What is work experience?
Work experience can be viewed as a less structured internship and is an opportunity to get hands on experience in a profession you might be interested in. Employers can offer work experience for a few days or a few weeks.
What is work shadowing?
Some organisations which are not able to offer internships or placements will allow you to ‘work shadow’ someone. This involves spending time with a professional and observe what their role entails. Work shadowing usually lasts for up to one week, and provides an opportunity to gain real insights into a specific profession or industry.
Will I be paid?
The Careers Service encourages you to seek paid work experience opportunities, but recognises that some charities and other exempt organisations may offer unpaid or volunteering roles.
We encourage you to take careful consideration if you are thinking about unpaid work:
- You can check here if you are entitled to National Minimum Wage
- If you are work shadowing and not required to complete any tasks (and can leave at any time), then you are technically not working, but can request expenses (e.g. travel costs and lunch).
Where can I find opportunities?
Work shadowing and informal work experience opportunities are not publicly advertised, but there are many ways you can research and approach employers you would like to get work experience with:
- Personal contacts – Talk to friends, family members, academics and others in your network. Let them know what you are looking for as they may be able to give recommendations or even connect you with someone.
- Online jobs boards – Explore online jobs board to find out more about different organisations that you might want to approach speculatively.
- Events, talks and workshops – These are great opportunities to find out if work experience opportunities are available and to build your professional network. Take a look at our upcoming events.
- LinkedIn and Twitter – You can conduct research on thousands of organisations on social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter. Once you know the profession or industry you’d like to work in you can leverage your presence on LinkedIn to find work opportunities. Our online networking resources can help you build your professional network and find work experience opportunities.
- Professional bodies and associations – These organisations often publish a list of their members online, which you can use to identify potential employers.
- Business directories - Online business directories provide lists and details of organisations you can search by sector. This is a particularly useful way to find small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Search directories to find potential employers you can research further and apply to speculatively if they are not currently advertising any roles.
Using specific criteria in a search engine such as “marketing assistant jobs London” or “environmental start-ups London” can uncover particularly useful results. See:
• www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk
• www.londondirectory.co.uk
• www.yell.com
Once you’ve identified individuals or organisations you’d like to gain insights and experience with you’ll have to approach them and request work experience/work shadowing. This can seem daunting, but these resources will help you make a confident approach to employers:
Webinars
Other resources
- The Careers Service Moodle site has additional resources on work experience. Simply click on ‘internships and experience’ for more tips and advice.
- Our step-by-step help sheet will help you identify and make speculative approaches to organisations you’d like to gain experience with
And don’t forget if you want to discuss any of this with a Careers Consultant, you can book an appointment via the Careers Portal.