Career Advice
BP’s Head of Grad Resourcing: Here’s How You Become More Employable
Glassdoor Team
Glassdoor Team | Author & Career Expert at Glassdoor | 2 Nov 2017
“No experience, but can’t get a job to gain experience”. Sound familiar?
The concept of not being able to get a job without experience, but not having the right experience for the job, will resonate with a lot of people who are just starting out in their careers.
Many students considering their next step after University will enter into the ever-competitive graduate jobs market, which means filling in job applications which ask questions like: “Give an example of a time you successfully worked in a team”, and “Describe a time when you faced a challenge, and how you overcame it”. According to Highfliers research into the graduate market in 2016, almost half the recruiters surveyed said that “graduates who have had no previous work experience at all are unlikely to be successful during the selection process and have little or no chance of receiving a job offer for their organisations”.
For many university students, the graduate job they want to secure will be their first professional job, so they might not think they have the right experience to draw from in applications. I want to show them how to make the most of the resources and tools already available to them, in order to improve their employability and ensure they have the best chance possible of securing that dream graduate role.
The first thing to remember is that most employers wouldn’t expect you to have developed all the skills that you will need for the world of work, before securing a job. That’s because in almost any graduate role, the bulk learning is done on the job – that’s certainly the case at BP.
What employers do want, however, is for students to be aware of their own strengths and know what skills they want to improve on, and to take action to enhance those. BP and many other leading graduate employers run skills sessions, so it is important to look out for these and get involved if you can.
Additionally, aptitude tests are now standard practice, and as they are quite different to the way you will be used to being tested at university, I would advise that you look into this type of test and practice. There are many examples online for you to try, so you will know what to expect. University careers services are also a great source of advice and information.
Before it even comes to filling out applications, students should be thinking about gaining practical experience in the world of work as soon as possible while at university, be that via work experience, or more formal internships. The benefits of this are twofold: firstly, it gives you a window into professional life, and secondly it provides a valuable opportunity to work on real-life projects, which you can later draw from to demonstrate key competencies.
Another thing which helps is involvement in activities at University outside of academic life. So for example, helping set up a new student event or initiative on campus, writing for the university newspaper, or even running a marathon. When interviewing for a job, these allow a student to demonstrate skills and competencies, such as teamwork and leadership skills, which can be illustrated using, examples, such as the ones I’ve mentioned above.
Beyond skills and work experience, I would advise students not to underestimate the power of networking. It’s never too early to get on LinkedIn and Glassdoor to become as informed as possible, and start making contacts and building a network. BP recently held a series of events across the UK where we helped students create their LinkedIn profiles and gave expert advice on how to kick start their networking skills both on and offline.
Beyond sites like LinkedIn and Glassdoor, my advice would be to seek out support and guidance from people working within your target industry, who can provide recommendations regarding your early career development.
Finally, I cannot stress how important it is for graduates not to discount themselves from a job or company just because they don’t have specialist knowledge in a certain area. For example, you might be put off from applying to the oil and gas or engineering sector just because you haven’t studied a STEM subject. What you may not know is that around 50 percent of our graduate roles at BP are for commercial and business disciplines, and we consider graduates who have studied all types of degrees. This isn’t uncommon for most big companies, which all employ lawyers, accountants, HR advisors and operational staff. What this means for you, is that you shouldn’t underestimate the value that you could bring to an organisation.
With students having to juggle job applications and interviews, alongside coursework and passing exams, we think it’s so important that you use all the resources available to you, such as careers services and websites, and university life experiences outside of academia, in order to equip yourself for this critical time. It can be an exciting process too: by making use of long University summers to complete internships or work experience, many students who complete these schemes often find that their summer internship turns into a full-time job offer, which will be waiting for them upon graduation.
Suzy Style is the Head of UK Graduate Resourcing at BP.
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