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Inspiring Interns had a very exciting year last year.  Our expanding business took on six new members of staff, five of who started as interns themselves. As we grew we needed somewhere bigger and better to house our budding team.  We bid a sad goodbye to our old office which has been our home from day one and moved down the road to our new headquarters. Our new office houses two candidate interview rooms so we can help twice as many graduates into jobs every day.

Last year saw us celebrate the publication of our careers guidebook Brilliant Intern which provides practical and meaningful advice to help graduates find and make the most of their internships.

We announced a wonderful new partnership with Job Centre Plus and the Work Experience Programme towards the end of the year to help support graduates who want to undertake an internship. Thanks to the partnership, interns are able to receive JSA (normally £53.45 a week) for a minimum of eight weeks during their internship. When graduates would otherwise be job hunting this scheme allows them to gain invaluable work experience at no additional cost. With this added work experience the likelihood of them getting a paid graduate role is highly increased, along with their employability due to their newfound awareness of a commercial setting.

An internship bridges the gap between student life and the working world – it is a vocational learning experience which provides graduates with practical experience, valuable skills and a network of contacts to increase a graduate’s understanding of an industry. Inspiring Interns founder and CEO Ben Rosen explains;

“Internships are a great tool to allow companies to minimise their risk when hiring inexperienced staff, while giving graduates the opportunity to create and earn positions that may not have been there without the internship. A three month placement gives the intern the chance to learn lots of new hands-on skills and make themselves indispensible, and therefore move into permanent employment.”

Internships are the key to pimping up your CV, which is the key to getting a job: everyone knows it, so everyone is constantly reiterating it.

But what happens when your CV isn’t pimped up enough to get you that initial internship?  What then?  Well, the answer is basically that you’re not supposed to sit around moping.  You’re supposed to be proactive about it, and to sort-of createyour own skill-acquiring internship.

That’s what a friend of mine did.  He was turned down by a couple of companies for a few summer internships that he really wanted, and instead of taking it personally, he just decided to bring a little idea he had into existence, and set up his OWN company.  And he was subsequently forced to learn all those skills he would have been spoon-fed over the course of the internship, the hard way.  And with this, the amazing www.unisportonline.co.uk was born.

I’m obviously not suggesting that all the unemployed people out there should set up companies willy-nilly; only that no one should just wait for something to come to them.  People should be practical, and in the midst of sending out their applications, they should keep challenging themselves and adding to their skill-set.

I know that sounds a little bit geeky, but all our lives – up until the time of graduation – we are forced to study.  We have to keep learning in order to get by, and so we do.  But, once exams and compulsory education are all over, it’s just so easy to stop learningand furthering ourselves.  ‘I’m not being tested on it, so why should I bother learning it?’ becomes a popular mantra.

The thing is, that’s just crazy.  Who on earth wants to employ some 2-dimensional graduate who doesn’t want to better themselves now that they’re not being forced to do so?  Very few employers.

So in the gap between university and employment, between internship and next internship, or just in your school holidays, you’ve got to get skill-acquiring!  Teach yourself a new language using tapes, go to magic classes, master the art of spreadsheets, or sit down with a book and learn to write short-hand.  You could even set off on an adventure; travel, become independent, write, and fine-tune your photography skills!

At this point, people always say (understandably) ‘but what about my CV? If I just jet off on a holiday, employers will think I’m a dosser’.  I fell into this trap too, until I was hoisted out of it and lectured by my entrepreneur-of-a-big-sister.  I have subsequently been totally indoctrinated.  I’ve learnt that as long as you think you’d be able to justify your actions to an interviewer, or explain why you travelled for three months (and what you’ve learnt in the process), you can do it.  Soon you’ll find yourself stuck in a job, doing the same thing every day, and you’ll never get the chance to pick up such a wide variety of skills and hobbies again.

Ultimately, I suppose what I’m saying is that unemployment will only be boring and unproductive if you decide you’re going to let it be boring and unproductive.  You need to use your time wisely, and stick to the mission statement: ‘I’m going to make myself even more employable’.  That way, every day you are out of an internship, or jobless, you will feel you’re being productive, and thus making yourself more irresistible to employers.  Which will mean you’ll smile more, which will also make you more employable!!

So here are a few hints and tips about brilliant courses and things to do to ‘fill that gap’.  It’s by no means extensive, but it should help to get your juices flowing:

• Teach yourself a language: there are lots of different online language courses, so just pick one and have a go! Languages are the key to everything, so if you manage to teach yourself even the basics in a new language, the world will be your oyster. Check out www.bbc.co.uk/languages or www.learnalanguage.com, if you’re looking for a place to start…
• Become an au pair: sign up to www.greataupair.com, or one of the other au pairing sites, create a profile, and become an au pair in a foreign country!! That way you can escape the UK, you’ll learn independence and responsibility, AND you’ll end up mastering a new language.  Total immersion in a foreign culture: amazing, and something you rarely get a chance to do.
• Complete an inspirational course whilst on holiday, with www.golearnto.com.  A bit more expensive than some, but worth it if you can!
• COOK!  Everyone needs to learn how to cook, and there are hundreds of courses across the country, spanning from day-long to year-long.  And who knows, doing a cooking course and nurturing a passion might lead to a big fat career change!  Or, if you don’t want to spend a penny, then follow some online recipes and videos, and teach yourself to be a master chef.
• Go abroad, and teach English as a foreign language.  Check out www.tefl.com for more information… This could end up being your only chance to live in Africa, or Peruor anywhere for a prolonged period of time.  And teaching will help you to discover hundreds of new skills you never realised you had!
• Complete a free, online touch-typing course:  there are so many different courses to choose from – from www.typeonline.co.uk to www.goodtyping.com – so have a browse, and pick the one which you think might suit you best.  Being able to touch-type is a massive selling point.
• Set up a blog on www.blogspot.com, and fine-tune your writing.  Once you’re pleased with your standard, and have found your own style, then start entering writing competitions, or sending in articles to magazines.  Everyone needs to be able to write, and once you’re a fully competent and disciplined writer, nothing will stop you!
• Teach yourself History of Art, or Politics, or Maths, or a subject you didn’t study at school or university, but which interests you.  Borrow books from the library, and totally immerse yourself in your studies.  Or, even better, focus on your perfect job, and think about the skills you might need to get it.  If it involves marketing, for example, then read books on marketing!  Work towards becoming their perfect candidate.
• If you’re searching for work-experience, then do not underestimate the power of the start-up company.  At a ‘start-up’, you’ll be given a lot more responsibility,so it’s sort-of like taking a course in itself.  You’ll feel much more valued, and although they might not be a ‘big name’ in the world of business quite yet, you will learn infinite amounts from small businesses: things that yearsworking at a large company may never give you.

Just stay positive, remain proactive, and don’t allow the media – and all the incredibly negative unemployment coverage they’ve been dishing out – bring you down.  Focus on acquiring your new skills, and soon you’ll have your feet firmly on the career ladder, ready to march right to the top.

Check out Nell’s blog nellfane.wordpress.com and follow her on Twitter @NellFane

Like many final year undergraduates the length and breadth of the country, I am now in my final term of teaching at university before the endless partying, lengthy lie-ins and automatically replenished bank account give way to the real world. Now that we have leapt across the border into 2012, graduation seems so much closer, and so I fear it is time to start preparing for the world of work.

Here are a few tips to help prepare yourself for the scary world of full-time employment, to help anyone else who finds themselves in the same (rapidly sinking) boat:

• Get into a proper routine. This means getting up at 7.30am on weekdays, no excuses, and being ready to face the world. Start getting into this painful routine now, and in a few months time, you’ll be able to walk into your graduate internship or job bright eyed and bushy tailed, rather than struggling to hold your eyes open because you’ve never seen 9am before. You may think that you don’t have a reason to get up at this time, but it’s a good time to get the mundane chores out of the way before the day begins.
• Focusing on work 9-5 every week day. No more sneaky trips into town to reward yourself in Topshop or Game when the reading gets tough,  it’s all hard graft in the library during normal working hours. This will get you into the regular habit of enduring 9-5 hours so that they aren’t such a shock when they arrive, plus you will be able to enjoy your evenings guilt-free, knowing how much work you’ve put into your degree during the day.
• Forget fancy frock, redirect your (limited) clothing budget towards items that are work-appropriate. A bit tough when you don’t know where (or even if) you’ll be working in 7 months time, so go for generic smart trousers and shirts that are appropriate for all office jobs, working under the mantra that it’s better to be overdressed than underdressed (at least your employer knows that you are taking your job seriously, and you can alter your wardrobe accordingly once you’ve got a feel for the office-and your first paycheck!).
• Start saving! If you’ve already got a job lined up, you’re sorted. If you haven’t, you won’t need to be told how hard it is to get a job-any job- in this day and age. It’s a harsh truth that you may be unemployed for months before landing a job, and it won’t be fun not being able to join your friends on nights out celebrating when they land a job, just because of your lack of funds.
• Start researching-not only potential dream jobs, but anything else you may be interested in doing as a stop-gap until your dream job becomes available/your application is successful. If you have considered other options, you will be more prepared to adapt your CV accordingly if a relevant job is advertised.

Follow Laura on Twitter @scribbling_lau or read her personal blog here: http://scribblinglau.blogspot.com/

The latest survey by the Office for National Statistics revealed unemployment figures have risen to 2.68 million in the three months to November 2011.  The unemployment rate for young people was 22.3%, up 1% from the three months to August 2011 with a total of 1.04 million 16 to 24 year olds out of work.

The UK’s jobless are losing hope for the future with the number of people unemployed for over one year reaching 857,000 in the three months to November 2011. Research conducted by The Prince’s Trust found that unemployed young people are feeling less confident about the future than they did this time last year.

With job losses in the public sector likely to continue, the Government must make every effort to help the private sector and SMEs to create more jobs. The key to reviving the job market is to focus on enhancing the right skills and considering roles in growing sectors and newer industries.

In our experience most success has been found in newer industries which often complement many graduates’ personal interests. Areas such as mobile technology and digital marketing offer potential for swift progression when compared to more traditional professions and also allow university leavers to draw on familiar skills, such as knowledge of social media.

Inspiring Interns are championing graduate internships as a new and successful approach to encouraging small business to hire university leavers and getting graduates into work. Their model – a three month placement with minimum lunch and travel expenses, with a view to permanent graduate job – has seen over 1,300 graduates complete internships in the London area in the last three years, with 65% of them going on to secure full-time work with their host company. Inspiring Interns CEO and founder Ben Rosen believes that internships are the perfect model to get graduates into meaningful work.

“An internship provides that stepping stone between student life and the working world – it is a vocational learning experience that more often than not will lead to a job.”

Rosen also explains the benefit for employers;

“Internships offer employers the chance to hire someone on potential rather than experience. A three month internship period allows them to offer the intern training and the chance to observe them in the workplace before committing to taking them on permanently. This limits their risk and allows them to take a candidate on who they would not have otherwise.”

Sales is as much as about understanding clients and managing their requirements as it is closing a deal; key skills when it comes to running and understanding a business. The most successful sales people will listen to their customer’s problems and opportunities and respond with creative and intelligent solutions that solve said problems and provide a win-win situation for both parties.

But enough jargon. We caught up with Les, the Sales Director & Co-Founder at a Deloitte Fast 500 media company (and one of our biggest clients), to hear his opinions on the topic.  Les has 33 years of sales experience and has helped graduates with no sales experience at all become successful in their sales career.

To sum up his feelings on the importance of sales in general, Les said that, “without sales on the top line there are no lines or figures. A company is its sales line and nothing would happen without first a sale.”  He goes on to say that he believes “everyone is in sales, most just don’t realise it, and everyone is capable of selling, but they just don’t realise it.”

• Do you feel your sales experience has helped achieve success / your ambitions?
  Without a doubt. Sales people have the ability to ultimately earn more than anyone else and no company survives or thrives without sales taking place.  Good sales people are never out of work and always in demand.

• How important is sales experience to understanding business?
  Without sales – there is no business; it is the line of figures that drives all other figures and metrics below in any business.

• How highly do you value sales experience when hiring new team members?
  Our current leading sales person had nearly zero experience, as did many. Companies may think experience is what counts, (and it can help) but it is figures on the board that count.

• What attributes do you look for in graduates looking to gain sales experience?
  Attitude, desire, ambition, determination, ingenuity and the ability to listen, learn and put what they have learnt into practice.

A sales career can lay the groundwork for a progressive career, give you key insights into the way a business works, you can have fun and make lots of money at the same time. In fact, many high-powered positions within larger corporations deem sales experience a prerequisite to apply. Fancy gaining some sales experience? You can check out our sales vacancies here.

Take a look below for our most viewed blogs of this year combining a variety of topics including; graduate and student news, current affairs, careers advice, case studies and all topped off with some Inspiring office antics.

1. The weirdest job interview questions

Do you have an interview coming up and have no clue what they are going to ask you? Find out the oddest interview questions that have been used by some of the biggest multi-national companies. Read more

2. Why National Minimum Wage does not mean a fair deal for interns

Nick Clegg launched his social mobility strategy this year and announced that the Government would be doing more to ensure internships are open for all.  We give our opinions on the importance of raising the standards of internships for all but why enforcing NMW for every single internship is neither appropriate nor necessarily beneficial for interns themselves. Read more

3. 9 ways to beat those ‘graduate blues’

Are you at the stage between leaving university and finding out what you want to do next and feeling slightly lost? Here are 9 tips on how to deal with this normal reaction to graduating from university. Read more

4. What is a Digital Marketing Executive?

Companies are increasingly realising the importance of digital marketing in enhancing their business thus creating many new career paths and job titles. We catch up with a digital marketing intern Joe Kiddle to find out what the role entails. Read more

5. A graduate guide to LinkedIn

LinkedIn serves as an online CV and allows you to connect with friends, colleagues and companies in professional capacity.  The value of LinkedIn is immeasurable however it is not being used effectively enough by graduates during the job hunt. This blog post offers advice on how to set up your own LinkedIn account and how to actively update it. Read more

6. Graduate unemployment figures highest in over a decade

It was reported back in January that one in five of those who have left university in the past year are unable to find work within six months. The report from the Office for National Statistics suggests graduates have been hit hardest by the economic downturn. Read more

7. The big office move!

This year we said a sad farewell to our old office and moved down the road to our new headquarters. We documented the move in pictures from the emptying of the old office to the building of the new. Have a nose through the final office pictures here.

8. The alternative to graduate schemes 2011

Graduate schemes are highly desirable for many university leavers and there are plenty of benefits if you are accepted onto one. However, with record numbers of students graduating this year, competition for these schemes is high. We have put together some alternative ways to land a graduate job that can be an equally, if not more, rewarding step onto the career ladder. Read more

9. Graduates are working in low skilled jobs

It was reported earlier this year that university leavers are increasingly taking menial jobs that do not require a degree.  New statistics published by the Association of Accounting Technicians reveals that 40% of last year’s graduates are ‘underemployed’ in lower-skilled jobs six months after leaving university. Read More

10. Cheap and cheerful Christmas presents – guest blog

One of our guest bloggers, Sara Royle offers her tips on how to buy Christmas presents on a minimal budget ensuring your nearest and dearest get lovely gifts, and that you can still afford to pay that dreaded winter heating bill. Useful if you need a late present! Read More

Happy New Year from the Inspiring Team!

Therefore it is important to use the holidays productively so that you don’t miss out on any available opportunities. As well as applying for vacancies you should use the time to research and re-evaluate what you want in a job and updating and targeting your CV. Develop an active social media presence and keep up-to-date with any industry developments. Remember to use holiday parties to practice the golden rule of job hunting: networking. Whether it is a partner’s Christmas work do, a family get together or a New Year’s Eve gathering, network and introduce yourself to people you might not otherwise have a chance to meet.  Don’t forget to keep an eye on your emails and keep your phone close to hand in case a potential employer wants to get in touch.

Most importantly – enjoy the holidays with friends and family, relax and re-charge those batteries.

Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The Inspiring Team

You might then wonder why an IT or a computer science graduate might undertake an internship. We caught up with Amit Lalani (AL), a University of Westminster graduate in Information Systems, and Jared Johnson (JJ), who graduated in Computer Science from the University of Brighton, to find out how their internships – which they found through Inspiring Interns – helped them start their working lives.  Amit has completed an internship at an exciting start-up operating in the high-end travel and tourism market and as a result earned himself a graduate job at the same company.  Jared is currently undertaking an internship in web development for a cutting-edge software company.

Hi Amit and Jared, thanks for talking to us. Firstly, did you work on one specific project during your internship or on lots of different areas?

AL: As the company I interned with was a start-up, I was involved in different areas of the business. This ranged from supporting users on IT-related issues to writing small scripts to enhance the experience of the user. Every day was different.

JJ: I currently have no specific project in my internship, however I will be working on a Sainsbury’s project in the new year.

Amit, did your internship help you secure a permanent graduate job?

AL: Yes, my internship gave me a chance to showcase my skills, which contributed to me being offered a full time role by the company.

To what extent have you used the skills you learnt at university in the workplace (and have they developed during the internship)?

AL: As I was in an internship that required technical skills, the experience I gained at university helped ease the transition into the workplace. During the internship I got to communicate with a range of different people from various departments which helped me to develop my communication styles depending on the type of person I was talking to. Also, being involved in different aspects of the business gave me valuable experience into how the overall business operates.

JJ: I have not been using a lot of my skills from university, rather I have been learning new skills and programming languages such as XSL and the software which the company uses.

Aside from Inspiring Interns, where else did you look for internships / jobs?

AL: The usual places: Milkround, Totaljobs, Monster

JJ: I had interviews at several companies before coming to Inspiring Interns. However Inspiring Interns offered roles which were the best fit for my profile.

Thank you very much to Amit and Jared! If you are interested in doing a graduate IT internship then check out our vacancies here.

It’s a funny thing, rejection. It can set you back a long way. After spending many weeks in my final year of university, pointlessly applying to jobs that I was not qualified for and didn’t want to do, I finally came to realise that it is about the quality of your applications not the quantity. Each job application should be tailored, aimed specifically for that job role and emphasising exactly how you meet the person specification. I only apply to jobs now that I absolutely 100% want to be doing.

I know all the rules. I’ve applied to enough jobs by now to know exactly how it’s done. So when I applied for an internship at The Guardian I was incredibly hopeful that I would at least get an interview. Having received the generic rejection email a few days ago, it’s clear that I did not. The email states that I am unable to reply, and unable to ask for feedback – leaving me with no idea where I went wrong. Obviously, as we all keep hearing, the jobs are very competitive, but you have to wonder what it is that is making other people stand out when you get overlooked?

During an assessment day at an advertising agency last year, us interviewees were waiting to go in for our second interview when the conversation got round to what other interviews everyone had coming up. It was graduate scheme season in advertising, and we were all comparing applications and stand-out tricks. I remember this one girl telling me that she had got an interview by sending her application by courier, in a shoe box with an old shoe so that – and I quote – she could at least get her foot in the door. Now, if I were a recruiter, that would scream cliché, desperation as well as the fact that the girl is obviously rich enough to send every job application hand-delivered by courier. But hey, it’s not my advertising agency.

But, not every recruiter would have given shoe-girl (as I so fondly call her) an interview, and not every interviewer will want to see a job application that perfectly presents and ticks every box of the job description. Maybe in a bid to show off my skills and make them obvious and clear to potential employers, I have made applying for jobs a science, stupidly believing that I have found the formula that will get me interviews. But it’s not that simple, really, or we’d all be doing it.

In the end, I guess that’s the point. The graduate job market is tough, and as much as we don’t want to face this reality, there really are tens of people going for every job advertised. If everyone applied in the same precise and organised way that I did then it becomes much harder to distinguish between them. Job applications aren’t a science, they aren’t even an art or a talent. Ultimately, they are down to luck.

You need to be lucky to have figured out exactly what skills the job really requires. Lucky to have that little bit of previous experience that you happened to mention to tick that invisible extra box. Lucky to have the recruiter read your application just after their morning coffee, and just before reading all the others the same as yours. Lucky to have someone who finds you readable, who relates to your experience, who can follow and be drawn into your narrative. Or just lucky to have found someone that finds your old shoe-in-a-box routine original and enjoyable.

But if job hunting is just about luck, then shouldn’t we be trying to increase our odds? Surely we should play as many hands as possible, on the off-chance we might just get lucky. Logically, it makes a lot of sense, but I don’t think it’s the way to go. Better to play the hands we know, the ones we have faith in to do well and can follow through on even when the house raises the stakes. Gambling analogy-aside, it’s important that we keep focused and channel this passion and self-belief into our job search so that when we finally reach our goal, and finally find ourselves in a graduate job, that it is still absolutely the job we always wanted.