Work experience - Finding a placement
So, you have ideas for the type of job sector or job you might want to try for work experience (go to the 'What might suit me?' section if you haven't) but how are you going to find an employer to take you?
Finding employers - how to get started
- Ask you parents/family/friends if they have any ideas of local companies or contacts you can approach;
- Ask your school's work experience coordinator as usually schools have a list of employers students have used before;
- There are also some sites like Futuresforall that have some placements - but they might not be really near to where you live;
- In every Careerpilot Job sector there is a section called 'Useful Links' which can give you ideas of organisations to approach;
- Start looking yourself for what is around locally and easy to get to.
Using online strategies to look for placements:
You could do a Google search of your postcode and see what companies are within a reasonable distance for you to get to;
You could search online using Google, which can give you results that include an AI response.
When searching online make the question really clear which will mean you get a better answer.
Don't just say 'I am looking for a work experience' making the query really clear 'I am in Y10 and I am looking for a work experience placement in the Bristol area in hairdressing'.
Be aware that Google and any other AI is trawling a huge amount of information and might come back with old, incorrect or misleading information SO YOU NEED TO CHECK IT OUT.
When you have the name of a company you need to find a contact:
Search to see if they have offered work experience before. Do a search of their site with key words like 'work experience', 'careers'. If they have offered this before then there might be a person, especially in a big company. that is responsible for this. Get their contact details.
Even if your key word search doesn't bring up a contact look for 'Contact us' and get an email or address.
There is quite a lot of detective work involved in looking for employers and contacts but that plays to young people's strengths as they are experienced at searching online so, use your skills to help you find employers you can approach.
See the next section 'Work experience - 'Making first contact with employers' to see what you need to do next.
Other useful sites that might have ideas for work experience:
- Prospects has information about some companies that offer Year 10 work experience;
- Step into the NHS has suggestions for how to get a work experience;
- Immerse education has 145 ideas for Y10/11 placements;
- Think Student has lots of ideas for work experience;
- National Work Experience Week by Careermap has ideas for national companies;
- The University of Bristol has some Year 10 work experience opportunities.
Looking for a virtual work experience:
- Careerpilot has compiled some virtual work experience opportunities
- Your school/college parents/carers might have ideas of companies which could offer these opportunities.
- Do a search for virtual work experience using online tools - remember to ask a clear question;
- Look at companies' websites to see if virtual experiences are advertised or find a key contact and ask them by email.