Employer engagement opportunities

Raise your profile to attract our enthusiastic and diverse students
Employer Engagement OpportunitiesAttract the brightest talent - supporting you to access our students and graduates

Contact one of the team today to discuss how we can support your recruitment needs or how we can help raise the profile of your organisation on campus:

Telephone: +44 1752 587729

Email: employers.careers@plymouth.ac.uk

We look forward to hearing from you!

A warm welcome from the Employer Engagement Team

Connecting employers with our talented students and graduates
Our dedicated Employer Engagement Team work in partnership with employers, offering a tailored service depending on your business requirements and objectives.
Explore this page for an overview of our activities and we look forward to talking these through with you in more detail. With a wealth of experience between us you are in safe hands and we’re here to help.
If you would like to find out more about any of these activities, please contact us.
Email: employers.careers@plymouth.ac.uk
Phone: +44 1752 587729

Discover employer events and activities

Advertising vacancies
myCareer is our online platform where you can advertise your paid vacancies free of charge to all University of Plymouth students and registered graduates.
The types of vacancies you can advertise through this service include:
  • part-time/casual roles
  • short-term internships
  • placements/year in industry
  • graduate jobs/schemes.
Voluntary roles with registered charities should be emailed to volunteer@su.plymouth.ac.uk
Please see our vacancy terms and conditions for more details.
Many students and graduates seek roles with employers whose values align with their own. To capitalise on this, ensure your vacancy mentions your values, ED&I policy and make it clear if applications are welcomed from international students.
Log on now or register for an account to add, preview, update and delete your job postings as required.
Man sitting on the grass looking at a laptop
Promote your vacancies through MyCareer

Careers fairs and promotional activities
Careers fairs
Exhibiting at a careers fair is a great way for businesses to raise their profile and promote opportunities directly to our students. Situated in our spacious Rolle Marquee , our careers fairs provide the ideal arena for you to meet and talk to students from varying courses who are actively seeking work opportunities.
Visit our dedicated Careers fair page for more information and how to book to exhibit.

Employer in the Foyer drop-in stands
For those who wish to talk to a wide range of students and/or are looking to recruit to a number of positions, our ‘Employer in the Foyer’ drop-in may be a good option. Your drop-in stand would be located inside the Charles Seale Hayne Library entrance foyer, and adjacent to the Student and Career Hubs. This location positions you perfectly to informally engage with our students as they move in and out of the building.
Bookings can be made for Tuesdays or Thursdays through October/November and February/March. The cost includes the provision of a table, chairs, and the marketing of your stand. We invite you to bring pull-up banner(s) and any materials you may have. To get the most out of this activity you need to be proactive in engaging with the students as they pass by.
Price to exhibit is based on company size:
  • Charity, Not-For-Profit (inc. Direct.gov), Micro (less than 11 employees) £50 + VAT [£60]
  • SME (11–250 employees), Professional Bodies £75 + VAT [£90]
  • Organisations with +250 employees, Recruitment Agencies, £100 + VAT [£120]
Contact us to find out more; online booking will be available soon.

Presentations
The opportunity to present to our students is dependent on subject and breadth of interest to our students. For some areas, there may be opportunity to talk in lectures, for others, something stand-alone might be more appropriate. The option of in person and virtual can be considered.
Please get in touch to discuss in more detail including any costs.

Bespoke activities
Organisations come to us with bespoke activities which we are always happy to accommodate. In the past we have hosted outdoor gazebos and coffee carts. Get in touch with us and we will work with you to find the best space on campus for your unique activity and promote your presence.
Please get in touch to discuss in more detail including any costs.
Careers fair
Careers Fair on campus

Placements and internships
Placements
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 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 out about recruiting a student on a placement as part of their degree programme, please:

Internships
An increasing number of students and employers are seeking/offering shorter internships (between 1–3 months). Internships are an appealing option to students who will not always be able to undertake a year-long placement but want to build work experience and key employability skills. They are popular with employers because a lot can be achieved in a short, focussed, and cost-effective time. The internships team can assist with advertising and promoting short-term internships.
In addition to this, we host our own Careers Service internship schemes and work with organisations to generate mutually beneficial opportunities for both our students and internship hosts. More information on these can be seen below.

Micro-internships
Each year we deliver a micro-internship programme open to undergraduate students from all courses and stages. The micro-internships are voluntary work experience that will last between 3–10 days (maximum 37 hours per week). 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. The students gain the chance to explore sectors, develop confidence and enhance their employability skills, before securing a placement year or graduating into the world of work.
The dates for 2024/25 are:
  • Winter cycle: November – December 2025 (deadline to receive projects early October, part-time only, max. 20 hours per week.)
  • Spring cycle: Easter vacation weeks 2026 (deadline to receive projects, mid-February)
  • Summer cycle: Summer vacation weeks between June – August 2026 (deadline to receive projects, mid-April)
To register your interest, find out more or discuss project ideas please email internships@plymouth.ac.uk.

Funded internships
The Careers Insight Programme is our funded work experience scheme, with a WP (widening participation) focus. We match a host organisation with a student intern, to undertake a clearly defined, 100-hour project.
A single bursary payment is made directly to the student, coordinated by the University, at the end of the experience.
The scheme is open to students who are defined as under-represented by the Office for Students (OfS); and we are keen to hear from potential hosts who have a strong belief in equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). To find out more about the criteria of the Careers Insight Programme, please see our social mobility page.

To further explore our internship opportunities…
Lois Dyer, our Employer Engagement Officer specialising in internships and short work experience opportunities, will be happy to provide more information and answer any questions. You can contact Lois on internships@plymouth.ac.uk.

Supporting skills development
Career Conversations
Round table networking
As a professional in your sector, your career journey and job role will be of interest to our students just embarking on their journeys. During our Career Conversations sessions, we invite professionals to come to campus to talk to our students informally in a round table setting. Professionals rotate between tables to ensure every student gets to hear and learn about each career journey and job role. During the session, students will get to practice networking, discover career paths perhaps not previously considered and increase their confidence.
Students find this informal networking session less daunting than traditional networking and can more freely ask questions.
“I liked being able to have specific conversations about topics rather than general topics… a lot more informative and helpful.”
“Loved the small groups, was able to ask more personal questions to provide better answers. Really helped me understand what I need to get where I want to go.”
If you would like to find out more and discuss possible topics of interest, then we would welcome a phone call to chat this through in more detail.

Challenge Connect
Various dates, half-day commitment
All organisations face challenges, big and small, which need addressing to help the business move forward and remain competitive. Being able to problem solve, think creatively and critically, and work as a team to tight time pressures are skills needed to achieve solutions and skills highly valued by employers.
To help students develop these skills and gain a deeper understanding of the challenges being faced across different sectors, we invite professionals to campus, where they will lead groups of students through their business challenge.
This is a great way to raise your profile and give an insight into your business and sector.
If you have an idea that could be presented as a challenge to our students to produce ideas around, please get in touch to discuss in more detail. Challenge Connect works with either 2 or 3 challenge setters, per event.

Skills sessions
If you have an idea for a particular skill development session you would like to offer to run, please get in touch. Your session should complement without replicating sessions we already offer internally or could be pertinent to specific industry sectors which would then enhance our students' knowledge and expertise.
Recent Labour Market Information (LMI) indicates that students feel they would like more support with building confidence, improving communication, commercial awareness, self-motivation/awareness, and resilience. (RateMyPlacement 2024 Student Research survey).

Careers Mentoring Programmes
The Mentoring Programme is an employability related programme, which has two specific objectives: raising aspirations and improving employability. Mentoring provides a fantastic opportunity to share relevant career sector and employability focussed advice and guidance.
But why become a mentor?
  • to give back to the next generation
  • to provide advice and guidance
  • to share knowledge and support others
  • to maintain and develop networking links
  • to gain new perspectives and fresh ideas
  • to develop your own CPD.
All we ask is that you can offer 4 sessions across a 6-month period.
On completion of the programme, you will receive a Career mentoring programme digital badge, showcasing your commitment to your personal and career development. Learn more about the benefits of digital badging .
All our programmes include optional training, events, a digital handbook and support throughout. For more information, please see our become a mentor on the Careers Mentoring Programme page.
For more information, please email: mentoring.careers@plymouth.ac.uk
A two way process – Anman and mentor
A two way process – Anman and mentor

Sponsorship
Sponsoring one of our careers activities is a great way to raise your profile, putting your brand front and centre. There are a range of activities you could sponsor such as a Careers Fairs or our Bounce! Women’s Development Programme . If your organisation is looking to sponsor an event, let’s chat! We can identify which activity would best align to your objectives and talk through the benefits and costs of sponsorship.
To attract the best applications, you need to make your organisation the one of choice by showcasing your core values. When asked, students highly rate diversity, flexible/hybrid working and sustainability.
The Employer Engagement team have brought together resources to help inform you.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) – be an organisation of choice!
The University recognises that by valuing each other’s varied contributions we can all achieve more. That is why we support a diverse community through our equality plan, which recognises the good work we’re already doing to support under-represented groups of students, whilst setting new challenges and goals for the future.
For the Employer Engagement Team, there is a strong link with many organisations we work with, who have a current focus on EDI and are embracing a range of ways to increase their social diversity. For some organisations, they will already be very comfortable with EDI. For others, this may be a subject they are less familiar with or are at the early stages of embedding within the organisation’s culture and strategy.
Regardless of where you are with your EDI journey, we are here to help! We have developed a useful Good Practice Guide , beneficial to all of our organisations. As well as providing an overview of EDI and the benefits it can bring to an organisation, there are also some top tips and easy steps for embedding EDI within your organisation.
We would be happy to chat this through further with you:

Recruiting international students – easier than you think
Plymouth is proud to have a diverse and growing international student population and this mix of different cultures brings many benefits to our vibrant and inclusive University campus. Upon finishing their studies, many of our international graduates look to continue their career in the UK and will be proactively looking for employment opportunities. Recruiting an international graduate is much easier with the new Graduate Visa not requiring the employer to be a sponsor, as well as a simplified Skilled Worker Visa option.
“Employers with a diverse workforce benefit from higher profits (CBI), increased innovation and creativity and enhanced brand appeal.” (Forbes)
Employer recruitment guide: To help demystify the process of recruiting an international graduate, here are two excellent resources available to you (for free), compiled by the International Student Employability Group.
  1. Employers Guide to Recruiting International Graduates (an infographic resource detailing the information on the ‘Graduate route’, the ‘Skilled Worker route’ and ‘Benefits to Business’.
  2. Recruiting International Graduates, a Guide for Employers (a more detailed written guide).
Top tip: Stand out from the crowd and make it clear within the wording of your job adverts, job descriptions and relevant company webpages that you welcome applications from international students, for graduate level positions. Simple but effective.

SME business support
We recognise that SMEs may face different time, resource and budget challenges compared to larger organisations, when it comes to recruitment. Our team is here to listen and advise you where we can, and although all the activities listed elsewhere on this webpage are open to all types and sizes of business, we have several initiatives in place to make our activities and services more accessible:
  • pricing based on organisation size/type
  • free vacancy promotion on our online portal myCareer
  • opportunities to be a part of our online panel events, helping raise your organisation’s profile to our students
  • advice on salary for placements and graduate roles
  • for those organisations who are located in the South West, we host a South West Placement & Graduate Careers Fair in early Spring.
Stay in the loop
Consider signing up to receive emails from these local business groups to hear about funding opportunities, training and more:
Local Chamber of Commerce groups are also worth considering joining.
If you have any questions, please contact the team:
Email: employers.careers@plymouth.ac.uk
Phone: +44 1752 587729
Plymouth Hoe showing Plymouth Sound
The most popular region for University of Plymouth graduates to live and work

Engaging with other University services
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 expertise including accessing equipment and facilities, connecting with our research and engaging in professional development. Examples include:
  • Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs)
  • Degree Apprenticeships
  • R&D Solutions Fund
A wide range of business services can be explored via Enterprise Solutions .
 

Employer Engagement Team