Employer engagement opportunities

myCareer is our online careers platform that connects employers with students. You can promote your vacancies free of charge to all University of Plymouth students and graduates through myCareer. The types of vacancies you are able to advertise through this service include paid part-time/casual roles, short-term internships, placements/year in industry and graduate jobs/schemes. As well as advertising your vacancy on our jobs board, we can also promote your opportunities through our social media channels and automated emails through myCareer.

Log on now or register for an account to add, preview, update and delete your job postings as required.

Promote your vacancies through myCareer

Students looking at the jobs board

A placement (also known as a placement year, sandwich-year, year-in-industry and work-placement) is an excellent opportunity for an employer to welcome an undergraduate student into their team for up to one year. Plymouth has a long history of supporting businesses (big and small, locally, nationally, internationally) with recruiting undergraduates into placements and will often use this an effective talent mapping recruitment method for filling graduate level roles.

Key benefits to a placement host:

• Identify talented individuals early
• Bring in fresh and innovative ideas
• Bring in a new perspective
• Extra resource for busier times
• No long term commitment
• Helps to raise the profile of your business within the student network
• Students can complete part time hours in the final year

We have a dedicated team of Placement Advisers, providing you access to our students' current knowledge and enthusiasm and giving you a fresh perspective on the talent available. If you would like to find about recruiting a student on a placement as part of their degree programme, please:

Email: placements@plymouth.ac.uk

Phone: +44 1752 586007

And speak to:

• Lindsey Marshall: Employer Engagement Officer specialising in placements for psychology, biomedical sciences, chemistry, biological and marine sciences. 
• Nikki Reid-Foster: Employer Engagement Officer specialising in placements for built environment, business, tourism, digital arts and criminology
• Andrea Kemp: Employer Engagement Officer specialising in placements for computing, maths, engineering, environmental science, geography and geology.
• Hannah Pomeroy, Henrietta Blick and Haydon Anstis: our brilliant Employer Engagement Assistants

Micro-Internships

Each year we deliver a Micro-Internship programme open to all undergraduate students. The Micro-Internships are voluntary work experience during the vacation periods and will last 3-10 days. It is a great way for a business to benefit from our talented students who will assist you with a short project or a collection of defined tasks, whilst giving students the chance to develop their employability skills before entering the world of work or before embarking on a placement year.

Previous examples of projects undertaken include:

• Animator intern
• International Marketing intern
• Marketing Media Developer intern
• Publishing Marketing Assistant intern
• Procurement intern
• Social Media assistant intern
• Finance and Sustainability intern
• Engineering and Building internships
• Architecture and Built Environment intern
• Student Engagement Researcher intern
• Widening Participation and Marketing intern
• Video Editor and Marketing Content intern
• Education Project Researcher intern
• Resource Developer intern
• Social Media and Alumni intern
• Business and Manufacturing intern
• Digital Content intern
• Oxygen Concentrator and COVID 19 intern

Summer internships

A summer internship (also referred to as a summer placement) has all the benefits of a shorter internship, and more, as these can last between one and three months. An increasing number of students and employers are seeking/offering these opportunities each year because a lot can be achieved over a summer experience. This can be a very appealing option to students who will not always be able to undertake a year long placement. If you have a summer project in mind, that would provide invaluable experience to one of our students, please get in touch to discuss advertising this with us.

Funded internships

In partnership with Santander Universities, our current funded internships provide the student and host with up to 100 hours working on a clearly defined project. A single payment is made directly to the student, coordinated by the University, at the end of the experience.

For more information on our current offer, the Santander Employability Scheme and the Careers Insight Programme, please visit Santander - funded work experience initiatives. Please note – T&Cs do apply.

For more information on any of our internship opportunities, Melissa Finch, our Employer Engagement Officer specialising in internships and short work experience opportunities will be happy to talk with you by:

Email: internships@plymouth.ac.uk

Internship opportunities

Internship funded by Santander

Each year we deliver a range of careers fairs. Exhibiting at a careers fair is a great way for employers to raise their profile on campus, promote a wide range of opportunities to students from various courses and stages and to chat with potential future employees.

With an easy booking system, a dedicated careers events team, featuring in a wealth of marketing and competitive pricing, a careers fair is perfect for you:

• Have placement or graduate positions starting in 2022.
• You can offer our students part-time work, work experience, internships or overseas opportunities.
• You are recruiting students from a range of courses and have multiple roles available in your organisation.

The confirmed Careers Fairs for 2021/22 are:

Part-time Jobs Fair – Wednesday 6 October 2021, 11:00–15:00 – Virtual – you can be anywhere to attend this event

Placement and Graduate Recruitment Fair – Wednesday 3 November 2021, 11:00–15:00 – Virtual – you can be anywhere to attend this event

South West Local Opportunities Fair – Wednesday 23 February 2022, 11:00–15:00 – Rolle Marquee, University of Plymouth (in person event) 

Raise your profile at one of our careers fairs

Careers Fair on campus

We have a variety of panels planned for 2021/22 and this is a great way for employers to share their industry experience, career journeys and top tips for success with our students. It is expected that a majority of these will run virtually, as they proved to be very successful virtual events across the last year, enabling a wide range of panellists to join us from across the globe! Panel topics currently include:

• Getting into teaching
• Working in the public sector
• Law, criminology and government
• Marketing, advertising and PR
• Tourism, hospitality and events
• Psychology
• Exploring careers in a sustainable future
• Exploring careers with SMEs
• Exploring careers in the creative industries

To express an interest in becoming a panellist and to ask any questions please speak with Rhys Barnes-Smith and Fiona Raymont, our Employer Engagement Officers, specialising in the design and delivery of careers events:

Email: employers.careers@plymouth.ac.uk

Phone: +44 1752 587729

Or register your interest via our survey for Rhys or Fiona to contact you.

Panels

Panel in action

You are welcome to book your presentation, workshop or promotional activity between October – December and February – April. For your session we will; work with you to identify the prime time to visit campus to meet your target audience, promote your session for you and take care of all of your event booking requirements.

We are also able to support employers with any ideas they have for delivering their bespoke promotional activities either on campus or virtually. We have hosted everything from coffee carts to assault courses and always welcome the challenge these creative promotional activities provide!

To talk to us about your session ideas or to enquire about date availability and the costs of this activity please speak with Rhys Barnes-Smith and Fiona Raymont, our Employer Engagement Officers, specialising in the design and delivery of careers events:

Email: employers.careers@plymouth.ac.uk

Phone: +44 1752 587729

Or register your interest via our survey for Rhys or Fiona to contact you.

A foyer stand is a perfect way of engaging with our students for employers who are:

• Wanting to recruit a lot of students – regardless of stage of course
• Raise awareness of their organisation to a large volume of students
• Wanting to raise their profile and share information with our students in one of our busiest places on campus.

Our ‘Employer in the Foyer’ drop-in stands take place at the heart of campus in Charles Seale Hayne Library entrance foyer, that at peak times can see up to 6000 students passing through the doors across the day. The prime time for these sessions are October – December and February – April and there are a limited number of bookable slots on Wednesdays throughout these months.

For more information on the costs associated with this activity and date availability please speak with Rhys Barnes-Smith and Fiona Raymont, our Employer Engagement Officers, specialising in the design and delivery of careers events:

Email: employers.careers@plymouth.ac.uk

Phone: +44 1752 587729

Or register your interest via our survey for Rhys or Fiona to contact you.

Engage with our students

Civil service drop in session

Each academic year we deliver a programme of student competitions designed to develop key employability skills and provide an opportunity for employers to engage with students in a unique environment that differs from traditional recruitment events. This is a great way to see students working in a team, competing in a competition, networking, pitching, leading a group and actively using their key transferable skills.

Regular competitions include:

FLUX - whereby an employer sets a real-life challenge for students to solve and an employer can provide the challenge or get involved as one of our HR, marketing, strategy or finance judges.

Creative CV competition – showcasing the talents and portfolios of our most creative students. This is a great opportunity for employers to request to be a judge the competition or to take the time to view the entries and the work of our talented students.

For competition dates, to apply to be a judge or to look at how our students could support your business challenge, please speak with Rhys Barnes-Smith and Fiona Raymont, our Employer Engagement Officers, specialising in the design and delivery of careers events by:

Email: employers.careers@plymouth.ac.uk

Phone: +44 1752 587729

Or register your interest via our survey for Rhys or Fiona to contact you.

Some of our competitions

Business FLUX competition

Mentoring is a great way to benefit from a rewarding experience whilst also supporting a student. You could mentor with us to:

• Engage with a mentoring Community
• Increase your own skills whilst offering advice and information to others
• Support and encourage others within your sector

We run several programmes across the year, please visit our website www.plymouth.ac.uk/mentoring for the latest programme times. All our programmes include training, events, digital handbook and support throughout the time you are a mentor with us.

For more information please speak either Annette Goddard, Student Engagement Officer or Melanie Jones, Student Engagement Administrator

Email: mentoring.careers@plymouth.ac.uk

Connect with Annette and Melanie on LinkedIn

A two way process

Anman and mentor

Employers often ask if they can link with specific courses or subject areas and one of the ways to do this can be through a timetabled session in the curriculum, either with one of our Careers Consultants, Placement Officers or we can link you directly with the academic. You will work with the person delivering the session to plan your allocated time slot and content to enhance the session. Sessions for 2021/22 are currently being planned so if you would like to be considered as one of our employers within the curriculum then please email employers.careers@plymouth.ac.uk, letting us know which subject and stage you would like to meet. And ideas of what you would like to contribute to a session.

Data shows that the South West of England is the most popular region for University of Plymouth graduates to live and work. 45% of students that live in the South West, will also study in the South West, and 86% will then stay in the region to work. Of those that lived in the region, but left to study, 49% will return to the region to work. Graduates in the region are employed in a wide range of sectors, with the most popular including: 

• health 
• education
• business
• engineering
• research
• manufacturing
• tourism. 

This reflects the region’s diversity and areas of expertise.

We recognise that SMEs may face different time, resource and budget challenges compared to larger organisations, when it comes to recruitment. However, our team understand these challenges and have several opportunities to help you engage with our service and students and maximise your time on campus, such as funded internships aimed at SMEs and our SME Careers Week. The Employer Engagement Team welcome you to contact us, so we can get to know your business requirements and can tailor your experience. For more information:

Email: employers.careers@plymouth.ac.uk

Phone: +44 1752 587729

Or register your interest via our survey.

The most popular region for University of Plymouth graduates to live and work

Plymouth Hoe

As well as working with the Careers Service, your organisation could benefit from connecting and collaborating with the wider University. There are numerous ways to benefit from our resources and talent including accessing equipment and facilities, connecting with our expertise and engaging in professional development. Examples include;

• Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs)
• Degree Apprenticeships
• Funded Projects (e.g. ERDF)

A wide range of business services can be explored via Enterprise Solutions or you can contact the Employer Engagement Team, so we can direct your enquiry to the right team by:

Email: employers.careers@plymouth.ac.uk

Phone: +44 1752 587729