Career Zone Podcast

Why understanding your strengths is so important – an employer’s perspective.

When we use our strengths, we are more productive, perform better, and are more engaged in our work. By identifying our strengths, we can identify opportunities that require those attributes and that will give us greatest pleasure and satisfaction. We also impress employers who like to understand what makes us give our best. Listen to Employability and Career Consultant Fiona Hartley talking to recruiters across a range of sectors about their approaches to recruitment focussing on the importance of strengths.

Further Career Zone website resources

Help with self-awareness | Career Zone | University of Exeter

https://www.exeter.ac.uk/students/careers/research/helpwith/helpwithinterviews/

Other resources

Learn about strengths and how you can discover yours by watching this video.

Attend the popular termly in-person workshop Discover your strengths and why it is essential to career planning.

Listen to another Recruiter Perspectives: In conversation with Hannah Salton, Career Coach

 

My Career Zone Digital has lots more, including videos and articles, to help you identify your strengths, including:

• Recognising strengths & weaknesses
• Strengths vs Skills: what’s the difference?
• Strengths assessment
• Asking questions at interview

 

Top Tip for CVs, Cover Letters and Application Forms: Writing in Plain English

In this week’s episode Rachel Sloan, Employability and Career Consultant explores why it’s important to write in plain English when applying for jobs and shares 5 things to avoid when writing CVs, cover letters and application forms. 

  

This episode was devised by Dawn Lees, written by Rae Roberts and recorded by Rachel Sloan.  

  

Links: 

Link to CV, Cover Letter and Application Forms sessions on Handshake 

Help with CVs, Cover Letters and Application Forms: https://www.exeter.ac.uk/careers/research/helpwith/helpwithcvscoverlettersandapplications/ 

You can book a 1-1 advice appointment with an Employability and Placements Adviser by contacting Career Zone online, by phone or in person. 

 

 

Re-energising your placement search

Kathryn, an Employability and Placement Adviser speaks with Samah, a current 4^th year Accounting and Finance student who completed her industrial placement at Warner Bros. Discovery UK last year.  Samah shares her experience of searching for and securing a placement and her top tips on how to stay motivated and resilient during your placement search. 

 

You can book a 1-2-1 appointment with a member of the Career Zone here

 

 

In conversation with Green Consultants alum Alice Dunsmore and Barnaby Tagart

As part of Go Green Week, Helen Hicks, Programme Officer for Green Consultants, talks to Alice Dunsmore, an Environmental Adviser at Costain and Barnaby Tagart, an Environmental and Sustainability Manager at BW. Alice and Barnaby share how completing the Green Consultants programme has helped then with their careers. They also discuss the impact they have on sustainability in their current roles and share advice to current students interested in working in the sustainability sector.

Green Consultants is an interactive programme, designed to provide students with the additional skills and experience required to work in the highly competitive environmental and sustainability sector. It is open to all students, and you can start now! Find out more on our Green Consultants webpage - https://www.exeter.ac.uk/students/careers/employability-schemes/greenconsultants/

You can find out more about Green Consultants by listening to 'Introducing Green Consultants'.

Career support for neurodiverse students

As part of Neurodiversity celebration week, Mel Nearchou, Faculty Lead in the Business School, discusses the careers support available to neurodiverse students. Mel is joined by colleagues from the Career Zone including Employability and Career Consultant, Kate Foster, who discusses the support available to students on disclosure, including how to disclose, when to disclose and how to look for employers who are supportive. Katie Stote, Employability and Placements Adviser, shares her thoughts on her research project, Engaging Students in Knowledge Exchange and how it links with neurodiverse students. Finally Gemma York, an Employability and Placements Adviser shares how the Skills Team are making their skills and advice sessions more accessible to all.

We welcome any feedback or suggestions to help make the Career Zone accessible to all our students.  

At 1:39 Mel mentions 'WP' students, which stands for 'Widening Participation'. If you're not sure what that means, have a look on our website here: https://www.exeter.ac.uk/students/wp-support/

Link to resources:

Katie Stone’s research: https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/co-developing-inclusive-and-accessible-e-learning-resources-placing-disabled-and-neurodiverse-student-voices-at-the-centre-of-our-practice

Link to the Supporting Equality and Diversity page: https://www.exeter.ac.uk/students/careers/equality/

Link to the Wellbeing page: https://www.exeter.ac.uk/students/wellbeing/

The Power of Mentoring

In this episode, celebrating International Women’s Day, Sunny Lalli, Employability and Careers Consultant, is joined by Joy and Shiryn, to discuss the benefits of mentoring, strategies to securing a mentor, and how mentoring can be harnessed as powerful resource for implementing equality and progression in the workplace.

Getting Your Point Across

Whatever the situation, there are principles that can be used to ensure you get your point across effectively so that you’re heard and understood. Rachel Sloan, Employability and Career Consultant, shares six steps to ensure your are listened to and that what you have to say is understood correctly.

 

This episode was devised by Dawn Lees, written by Rae Roberts and recorded by Rachel Sloan.

 

Links:

Problem Solving – book via Handshake

Presentation Skills – book via Handshake

Assertiveness and Understanding Human Behaviour – book via Handshake.

Introducing the new Exe-Change the Norm programme

In this week’s episode, as part of International Women’s Day, Sophie Binder, Learning and Development Manager, introduces the new Exe-Change the Norm programme running at the university. Sophie discusses why it has been created, what it involves and how you can get involved.

Exe-Change the Norm is free and open to all University of Exeter students, across all campuses. The four training sessions cover topics including sexism and sexual harassment, partner abuse, racism and racist micro-aggressions. You’ll learn how to effectively step-in to help, if you see these sorts of behaviours occur.

Links:

• You can find out more about the Exe-Change the Norm programme here - https://www.exeter.ac.uk/departments/inclusion/support/training/exe-changethenorm/
• You can book onto a session by searching for ‘Bystander training’ on Handshake

Introducing Global Leader Experience; Student Perspectives

In this week’s episode, Lucy Robinson, Global Employability Support Officer, is joined by students Megan, Layton and Ben to discuss their experience of taking part in the trip to Barcelona supporting the European Association for International Education conference as part of the Global Leaders Experiences. They share why they decided to apply, the skills they developed from the assessment centre and how their experiences in Barcelona helped with their career development.

 

Links for episode description:

• Global Leaders EAIE Conference Rotterdam 2023  
• Global Employability webpages.

 

National Apprenticeship Week: In conversation with Oscar Milverton Gatta, Chief Operation Officer at Recycle It Global.

As part of National Apprenticeship Week, Julia Paci, Partnership Development Manager for Degree Apprenticeships is joined by alumni Oscar Milverton Gatta. Julia and Oscar discuss the benefits of choosing to complete a Degree Apprenticeship for both the employer and employee. Oscar also shares the impact of completing a Degree Apprenticeship has had on his career and his advice for those thinking of taking a Degree Apprenticeship.

 

Links:

For more information on Degree Apprenticeships visit https://www.exeter.ac.uk/study/degreeapprenticeships/

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education website: https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/

Recycle It Global https://www.rig-uk.com/