a seamless experience of not only searching for visa sponsored jobs in the UK, but also for jobs in your home countries, and when you switch between these two panels out there you can select the Home Country you want to apply for roles in. It's very simple because we want to make sure that students are finding the jobs anywhere in the world they want to go. Moreover, as I said there's an immigration guide for you out there, for you to go and find out more information on visas the do's and don'ts etc, and we believe this is really helpful for students because a lot of the students are confused, or have a lot of misinformation floating around in terms of visas. When I was a student myself in my student accommodation, there was a lot of misinformation where if you earn a certain number of pounds every single year you could sponsor your own visa. That was a rumour but everyone believed it, and that's not true. Only if I had something like this would I have benefited and saved a lot of time. So we recommend everyone goes there, checks it out, it's only there for your benefit, and more importantly as I said we have a range of different country guides out there. Our country guides are not only used by students wanting to find out more information about job search in their home country, but it is a dual purpose guide where you can use this to find out about job search industry and information about any country out there, so please go there, please check it out. So even if you're a student coming from Asia and wanting to find a job in Germany, you can use a German guide to get, you know, you can find out what a German CV looks like, you can find out what industries are hiring in Germany etc. All that is there for you to benefit so please make sure you use, you go through the platform and use it for its benefit in finding the right roles out there for yourself. So now that I've told you guys about Student Circus and the macro environment in the UK's graduate job search market, there are a couple of tips that I'd like to give all of you, so that you're better prepared for your job search here. The first step that I'd like to tell everyone is please understand the timelines that recruiters in the UK follow unlike other countries across the world especially countries in Asia or in North America. Companies in the UK take their own time in hiring and confirming the right individual - it is not as quick as you see in other countries. In some countries I've seen that, you know, a company would advertise a job role today, would find someone next week, would interview someone and give them a job. And in two weeks from the time a person applied for a role they would start the position. It is not that quick in the UK; in the UK it takes an average of anywhere between one to three months to hire someone. More importantly, if you're looking for a graduate job, I would give yourselves more time - so anywhere from between four to six months to find the right job. Moreover if you are entering your final year or you're starting your degree, you will start realising that the time frame from September every single year to December every single year is when most employers open up applications for the grad schemes, for their internship schemes, and for their placement schemes. Now all these applications open up for roles starting the next year, which means that some employers need 12 months, some need six, some need eight etc, so again as an international student make sure to research the market - make sure you give yourselves enough of time to apply, to find and apply for the right role and trust me if you tell someone that you're applying for a role 12 months before the role is supposed to start you shouldn't be surprised. So make sure you give yourselves enough time and it's fine I know a lot of students will come back to me and say, 'oh but I don't yet have my degree / I have yet not passed my degree / I don't know how much will I score, etc' - that's totally fine, employers in the UK understand that, yet they open their roles six to 12 months before a person is supposed to pass out, so don't worry about this, make sure you go to the company's website, make sure you're on top of all the applicant help, all the application questions that are there for you, and yes please go to Careers Network and meet Naomi and the team because they're there to support you in every step of the way. Moreover a lot of international students are confused as to why does it take so much time for employers to kind of you know hire and finalise the right person that they want? That's because the application process in the UK and the whole journey is very formal - it's very different to other countries where you have everything which is informal. In the UK employers generally have a four to six step process to confirm someone for a graduate role. Moreover there are some companies now, especially some start-ups that have reduced the process to make it a two to three step process, so sorry again, as an international student, I would say go to each company's website and understand what sort of processes and how many steps do they have for their own, you know, requirement. Every company is different, every industry is different. The one thing that I will tell everyone to keep in mind is irrespective of whether the company has a two-step process or a six-step process, there are two common things that you need to be ready with: your CV and cover letter, and you need to prepare for your interview, because even if you're applying for a part-time role at a Tesco or a McDonald's etc you will need to submit your CV and cover letter, and you will need to go for an interview. So again if you can, which I recommend everyone should, is be prepared for all the steps - but if you don't have enough time for whatsoever reason, and you just want to make sure you want to do the minimum at least make sure you go to Careers Network and take support from them to make sure you have a good CV, a good cover letter, and you prepare for your interviews professionally. Another important point to understand about the UK's graduate market is that employers in the UK love to hire candidates that come from a diverse background - by diverse I don't just mean your nationality or where you're from - it also means what you studied and therefore you should take advantage of this situation where the UK is one of the most open graduate markets out there for students. So just because you're studying finance does not mean you cannot apply for a marketing role, again just because you're studying law does not mean you cannot apply for an accounting role as long as you meet the minimum requirements in a particular job description and via your CV, your cover letter, your interview process, your work experience etc, you can showcase to the employer that you're the right person for the job, you should apply for it and you would get it. So again prove your interest in a sector, not just the degree you're studying, and be as broad as possible. Now tailing on from that point there's another important point that I'd like to add specifically for international students, which is broadening your scope. Now when I was an international student a couple of years back and I came to study my management degree in the UK, I had come in with this clear mindset that I want to apply for- I want to go into Consulting and I want to apply for one of the big four consulting firms in the UK. Now that was a good and a bad thought process - good because I knew what I wanted to do, and bad because I was too narrow in my thinking. Every international student that comes in that I have at least spoken to has certain dream companies to apply for which is amazing, because you know where you want to go and most of these dream companies are multinational companies such as big banks Google, Amazon, Uber, the big four consulting firms etc. Now that's all right but the one thing you need to understand is, if you as an international student know of these companies, there is a very high chance that millions of other students at universities across the UK also know about them, which means that you are already in a hyper competitive environment, and you're going to be reducing your chances of getting a job, because you're going to be competing with millions of other students applying for the same companies. So make sure you apply for these companies, but also broaden your scope and research and find out more companies that are not that multinational that are SMEs, start-ups, UK-specific companies etc, because trust me you will see that those companies that have a lesser of a brand presence etc might not just have an easier application process, but also have a much quicker one because they - on the contrary - struggle to attract the right candidates, because all of us are busy applying for the Googles and Amazons of the world. So make sure you balance your applications out and not just apply for these large firms but also small and middle size and start-up firms as well. And as an international student the one thing that I will tell you, is if you can do some sort of a work experience - by work experience I mean doing an internship that adds to your skill set - that is option number one. Secondly, if you can't get an internship that adds to your skill set, do any sort of internship. If you can't get that do a part-time job, if you can't even get a part-time job do some sort of volunteering as well. If you can't do volunteering do some sort of additional certifications. Anything and everything that you do apart from your degree will help you, and keep that in mind in today's hyper competitive environment when you're competing with not just 700,000 other international students but millions of other students across the UK. A good degree from a university just doesn't stand out, sorry. You need to make sure that you have enough of a skill set to stand out and make sure you're seen from a crowd, and all these things will help you. Again your multilingual skills will also help you, so make sure you put them in. Everything and anything that international students do additional to their degree matters. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to share a quick infographic for all of you right from the time you arrive in the UK till the time you get a job international students need to go through all these different steps. Now I know some of you will try to find a shortcut, you know the simplest way, the easiest way, the quickest way - now that's all fine but what I would suggest is make sure you follow this process. That's because each of these steps are put in for a particular reason. For example getting your CV reviewed by professional is extremely important, because every second student that I talk to is amazing in academics but when I look at their CV it's not up to the mark - so it's not as per UK standard. So as an employer, if I see your grades that are very good but if I see your CV that's not great, I will not hire you. So make sure you get your CV checked by Careers Network then come and network - it's very important to network in a different environment. By networking I don't just mean going and meeting people, it also means coming to webinars and events like these that the university holds. I know the university holds a lot of different webinars from a lot of different experts - please go there, because trust me, you will learn something new every time. Then as an international student, the one thing you need to keep in mind that I've said previously, is you need to take charge of your job search. So you need to find the right jobs out there for you, they will not come finding for you - you will need to do that by name. Additionally you need to apply for these roles online, you need to pass through all the different steps, such as psychometric tests, video interviews, assessment centres, etc and only then will you find the right job. So again please try and complete all of these, and trust me this will not only benefit your job search in the UK, but it will also benefit you if you're looking for jobs in any other country across the world, whether it's Europe, Southeast Asia etc.
Now what I wanted to do, is I actually wanted to clear some doubts for international students, and again true experience of talking to a lot of students out there, and especially students that are coming in since the last year or two, I realised there are a lot of students that are coming in and misunderstanding certain terms that are used, both in their home country and then in the UK. I'll give you a small example of this, so I know and I could see from the students on this call that a lot of you come from India - I too come from India. So in India we use the term 'campus placements' for when companies come on campus, interview students on campus, and give them a full-time job to start for once they finish their graduation. On the contrary to that, the term 'placement' in the UK actually means a year that you spend working in industry as a part of your degree - it does not mean a full-time job that you get once you finish. Now these both terms are the same: placement in India, and a placement in the UK, they are spelled the same way so there is a lot of confusion out there for a lot of students, especially students coming from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. More importantly please understand that in the UK we do not have the so-called campus placements that you have back home, so please don't get confused with this exchange of terminology in the UK. A placement is not a full-time job, it is in fact a full-time internship that you need to do as a part of your course - only if your course allows this to be undertaken - not all courses in the UK have a placement year. So if yours does, make sure, or if you're confused whether yours does make sure you reach out to your course representative and ask them this question. More importantly as an international student we all know what internships are, but in the UK you have two sorts of internships: you have an internship that can be taken whilst you're studying - which can be a part-time internship; or you can do an internship that's done over the summer - which generally is a structured full-time summer internship. Now again it depends on what the student is studying which year they're in etc, which will depend on which sort of an internship they want to do or they can do. So make sure you reach out to Careers Network if you have any queries around all of this, but please don't get confused with the interchange in terminology etc, because this is very important for you to know.
Additionally, the other thing that we'd like to say, is at Student Circus we know that as an international student there is a lot of pressure - you're juggling a lot of different things - and job search is one of the most important, and we know it's not easy. I'm not going to sugarcoat it and say, 'oh every student coming to the UK is going to be successful in getting their dream job'. No, that's not going to happen. However the one thing that I will tell you is the UK is an amazing country to find the right job and especially to start your career. There are a lot of companies out there, there are a lot of opportunities out there, but students and only these students that work hard are proactive, take all the support that is provided to them, will be successful. So what we've done for you is we have a lot of success stories on our website, where they're not only in text format but they're also in a video interview format, where we've spoken to international students and asked them, 'what were the tips that they would like to share with all of you?' - so please go to our success stories page, please check out what former international students that have been successful want to tell you, because this will only help you, this will motivate you, and more importantly it'll help you learn something new which you might not know. So these are again practical tips that we wanted successful international students to pass on to all of you that are in the job search arena right now.
Some of the tips that I'd like to highlight from some of the successful students that we've seen are that it's all about practice. So practice makes one perfect. Hamna, who was an intern with Deloitte, and who's now got a graduate scheme with another big four company says that it's not always possible to get it right the first time. We all have known that. I don't know anyone that has applied for one job and has got it, very few people get that, so make sure you don't give up, keep practising, because whatever happens - even if you get rejected, persist, and only then it will pay off. So again it's all about taking all the support and the motivation out there for you from all of us. Jessica, who's another international student that got a brilliant job with KPMG, says that a very important tool that you should keep in mind is practising online tests. Now these are also called psychometric tests. I know Careers Network at Birmingham has a lot of free psychometric tests for you to practice, so please go there and ask them for them. These practice tests are really important because only after you practice them you know they're really doable, and most large multinational companies that hire graduates will ask you to do a practice test as a part of the assessment process. So make sure you practice and you make use of all the resources out there for you. Additionally there are a couple of other insights that I'd like to share for international students, and these insights are in the form of blogs. So as I said we have a range of number of writers out there across the world giving us the latest information and job search, and there are a couple of blogs that I'd like to highlight specifically for international students - one of which is 'How do you write professional emails?' Over the last couple of months there are a lot of students that reach out to me on LinkedIn, and I have to say that I've noticed a trend, where a lot of students that reach out to me on LinkedIn just send me a one-line message, 'Hi I need a job'. Now that's not the way you professionally reach out to someone, whether it's an employer, whether it's someone like me, or anyone out there. If you send a message like this even to your friends they aren't going to reply to you, so make sure you learn and you understand how to professionally reach out to people. And if you want to know more about this please go to this blog which is there for you, and again in my personal opinion this is Rule 101 that you need to keep in mind. Another important tool for students is understanding and getting a guide to the informational interviews that employers ask. So as I said it doesn't matter whether you're applying for a large multinational company or to a small shop, if you're applying for any sort of role trust me you will have to go and give an interview, even if it's formal or informal, so make sure you look at our blog which is titled 'A guide to informational interviews' and then understand how you can brush up your interviewing skills, because this will help you irrespective of which role you're applying for, anywhere in the world. And finally the fun segment - as you know, there are a lot of companies out there that try and ask students some tricky questions - so one of the favourites for companies over the last couple of years has been, 'How did you spend your time during lockdown?' - because trust us and trust me, a lot of students answered 'Netflix and chill', which may be true, it's honest, but that's not the answer they're looking for - they want something which is more professional. So they want to know how you spend your time, how you, you know, how you were dealing through one of the most difficult times in our generation, in our century etc, your resilience, the calm in the middle in the midst of uncertainty, etc. And again that is just one example of a tricky question. We have covered a lot of different tricky questions on our blogs page, so make sure you go and check them out, because this will help you if you ever come across one. And finally foreign international students as I said we not only support you in finding the right roles in the UK, but we also support you in finding roles in your home countries. So currently we have jobs and internships in 29 countries globally and you can see this list out there, it's there on the platform as well. So if you are a student from any of these countries, or have a working right in any of these countries, please go and check out the jobs and make sure you apply for them as well. We cover a range of different roles from top employers in these countries, and this is just a few examples for you. So again as I said if you want to find out more insights you can go to our blogs page, if it's open it's free for everyone, so please go and check it out, and I'd like to thank everyone for taking time out to come to this webinar. I hope all the information that we shared was helpful for you, and if you have any questions please put them in the chat box and Naomi and I can pick it up, and thank you again Naomi and Cate for, you know, helping us plan this. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much, that was so helpful and really nice to get all the kind of context as well about the challenges facing international students, that's really helpful. We haven't got any questions yet but I'll give you a few minutes if any of you want to pop something in the chat. One question I had Drew and that's - I guess we're kind of hearing more and more of is, I guess the question's around the graduate route visa, and how students answer questions around that process, and around potentially only being in the UK for two years and available to work in the UK for two years, and how they manage that during the recruitment process and in conversations with potential employers, and I just wondered if you had any insights / thoughts on that?
Absolutely, and this is as you said, this is one of the most important questions that I get asked as well and this is a constant discussion in the industry. So how do you deal with that? So let's be honest the graduate route visa is great because it gives everyone an equal opportunity to stay in the UK for two or three years once they finish without the need for sponsorship. So I would look at the company, I would look at the role that you're applying for, and then I would take this discussion up. It is amazing, it is totally free of cost to the company to hire you, and you can stay with the company for two years. Now what happens after the two years is something that you need to be carefully aware of. I'll be honest there are a lot of companies out there that want to hire students for only two years in the UK and after that would either continue hiring the student in their home country or not continue with that. That is one sort of company. There are other companies that are more than happy to hire you for two years and then sponsor your visa, and then there is the third type of company which wants to try you out, see if you're good enough, and if you tick all the boxes they're open to considering to sponsor you in the future. So again there are three different types of companies students need to talk to their bosses, their managers, need to take it as it goes. But keeping that in mind I think a two years work experience in the UK not only gives students the right professional skills but gives them enough time to really shine right in the job that they're doing, so they can convince the employer or, you know, find another job as well. So again it depends and it really opens up the avenue for everyone out there. But keeping that in mind, I just would like to highlight that also increases competition, because now you're not only competing with your batch but you're competing with two more batches that get added on. So again there are lots of pros, there are a few cons, but again it depends on the student and how they handle this going forward. But it's all about being communicative to the employer.
Yeah. Okay that's really helpful, thank you. Had a question come through, it's just an anonymous question, and it just says, 'I haven't been able to find the jobs related to the construction industry'.
Absolutely - so we have roles opening up right now - over the last two days we've just added more than 150 roles on our platform. Again as I said roles are just opening up. So in the next I would say 20 days you will see at least a thousand other roles on the platform and a lot of them in the construction industry - which means civil engineering, structural engineering, architecture etc coming on. So keep an eye out, and again this is dependent a lot on the graduate market and the timelines on when employers open it up. So keep an eye out and you will find more of these.
Yeah and I think what we'll do is maybe Dhruv could send me the slide that just explains how you log on to Student Circus, I mean it's really instinctive to be honest, but I can circulate that so that you can get onto it as quickly as possible and start looking.
Absolutely. It's self-explanatory - you're just going to studentcircus.com and just sign up.
And then we've had another question through, from Ankit, and it says, 'I have five years experience in India, will it be considered here - as right now when I'm applying for jobs here, some recruiters are just saying we need a UK experience only?' So I guess does that experience from their home country count in the whole recruitment process?
Yes and no, it depends how you put it on your CV and your cover letter. Secondly it also depends on whether your experience is in the same industry that you're applying for roles right now, or not. And that's why - if I go previously on my slides - I've said that it's extremely important for international students to have some sort of work experience in the UK. So as I said this work experience in the UK, is extremely important / additional certification etc. The reason why I said this is, as an employer, an employer wants to see whether you can adapt to the UK's culture, you know, it's not anymore whether you can do a job - yes everyone's skill-full, everyone can learn etc, but can you get along? Do you understand how business is done? Can you adapt to the British culture etc? And trust me it is very different. When I started Student Circus six years back, it was very difficult for me to just understand and get things done, because it's very formal - it's unlike my home country where it's, you know, more informal. So again they just want to basically see that you can adapt and you are good at it. So again I would say make sure you go to Careers Network, take their support in explaining in a better way the five years that you have in the same industry, and then also try and get some sort of a work experience - whether it's an internship etc - in the UK as well. The other thing that you need to keep in mind is a lot of employers will ask you for reference checks as well, and that is extremely important, especially employers in the UK that are hiring international students for the first time - they will want to see that you are who you are, because trust me a lot of students fake it to make it. So make sure that you have some strong alibis - whether it's your professor, whether it's from an employer etc, and all these reasons are important for students to get some sort of work experience in the UK.
Yeah and just add to that Ankit, we would always say that most graduate recruiters, sorry graduate employers, what they're saying to us is that all experience is important, like what Druhv said, so whether it comes from the sector, outside the sector, paid, non-paid work experience, it's all really relevant. It's about how you demonstrate that, and in a CV or an application really tailor it to meet the needs of that particular job, that job specification, the requirements of that role. So I would say my broad kind of opinion is that it's definitely relevant what you've done in India, it's just about how we articulate that in a really meaningful way. So I think it would maybe be a good idea for you to book an appointment with somebody in the Careers Network team. We also have a process where you can send in an application with the kind of job advert that you're applying for, and that adviser will then be able to look at the job and the specification, the requirements, alongside your application and see if there's any ways you can improve that. So at the end - I haven't got it up on my screen now - but I will add these these links to the chat so that you can get some more support from it. We've got another question: 'I'm an MSc Material Science and Engineering student from India - I'm about to come to 'lathe course' - I don't actually know what that means, I'm sorry if I got that wrong - I couldn't see any jobs in the UK for manufacturing industries and very less job chances in the UK to apply for materials engineering roles'. I think it's a question around the amount of job opportunities there are.
Yes. Look let's be honest - you need to keep in mind of the industry because you are doing something very niche. There are roles out there - so we'll be putting roles from say Siemens etc which are in this space - so you need to try and broaden your scope a little bit. If you're going to be very niche you're going to have limited number of roles you can apply for because you want to stay in the UK. So again you need to set your priorities straight. So whether it's doing exactly what you want to do, or staying in the country, or staying in a particular country in a particular location etc. So again there are chances of jobs for sure, there are roles, you need to keep in mind when these roles open, follow those companies, make sure you make a list of those companies. Again the one thing that I would tell a lot of students is do your homework - if you're going to come in to the UK and start your course in a month, do your homework where you make a list of the top 20 companies that you want to apply for, or the types of roles you want to apply for, and then you start with that. It's not gonna be, 'oh I just finished my degree and I'm gonna get a job'. As an international student you need to do that prep beforehand, and then once you do it you'll automatically see things falling into place, and getting more easier because it's more structured.
And I think as well for you we do have a team within your College - so that's EPS - we have two members of staff that specialise in careers within engineering and physical sciences, so it might be worth you booking an appointment specifically with somebody in that College and they might be able to give you a bit more information about certain kind of roles that are growing well, where there's lots more opportunities that maybe you haven't already considered, and so I'll drop that in the chat at the end as well.
So I've got a few more: 'I'm studying online at the University of Birmingham so I'm not able to get a student visa, will I be able to apply for jobs in the UK after graduation?'
It's going to be much more difficult, I'll be honest. I don't want to you know sugar-coat it. Being on a student visa in the UK gives you a chance to physically be in the country, do a part-time role, get an internship, do work experience, make your reference case here, be here, understand, talk to people etc, all that is not available online. More importantly the student visa also gives you the option of the post-study work visa now. So if you don't have a student visa you will not have the post study work visa. So yes it is more difficult, but it's not impossible. Let's be realistic there are lots of people that come in, thousands and thousands of people that come in without having any sort of a student status in the UK, and just directly come to work. So yes it's very much possible but you need to work that much harder.
And I think with that one, definitely I'd say book a careers appointment. It might be that there are a couple of bodies that help with visa support for UK students, and although you aren't living in the UK, you are studying in the UK, so I think you'd still be able to access that support. And like Druhv said earlier we can't actually give legally we can't give visa support, but these places can - so it might be that would be a good company for you to get involved with. So I've got quite a lot of stuff to write in the chat. Have you got anything to finish off with Druhv?
Yeah I think it's all about that, I think international students are known to be very proactive as well, just hustle, do the hard work and make sure you just take all the support that there is out there for you, and then you will see things falling into place that's all I'll say.
Lovely, thank you. There's one more question that's come in that's just said, 'Can I know this is a good time for PG students to apply for jobs?' Like Druhv said, although there is this space between September-December where a lot of the graduate schemes recruit, recruitment does happen all year round. So absolutely it's a good time to look for jobs - it's always a good time to look for jobs really. All right thanks very much. Is it okay if I just stop your sharing, and then, there we go. I'm just going to drop a few links into the chat before we go. Thank you so much for your time Druhv - it's been amazing, really helpful.
Thank you so much, and I look forward to running more of these for you.
Lovely - thank you. All right well I'm gonna keep typing into the chat if anyone wants to stay to have those links, but obviously Druhv you're welcome to to head off if you need to.
Thank you so much, bye.
All right guys I'm just going to drop them in the chat now. So these two links here are for our graduate support but also you can find out how to book appointments through those links. Should be helpful for some of you. For those of you wanting to set up a graduate account on CareersConnect so that you can keep accessing our support after you graduate - that's the link there.
So there's a great organisation called the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) and they are an organisation that can give legal visa advice to international students. They also have a student helpline which is I think it's open afternoons Monday to Friday, and so if you have a question about - especially for the student that was studying online - that might be a really good organisation for you to look at. This link here I'll just re-put it in - so this link here is also where you book appointments. So you log in and then you find the appointment section and you'll get a great big long list of different types of appointments. Some appointments will say CV support, some appointments will say Careers 'College' appointment and you can book an appointment with somebody in your College that's got experience of your programs and of those sectors, and so that might be helpful for you as well. I'm gonna have a quick look back at the questions to see if anybody else has added anything else. So the option about going into Pharma as opposed to Medicine - I think off the top of my head you know I think that sounds fine - as Druhv said, it's really kind of open graduate market in the UK. But what I would say is that I would recommend you book an appointment - follow the link in the chat and you'll be able to book an appointment with some careers advisers from MDS - from the medical and dental school - so they will have a sense of other routes that might be open to you and have lots more sector knowledge. So I think definitely contact them. And then we've got Neem: 'your Bachelors is in engineering from India, right now I'm doing my masters in public policy - it seems difficult to find a public policy job in the UK, is it possible to get an entry job in engineering without experience in India?' I would say that probably also requires a longer conversation, so I would follow the link in the chat and book an appointment with a careers adviser in EPS - in engineering and physical sciences - and again they will be able to guide you a little bit more about other options. All right so I think we're slowly dropping off of the appointments anyway - thank you so much for those of you still here and thanks for everybody for coming along. We'll circulate some slides and information and a little bit later in the week and I hope you will find it helpful. Okay thanks a lot. I'll sign off now. Bye.