The Festival of Careers

Last week the Career Development Service hosted the annual Festival of Careers, where hundreds of employers come on to campus to speak to students about graduate jobs, placements and internships. 

The main events were the fairs taking place in the marquee, with a different area every day covering everything from volunteering and getting experience to law and finance. There were also loads of other events going on during the week, ranging from skills workshops to presentations and networking events with various employers. There were so many events going on that there really was something for every student.  

The festival has a “no prep, no entry” policy which means you aren’t allowed to go into any of the fairs without signing up, completing a short preparation form and getting a wristband to show you’ve done it. This is really good because it makes you research which employers are going to be attending and makes you think about what questions you want to ask.  

The most useful part of the festival for me was the Finalist Friday workshop, which if you hadn’t guessed was an event on Friday for final year students. The 2 hour workshop was all about preparing final year students like me for the process of deciding what to do in the future after graduation and how to go about it. It covered a wide range of things including recognising barriers and how to overcome them, techniques to avoid procrastinating career research and information about the support that the Career Development Service has to offer to final year students. I learnt lots of great techniques and it’s helped me to focus on working out what I want to do next year and how to go about getting there.

I also went along to the Science, Technology and Engineering fair. Unfortunately I was very busy on the day so I only had a few minutes to look round the marquee, but it was great to see so many students making use of the opportunity to talk to employers and networking.

The Festival of Careers will be back next year, but it’s never too early to start planning for your future!