Tag: graduate success

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Careers programmes Future-Ready Skills

Stand Out from the Crowd with a Future-Ready Award

megan_white
megan_white

Megan White, Queen’s Pharmacy Graduate celebrating her Future-Ready Award achievement.

The Future-Ready Award is an employability award that allows you to gain formal recognition and a certificate for the extracurricular experience you gain during your time at Queen’s.

It recognises and celebrates the experiences, skills and achievements students gain beyond their academic studies. Whether through leadership opportunities, volunteering, work experience, skills development workshops or extracurricular activities, the award helps students develop the qualities that employers are looking for while making the most of their time at Queen’s.

With over 100 accredited activities available, the Future-Ready Award is open to all Queen’s undergrads and postgrads, and with 1,045 Future-Ready Award achievers in 2025/2026, it has established itself as a valuable and worthwhile achievement across the University.

Some of our recent graduates received their Future-Ready Award at their graduation ceremony and marked the occasion with a photo at the Future-Ready Award display. As they celebrated this significant achievement, they reflected on the positive impact the award has had on their university experience and future career prospects.

Their experiences highlight the value of engaging with opportunities that go beyond lecture halls. From developing transferable skills and enhancing employability to building lasting connections and discovering new passions, the Future-Ready Award has helped students feel more prepared for life after graduation.

Here’s what some of our students and graduates had to say about how achieving the Future-Ready Award benefited them during their time at Queen’s:

“This is a brilliant award to show how employable you are in whatever career sector you decide to go into.

It’s brilliant and it’s easy to fit alongside your studies.

I would encourage any current or prospective students to definitely look into and apply.”

Megan White, Queen’s Pharmacy Graduate

“Receiving the Future-Ready Award for peer mentoring has significantly enhanced my employability skills by strengthening my communication, leadership, teamwork, and interpersonal abilities.

Through supporting and guiding fellow students, particularly international students adapting to university life, I developed confidence in providing advice, listening actively, and responding to different needs in a professional and empathetic manner.

The experience also improved my organisational and problem-solving skills, as I was responsible for helping students navigate academic and social challenges while creating a welcoming environment.

These transferable skills are highly valuable for my future career in pharmacy, where effective communication, compassion, leadership, and teamwork are essential for delivering high-quality patient care and professional practice.”

 Samalie Kayondo, Queen’s Pharmacy Student

“Receiving the Future-Ready Award has enhanced my employability skills by encouraging me to reflect more deeply on my career development and the transferable skills I have gained through the Spotlight on Life Sciences Tour. The experience improved my communication and networking skills, as I had the opportunity to speak with professionals and learn from their career journeys. Most importantly, the award has helped me become more confident, open-minded, and strategic when considering future placements and graduate roles. I now have a clearer understanding of how my degree can lead to a range of career paths, and I feel better prepared to present my skills, experience, and career interests to future employers.”

Bryan Yi Lam Tong, Pharmaceutical Sciences student.

The Master Your Leadership Programme was one of the most impactful experiences of my Masters journey at Queen’s University Belfast. As an international student, stepping into a new country and a new academic environment, I was looking for opportunities to grow not just academically but as a professional and a leader.

Being part of team and working on a real-world brief for the Irish Football Association developing our ‘United Through Sport’ initiative for the Euro 2028 Legacy Fund  gave me hands-on experience in strategic thinking, collaborative problem-solving, and presenting to industry professionals. The moment our concept was recognized by IFA representatives as aligned with their real initiatives was truly motivating.

Being invited to the Fresh Start Through Sport Celebration Event at the George Best Lounge, Windsor Park, to see the programme’s real-world impact was an experience I will never forget.

This programme has genuinely enhanced my employability  strengthening my ability to lead with purpose, communicate across cultures, and deliver results under pressure. I would encourage every postgraduate student at Queen’s to take part.


Nethra Aladahalli Rajegowda, MSc Business Analytics, Queen’s University Belfast

Applications are now open for the Future-Ready Award winter 2026 applications and close at midnight on 01 November 2026.

https://go.qub.ac.uk/futurereadyaward

Categories
Careers programmes

The Future is Bright with a Queen’s Future-Ready Award!

Congratulations to our Future-Ready Award students receiving their awards at Winter graduation 2024!

Hear from Varshitha Manjunath, (pictured above), who is a Queen’s PGT student who graduated in December 2024 with a Master of Science in International Business, and an impressive NINE Future-Ready Award accreditations. Well done Varshitha!

“The Future-Ready Award enabled me to reflect on the diverse range of activities I participated in, including leadership roles, volunteer work, and practical experiences like the Think Pacific Remote Internship. By engaging in initiatives such as the Real-World Consultancy Programme and Prestige Volunteers, I was able to identify key skills I developed, such as teamwork, effective communication, and problem-solving. For example, my involvement in Homework Clubs highlighted my ability to mentor and support others, while Handy Helpers (SU) refined my organizational and time-management skills. These activities provided a structured platform to assess and appreciate the breadth of my personal and professional growth.” 

In semester one 2024, Careers, Employability & Skills celebrated 444 unique students gaining the Future- Ready Award, including single and combined routes as well as an increase in work experience accreditations. 

The award enables you to articulate your learning and signals to employers that you have developed essential skills required to succeed in the workplace and is open to all Queen’s undergraduate and postgraduate students. 

We have over 100 accredited activities available to search on our activity search tool and there are three different ways to achieve the award, single route activity, combined route activity, and the work experience route. Full details on this and the list of accredited activities can be found on the Future-Ready Award website.

Applications open for the Future-Ready Award summer applications open on 20 December 2024 and close at midnight on 01 March 2025.  

Find out all about the award at go.qub.ac.uk/futurereadyaward  

Categories
Careers programmes

Q&A with Queen’s Graduate, Tom Smith of Allstate

Q&A with Tom Smith who is a Queen’s University Belfast  Graduate who started his career with Allstate as an Intern, moving to a Placement, which then led him to Graduate employment at the company in the Billing and Payments team within Allstate Canada

Why did you want to work at Allstate?

When I was in the first year of my computer science degree I saw a notice in an email from the Queens’ University Belfast Careers team, advertising Allstate’s Insights program, which was a series of workshops over a few days of the Easter holidays. I attended the workshops, and was offered the chance to interview for a summer internship. I got a place on the internship and have now worked here for three years.

What does a typical day look like?

I work on the Billing and Payments team within Allstate Canada. I work on a global team, with colleagues in India and Canada. As a result, I have time to get most of my actual work with the other developers done in the mornings, and then after lunch, my Canadian colleagues come online and that’s when things get busier and most of my meetings happen. I work from home most days, but go into the Belfast office at least once a week to see the others in my department, and usually play a bit of pool at lunchtime.

How was the transition from Intern > Placement > Grad?

Both teams that I’ve worked on have been very accommodating and supportive, pairing me up with one of the other developers on the team who I could work closely alongside to learn about the internal systems and the digital products the team is responsible for. It feels like there has been something of a change in my role at each annual milestone. When I first started as a summer intern, I was on the team that managed collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom. I then switched teams when I started my placement year, when I moved into the Allstate Canada Group. My team was known as Corporate Services, providing internal software services for both the Finance team and the Law and Regulation team. This team then merged with the Billing and Payment team between my placement year and starting as a graduate, introducing a new group of products for me to work on with a larger group of teammates.

What do you like about Allstate and your role?

There’s a big focus on a learning culture in Allstate. We have access to a large selection of in-house and external Learning & Development resources which we are encouraged to make use of. I also enjoy the social aspect of working at Allstate. On top of the events put together by individual teams (we went Axe Throwing recently), there is a constant stream of events being organised that all employees can attend. Personally, I regularly join the free cinema trips, but there are loads of other opportunities including a 5-a-side team, board game nights and the monthly beer and pizza event. The events are good fun and a chance to meet people outside of your team.

 Any tips for those applying for an early careers opportunity?

Think about what benefits you personally bring to a team/company. At this stage of your career, you probably don’t have much technical experience that will set you apart from other candidates who have done the same uni assignments, and Allstate’s training resources are great for teaching you what you need to know, but a good team-worker who wants to engage with their colleagues and get involved with events from our various Employee Impact Groups is someone who will do well at Allstate.

To find out more about Careers at Allstate visit their website: https://www.allstateni.com/careers.aspx

Allstate NI are sponsors of the Queen’s Autumn Careers Fair 2024 – to find out more about Queen’s Careers Fairs visit https://go.qub.ac.uk/careersfair

Categories
Careers programmes gradireland Graduate success

The gradireland Undergraduate of the Year Awards 2024

gradireland undergraduate of the year

Queen’s Computer Science student Tim Chan, takes us through his night as an award nominee at the gradireland Undergraduate of the Year Awards 2024.

Take it away Tim…

“A few months ago, an email from the Queen’s Student Union’s VP of Undergrad Education told us about the gradireland Undergraduate of the Year Awards. The gradireland Undergraduate of the Year Awards is an annual competition aimed at finding the best undergraduates in Ireland. Each award is sponsored by a different graduate recruitment company with its own prize including things like cash prizes or work experience with the graduate employer.”

“I nominated myself for the ‘Difference Maker Undergraduate of the Year Award’, in the hope of highlighting some of the work I do in student societies and as school rep for EEECS to inspire other students to also take part in these rewarding activities. The nomination process included an online application form with specific questions about the award, an online test and an online interview (this differs depending on the award category). About a month later, I received an email that I was shortlisted as one of the top 10 finalists of the award, and was invited to the final award ceremony in Dublin.”

“The award ceremony was in the Aviva Stadium in Dublin during April, and it was amazing. We were greeted by gradireland and were given complimentary tea/coffee and some snacks for about an hour of networking with finalists from all the award categories. This was followed by an amazing three course dinner, which was really good, better than any formal dinner I’ve been to during uni. It was at that table that I met another student from Queen’s, Mary Freeman, who was nominated for the same award category, and we found out that we were even on the same train on the way down.”

“During the awards dinner we sat with representatives from the graduate employer sponsor of our award. That was when I met Barry who was currently the Vice President of Chartered Accountants and was about to enter a new role as President. I thought the experience was going to be super scary, but everyone was very friendly, we shared funny experiences and everyone’s career journey even though mine hadn’t even started and everyone was very down to earth.”

“Whilst I didn’t win the final award, this was an amazing experience. I got to network with other amazing finalists and was told that if a careers as a Software Engineer doesn’t work out, I could always try accountancy. I would definitely recommend anyone to apply for the awards when they come out in future years, there’s absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain!”

Some highlights from the night of the awards, including that amazing three course awards dinner!