FAQs about employability

Our Employability Team can support you at all stages of your future planning with specialist Careers Consultants and Employability Advisers who:

• are available to offer advice on placements and work experience
• can help you with your personal development
• maximise your experience at NTU.

We can also help with planning your career, improving your CV, completing applications and performing at interviews.

Our advisers offer face to face and online support for all your employability queries.

You can access the support in a wide range of ways including:

• Employability Centres on each of our campuses that have a drop-in facility
• a live chat service (open 9am - 7pm, five days a week)
• appointments with our Careers Consultants
• employability workshops and employer events on campus each term so you can improve your skills and knowledge:
  • making applications
  • interviews
  • meeting employers
• support you to access work experience or placements.

NTU has extensive links with:

• various industries
• large corporate employers
• SMEs (small to medium-sized employers).

We work closely with them to build connections with employers who regularly employ placement students, provide short work placements and can offer graduate internships and graduate roles.

The majority of employers are now wanting to recruit graduates who have real-world work experience. That’s why all our courses, across every subject area, offer you a work experience or work-based learning opportunity.

The Employability team can support you to find work experience outside of your course which may count towards an Employability Award.

Find out more about what opportunities we have.

You can get a wealth of support from the Employability team in your placement search. We have a dedicated team who source placements that we advertise on our internal jobs portal.

We hold recruitment fairs on campus with employers who are looking to recruit placement students or graduates and we regularly host external organisations either online or in person, who want to recruit NTU students.

We support you with all aspects of preparing for placements, from placement briefings to CV workshops and additional support when you need it. We can also help with:

• application support
• interview preparation
• one-to-one interview coaching
• mock assessments that we hold with employers.

However, securing a placement is ultimately down to you - it is a competitive process, and you can give yourself the best chance if you start preparing early and make use of all the employability support that is available to you at NTU.

Please check with your course team and the University prospectus to see if your course has a placement element included.

We try our best to support all students who opt for the sandwich degree option to secure a placement, however as it is a competitive process, not all students secure a placement.

There are other options such as Summer Internships, short work placements, volunteering and Live projects that can give a student experience in the workplace.

Having a degree opens a wide range of job and postgraduate study opportunities.

If you have a specific career idea in mind and want to know which qualifications you need, then the job profile sections on Prospects can be helpful. It’s a good idea to do your research before starting a degree to check you are on the right path. The Prospects Planner career questionnaire can also be very helpful, and it is free to use.

If you aren’t sure what you want to do, then don’t worry – university is a great time to explore your options! Most employers don’t specify what degree you need, so you still have lots of options available to you when you graduate.

Employers value your wider university experience, so your extra-curricular interests and achievements can be just as important in shaping your career direction.

Once you are at NTU, your specialist Careers Consultant for your subject area can provide you with more advice and guidance about the career options available to you.

NTU offers employability support all the way throughout your degree, and up to three years after graduation!

We have a dedicated support team who work with graduates to help them boost their career after NTU. This includes:

• one-to-one coaching and guidance
• access to online resources and information
• recruitment events
• exclusive graduate opportunities.

We work closely with employers to advertise graduate jobs and internships throughout your final year and after you graduate.

Whilst we are here to help you after you graduate, we do encourage you to make the most of the support available to you whilst you are a current student to help you kickstart your career before you leave NTU.

Acceler8 is a flexible employability award, exclusive to NTU, giving access to a wide range of extracurricular experiences, skills, and activities.

You choose what you do and when you do it, working at your own pace and you are rewarded for your extracurricular experience, collecting points as you go.

The Acceler8 Award boosts your career prospects, giving you real examples for your CV, applications and interviews and demonstrates to employers that you have made the most of your time at university. Acceler8 develops your confidence and enhances your skills, helping you to stand apart from other students - giving you a unique selling point!

Many of our students work in part-time jobs that fit in around their studies. This provides valuable financial support and also builds up skills which are equally valuable in the workplace and can be clearly evidenced to employers when making applications for placements and graduate roles.

We have our online JobShop advertising local, casual work in a wide range of areas such as retail, hospitality and social care.

We also have our own Unitemps franchise where students can work within NTU in a wide range of paid roles, including:

• catering and hospitality
• finance and admin roles
• Student Ambassador roles supporting Graduation, Open Days and other University events.

International students have a programme of specific employability events in October each year, which continue through the year.

We work with outside careers and opportunities organisations such as Lockin China, GradlinkUK, Student Circus, GoinGlobal and more, as well as an immigration solicitor to ensure NTU international students have the best and most current information needed to make a career decision.

We support international students, and all our students, with looking for a placement and also short-term work during studies, developing confidence and improving English language and work-place skills. We also help you to find and apply for a graduate job in the UK, globally, or in your home country.

All international students have a dedicated Careers Consultant and Employability team within each School in NTU and you can see them frequently delivering employability workshops alongside academic colleagues.

As an NTU student, you can ask them a careers question through Live Chat, face-to-face on each NTU campus, by email, or through an individual one-to-one careers meeting.

We provide support for students from different backgrounds and based on individual circumstances.

Eligible students could be entitled to access funding and bursaries to support them in completing work experience, formal placements and during the recruitment processes for placements and graduate jobs.