part-time job – Queen's Careers and Employability Blog

How to find work experience as a Queen’s Student – Using the MyFuture app

University is a time of growth and learning, where students are able to gain valuable knowledge and skills to help prepare them for their future careers. However, while academic achievement is undoubtedly important, it is equally essential for students to gain work experience alongside their studies.

The benefits of work experience while at university are numerous, ranging from enhanced employability to improved time management and networking skills.

At Queen’s University, the MyFuture app/website is the one stop shop for finding work experience and jobs whilst at university. Here are some tips for navigating the website to maximise your opportunities.

“How can I find work experience opportunities during my time here at Queen’s?”

If you are reading this essay then you have taken your first step to find work experience. One of the good places for finding good opportunities is actually through our social media apps. You can find these opportunities @QUBCareers on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

We post a lot about work experience, especially on a Wednesday. We have a jobs reel that’s dedicated to those voluntary, casual and part-time roles. Similarly, the Queens Careers dedicated website has lots of information about work experience opportunities.

Similarly, look out in your mailbox as well because you will get careers consultants newsletters. The careers consultant is linked to your school, will sends out newsletter and jobs and work experience will filter through from that.

However, the main focus of today is MyFuture, which is a careers management system for Queens.

“How exactly can I use MyFuture to find these work experience opportunities?”

MyFuture is a career management system which all Queen’s students have access to it and you can simply log in using your Queen’s credentials. On the MyFuture system you can perform many things, including but not limited to:

Book careers and activities
Book careers consultations
Find out about degree plus pathways
Access VMock (CV Checker)
Frequently updated job boards

“What sort of jobs can we find on MyFuture?”

MyFuture is frequently updated from lots of employers who will come on a daily basis and post all sorts of jobs including graduate roles and work experience opportunities .

What’s important to note is that MyFuture acts like your favourite streaming apps such as Netflix and Disney+. The more you use it, the more it will adapt towards your job preferences. So if you go on to the job search, the first thing you’ll see is “because you viewed this job”. On top of this, it will also pull-out jobs that other people who are studying the same thing as you are looking at which will definitely be useful. You’ll also be able to see jobs that have recently been posted as well as jobs that have been trending on the MyFuture website.

“Im seeing too many jobs that I’m not interested in, how can i fix this issue?”

You can make use of the filter on the website. This will allow you to filter based on characteristics such as graduate roles, work experience, placement year, long placement internships, short insight opportunities, employability, development opportunities, voluntary work.

“Can I set up alerts for any of these opportunities coming our way?”

Once you’ve done that search with the filters that I talked about, you can set an alert. For example, I’m looking for a part time job in the voluntary sector. I can set that filter and then you can see an opportunity to set up an alert.

So what you do is you go in and it sets up an alert for you, and you can tailor it to come to you as often or as less frequently if you like.

For example, you could set that alert to come to you every week, because you really want that part-time role and you’ll get that filtered through to your e-mail so All of the jobs that have been added since you last looked, they will come to you by e-mail and the good news? You can set up as many alerts as you want!

“How can we apply for jobs on MyFuture?”

Once you find that role you can like find all of the things that you expect to find; your candidate criteria, your location, your salary, all of those things. Then you’ll see a big apply button.

Now there’s a couple of different ways the employers will use that apply button. So either you can apply to their external website and you can go directly to that application process or some of the jobs you will be able to apply through MyFuture and it prompts you to add your CV and cover letter.

So you can add your CV, upload your cover letter and then attach that to the application and those documents remain there as well so you know you can use them again. (Although I think the people in the career service would be encouraging you to tailor your cover letter and CV!), but the application process is really, really simple.

“What specific job tools are there for international students?”

So with the filters previously mentioned, you can actually add a filter to look at employers that are willing to take students on with a work visa.

There’s also an option for student circus, which is UK jobs for international students, so if you click on that, that takes you directly through with our login to that resource, where there’s lots of jobs for international students, so that filter with the employers and then the additional menu item of jobs for international students.

“How do you I access work opportunities abroad?”

If you go on to MyFuture and you go on to that jobs menu, you’ll see another menu item. That menu item is for work abroad opportunities and that takes you directly to our go global find jobs abroad.

Do access this through MyFuture because once you get into this resource and If you start looking for jobs again, It will remember your personalisation.

Are you ready to start finding jobs and work experience? Click here

How your part time job is improving your employability

Our student blogger Maeve McDermott, an International Business with Spanish student explains why employers love to see part-time jobs on graduate CVs and why the skills you learn at a part-time job can kick-start your graduate career.

A university degree can provide you with excellent academic skills – you’ll become a pro at writing essays and studying for exams and gain a lot of course knowledge. However, with thousands of students graduating with identical degrees every year, a degree alone isn’t likely to be enough to impress employers. While firms don’t expect graduates to have years of work experience and be experts in their fields, they do want students to have transferrable skills that can are beneficial in the workplace. When applying and attending graduate job interviews. you will be asked questions based on your skills and abilities (often in answers to competency-based interview questions) and part-time jobs can often provide a valid source of examples as internships. Part-time jobs are something a lot of students do alongside their studies, but the skills they gain are often played down. After starting a part-time job in Queen’s Student Guidance Centre in 2018, I’ve gained an abundance of transferrable skills, most of which are without even thinking about them! Here are some examples of how part-time work may relate to transferrable skills you can discuss at interviews.

Time management

Juggling a part-time work rota with deadlines, presentations and lectures is a skill in itself. You might have to work an all-day shift the day before a deadline which means you have to learn fast how to plan your workload in advance. Learning how to manage your time and prioritise tasks is a very important skill and one you can showcase to employers, as they are likely to value candidates who can work on various projects simultaneously with varying deadlines.

Communication skills

Almost all jobs require good communication skills – either verbal or written. For instance, I spend most of my day helping students and members of the public with queries of all sorts – from advising students on how to book a careers consultation to helping lost tourists to locate the Lanyon Building. Be sure not to underestimate the importance of dealing with customer complaints, writing formal emails to clients or colleagues, and communicating effectively with team members. These are all vital in developing proficient verbal and written communication skills which will undoubtedly be useful in your future career and valued by employers.

Adaptability

In my job as a Student Assistant every day can be different. Pre-pandemic, my role would vary from generating social media content, to helping students with queries, to hosting Western-themed careers fairs featuring cowboy hats and live alpacas (yes, really!). Having to adapt to different tasks and environments demonstrates adaptability, so think about how you’ve had to adapt to changing environments in your own part-time job – for instance, having to face a changing role due to the pandemic. Employers value employees who can successfully cope with changes in the workplace and greater adaptability often means greater productivity, and that you’re more equipped to face challenges.

Self-discipline/resilience

While working on Excel spreadsheets doing data entry mightn’t be the most intellectually stimulating of tasks, it can still demonstrate important transferrable skills. Even if some of your responsibilities in a part-time job are somewhat mundane and repetitive, if you can maintain focus and accuracy while performing a repetitive task, this can be a good display of your self-discipline and resilience – something that employers will greatly value.

Problem-solving

Being able to come up with solutions to problems is something that is very important to employers, and something that almost always crops up in competency-based interview questions. Problem-solving requires you to use logic and imagination to make sense of a situation and create a working solution by thinking outside of the box. In fact, the best problem solvers actively anticipate potential future problems and act to prevent them or to mitigate their effects. Problem-solving skills also relate closely to analytical skills and innovative and creative thinking as it is necessary to analyse a problem to come up with a useful solution and thinking innovatively or creatively can often lead to the best solutions. Maybe you’ve come up with a more efficient way to count stock in a retail job, or had to think on your feet to overcome a double booking in a hospitality job. No matter how insignificant problem-solving experience may seem, it can almost always be made relevant and applied in interview questions.

Part-time work throughout university isn’t only a way of earning a few extra pounds alongside your studies. Having and sticking to a part-time job can demonstrate that you’re committed, and CFO of Liberty Global Charlie Bracken told the UK 300 that he was “more impressed by someone who has done a part-time job throughout university than someone who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro”. No matter how irrelevant your part-time job may seem to your degree, chances are it’s developing your transferrable skills significantly, and often without you even noticing.

Degree Plus can help you formally recognise the employability skills you have built up during extracurricular work as student. Self-nominate by filling out the Combined Experience application form in MyFuture, evidencing two or more relevant activities – part-time jobs, clubs and societies and volunteering can all count.

Good luck!

Deadline: 1 April

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