Get some feedback/Give some feedback!

Are you applying for a job or for postgraduate study? Would you like some feedback on your application? The Careers and Employability Service can help!

We offer a service to all University of Cumbria students and Alumni (for up to three years after graduation) whereby we can provide feedback on your application, CV, personal statement and teaching letter of application. Please note that this is not a proof-reading service – instead we can offer advice and guidance on ways you could improve or extra things you could include.

If you would like to take advantage of this service, just email careers@cumbria.ac.uk with your application/CV/letter etc. along with the person specification for the role (if available). We aim to respond to all emails within 5 working days.

As an added bonus, when you get your feedback there will be a link to the Careers and Employability Service Impact Survey – this is your chance to let us know what you thought of the service you received, what we’re doing right, and what you would like us to improve. If you enter your email address at the end of the survey, you will be entered into a prize draw to win a £10 gift voucher! Terms and conditions can be found here.

What can the Great British Sewing Bee teach you about careers?

The careers team love the Great British Sewing Bee (GBSB) – the Carlisle (Fusehill St) team also enjoy a crafting lunch time once a week, referred to as ‘Woolly Wednesday’ – open to all.

The show, if you’re not familiar with it, is a sewing contest pitching amateur sewers against each other to create and adjust items of clothing set by the judges. The whole ethos of the show is to encourage you to give crafting a go, much like the Great British Bake-off is for baking.

Sewing has a plethora of transferable skills such as planning, organisation, resource acquisition (shopping for the correct items and having enough), patience and is a great example of lone working and motivation. Other elements that can be brought in is research, especially if you are trying out new techniques or want to find a particular pattern.

Putting craft skills (not of the Fairuza Balk kind) on a CV is a good way to show you are creative and have ingenious ways of thinking. Crafting can generate interesting analogies about difficult tasks and planning that can be interesting and memorable at interview.

Back to the GBSB! It is a contest which shows competitive edge and the entrants push themselves and take risks to try to gain an advantage. Like all competitions, you see people leave. Losing isn’t a failing – it shows resilience if you continue with your hobby after a set-back.

Post written by Sarah Burrough, GBSB superfan.

My Dream Job – Winning Blog Post: Create. Write. Work.

John Sharp won the blogging competition which was part of our recent Create. Write. Work. employability event for English and Creative Writing students back in April. Here is his winning entry:

I followed a Facebook advert a while back, which led me to an “author’s” Amazon page.  He had released about 40 books on kindle.  They were £3.99.  I read a few of his many reviews.  They said the same.  Good quality, but £3.99 was too much for 80 pages of story.  And that was when I realised there was a market for novellas in Genre Based fiction, advertised using social media.

The idea.  I write a novella, every month, sell it on Amazon for £1 (first one is free, of course) and pay for a Facebook advert.  Could that work?  What difficulties might I face?  Content – can I write enough, to a high standard?  Yes.  I write well, and am disciplined.  The Fickle nature of Facebook – and the inconsistent advertising capability – a real problem, but one that can be mitigated through networking with reviewers and other self-publishing kindle writers.  Snobbery – its kindle, advertised on Facebook – Definite problem, but one that is mitigated by the fact that I only need a small fraction of people seeing the advert to click.

Self-employed life as a writer beckons, so long as I remain committed.  So I shall.

Friday’s Featured Vacancy – Marketing, Technology and Entrepreneurship scholarship opportunity

Marketing, Technology and Entrepreneurship students – fancy winning a £800 scholarship prize? Signal, global leader in real-time people-based marketing are calling on British university students who represent the next generation of tech-savvy marketers, to explore how mobile technology trends will impact marketing strategies in the future. They will award a scholarship prize of £800 to the aspiring technology, marketing and/or entrepreneurship student who best answers the following questions:

• What impact do you expect mobile technologies like ad blocking and speech recognition software to have on marketing in the next five years?
• How will these technologies influence global business practices?
• How have mobile technologies already influenced the economy?

To apply for our scholarship, please write an essay of 800 words or less, in response to the aforementioned questions. Be sure to support your answers with specific examples.

Submit your essay to scholarship@signal.co with the subject line, “Signal Scholarship Entry-Great Britain.”  Make sure to include your full contact details, the name of your university, and your CV.

Deadline for submitting your entry is August 31, 2016.

Signal’s team will choose the winners after the deadline and announce them on September 30, 2016. No payment or purchase required to enter.

For complete details, please visit: http://www.signal.co/uk/mobile-technology-trends-gb-scholarship/

Law students: Win a work experience placement and up to £5,000

Future Legal Mind award offers law students a head start in their studies and future careers and a chance to win £5,000.

If you’re currently studying law at University of Cumbria then it’s worth looking into the Future Legal Mind award scheme, which is open for entries until January 18th.

The award asks current law students to submit an essay on the subject: Is the commoditisation of legal services inevitable and is a commercial approach more likely to compromise or enhance the quality of advice and service to consumers?

The Future Legal Mind award is open to university students in the UK who are currently pursuing an undergraduate law degree or law conversion course.

First prize is £5,000 towards your studies, along with a two week work placement at national law firm Simpson Millar. Nine shortlisted entries will receive £250 each.

2015 Future Legal Mind winner Amy Loughery, an undergraduate student at the University of York, said: “I’ve managed to acquire two part-time jobs through winning Future Legal Mind.

“It’s opened loads of doors for me and I’ve put the £5,000 aside to help fund my post-graduate study. It’s given me security.”

To get started, register your interest on the simple form here:

https://www.national-accident-helpline.co.uk/future-legal-mind

Good luck!

 

Below is the picture of last years winners!

Future Legal Mind awards lunch,
London, Lincolns Inn,
30/03/2015
Picture by Terry Harris.

Win a web design internship at a top London agency!

Get it? Web designer? Cos a spider designs webs? I crack myself up sometimes!

 

What’s the competition?

Imagine you are a web design agency, and small business owners are visiting your site to look for web design services.

Your task is to design the perfect landing page to optimise conversion rate from people visiting your page, to submitting a request for web design work. You’ll need to entice them to submit their brief with you, and convince them that you are the best option from all the sites they’ve looked at prior to yours.

 

What do I win?

A one-week internship at Camden-based online marketing agency atom42, working with their dedicated web designer.

 

What do I need to do?

Create a single landing page to optimise visit-to-request conversion rate from people looking for web design work from your agency.

This can either be a working webpage, or a graphically designed representation of the page, hosted on your website.

You should provide supporting annotation to describe why you have used each element on the page you create.

 

How do I submit my entry?

To submit your entry, upload your design to your website/online portfolio with a couple of sentences introducing your work, and referencing that you’re entering the competition in conjunction with the Marketing Quotes web design page (http://www.marketingquotes.co.uk/creative-design-agency/web-design-agency/).
Then, email your page to competition@marketingquotes.co.uk with the subject line “Web design competition entry”.

*** EXTENDED: The deadline for submissions has been extended to 11 January 2015, so you have loads more time to get your entry in!! *** 

Good luck!

 

 

This competition is available to entrants over the age of 18. The prize offered is unpaid work experience shadowing members of the atom42 web design team. Accommodation and travel costs are not included in the prize.

Calling all Law students! Future Legal Mind Award!

National Accident Helpline has teamed up with Lawyer 2B magazine to offer the UK’s brightest legal talent the chance to become the Future Legal Mind of 2015.

We know how tough it is to get on the law career ladder, and that’s why we’ve created the Future Legal Mind award. We want to give outstanding students the best possible chance to start their dream career in law. We’re looking for two great legal minds, one undergraduate and one post-graduate.

What you can win:
* £5,000 to put towards your studies in 2015
* A one-week work experience placement at either the Manchester or London office of nationwide solicitor firm Colemans-CTTS
* Your winning entry published on the website of Lawyer 2B, the leading magazine aimed at aspiring lawyers, solicitors or barristers

This is an exceptional chance to demonstrate your budding legal expertise, get a fantastic accolade to showcase on your CV, and secure a work placement at a leading law firm, as well as seeing your work published by Lawyer 2B.

The competition is open to all UK-resident university students currently pursuing a legal qualification at either undergraduate or post-graduate level.

For more information about this fantastic opportunity please visit the website at http://www.national-accident-helpline.co.uk/future-legal-mind