Greetings
Welcome to eAbility
- the EmployAbility
Newsletter,
packed full of news,
information and events relevant to you. Winter has passed and
Spring is here!
Applications for our
summer internship
programmes have now closed. However, please contact
us for general advice and guidance on disability issues or come and see
us at one of the graduate
fairs at which we
are exhibiting.
Whether an
undergraduate mid-way through a degree, or a finalist on the brink of
entering employment, you are no
doubt attempting to seek work, so what better place to start
than the sites on
our links
section, a regular feature of eAbility.
You will in no time get that call you have been waiting for, so it is
never too early to start honing your interview
skills.
Remember, all
work and no play is no good for anyone and everyone deserves a night
off. See our events
section for disability-friendly culture and UK-wide goings on.
Stay
in touch, we look forward to hearing from you!
All
at EmployAbility.
| In
this month's eAbility ↓ |
| Graduate
Fairs - Top Tips! |
Where
can you meet dozens of recruiters face to face under one roof, get
sweets, mugs, yo-yos, stress balls, keyrings
and enough pens to get you through the coming year? They may even give
you a job!
Here
is EmployAbility's guide to how to get the most out
of graduate recruitment fairs:
- Be prepared
- decide which employers you would
like to meet and what you wish to gain. Plan which stalls
you
want to visit beforehand by downloading a floorplan from the fair's
website - see the links below.
- The word
"fair" can be quite deceptive - do not treat this
like a night out, treat this like an interview and dress well with
shined
shoes, smart clothes and polite manner.
- Take copies
of your up-to-date CV.
Many fairs have a "CV clinic"
where you can have your CV
checked by expert CV
consultants.
If possible, book in
advance as the queues can get very long. Some also
have mock
assessment centres - so take
advantage of this opportunity.
- Contact the
organisers ahead to have any reasonable adjustments put in
place
in advance.
- Go with a
friend - the day can be exhausting for
anyone especially at the larger fairs in London, Birmingham and
Manchester, where EmployAbility exhibit (see you there!) It
is a long day and food can prove very expensive so make
sure you take a bottle of water and take your time to look around -
don't hurry.
- Do not rule
out unfamiliar, unknown or mysterious sounding
organisations - you may be turning down
your dream employer.
- Try not to
feel disheartened
when you leave with only bags of freebies.
You are not
likely to leave with a signed contract and employers are likely to
direct you to their website. The emails do follow and if you
make
the effort and the right
impression, recruiters
will remember you. Fairs are as important as any
other job-hunting exercise.
- Do take the
time to fill in
the registration forms recruiters and other
organisations such as our own ask you to - we read them! And finally...
- Come and see us!
Good
Luck! Email
us your most bizarre freebie and we will publish
a selection of the most wonderful or outright useless gimmicks in the
next edition of
eAbility.
Watch this space...
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1st & 2nd June 2007
The
people
behind GradJobs Magazine and
gradjobs.co.uk are organising a
two-day
fair in London in June. Register online to gain fast-track
entry and
follow our top tips above to make the most of the day.
There will
be recruiters from a wide variety of sectors exhibiting and
EmployAbility
will also be there on hand to provide advice and guidance on all
matters pertaining to disability and employment.
- Research career opportunities
- Listen to company presentations
- Perfect your CV
- Talk to those recruiting
- Apply for jobs
- Attend interviews
- Prepare for assessment centres
Hall
1, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London, EC2Y 8DS
8th & 9th June 2007
Supported by the careers
services of
Aston University and University of Birmingham
Free buses will be running from the University of
Birmingham from
outside the Guild on Edgbaston Road and from Aston University from the
Aston Triangle.
This is your opportunity to find the answers to all your career-related
questions all under one roof.
- Find out who's recruiting
- Research career opportunities
- Listen to company presentations
- Perfect your CV
- Talk to those recruiting
- Apply for jobs
- Attend interviews
- Prepare for assessment centres
- GET A JOB!
Pavilion, National Exhibition
Centre, Birmingham, B40 1NT.
5th & 6th June
2007
The Guardian Summer Graduate Fair is the largest graduate jobs and
careers fair of the summer period, providing information on employers,
postgraduate study options, gap year alternatives and recruitment
agencies options, and all for free.
The event also offers:
Details
of how to arrive
here:
19th & 20th June
2007
Meet
and network with over 100 employers offering a huge range of jobs.
- FREE
one-to-one CV and Application Form checking
- C2
Premium
careers guidance sessions
- Useful
Presentations, Seminars and Workshops
- Exciting
prize giveaways!
The Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, Islington,
London, N1 0QH.
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"I
enjoy interviews...they do not make me nervous
at all."
"Exams
are quite relaxing...I relish the chance to prove my
knowledge."
"I
never get spots, oily hair or put on weight...I eat like a horse!"
These
people exist.
They live amongst us.
Be afraid.
The majority of people do
not enjoy interviews.However,
a few simple tricks are all you need to relax and prepare
yourself so the whole process is that bit less stressful.
Furthermore, it may help to know the perspective of the interviewers.
They do not set out to trick you, but want to get the best from you,
for you to succeed and feel as relaxed as possible.
- Be prepared! Learn
about the company. There is no
need to learn 100 year's worth of history, but the basics of what it
does, how it works, what the acronym the firm is known as stands for,
then more detail about the particular role you are being
interviewed for. You can never be too prepared.
- Ensure the reasonable adjustments you need are in place
with the support of EmployAbility. If you
know they are in place, you can avoid any unnecessary stress on the day.
- Find out the date, place and time of
your interview and
get there 15 minutes early. If
they have sent a map, print it in advance and if possible do a dry run.
There is nothing worse than getting lost or a late or missed
train to get you stressed or flustered. Book your taxi in
advance - don't try to call one just before you leave or attempt to
hail one on the day - and go with a reliable firm.
- Breathe.
Some simple breathing techniques will
help no end to calm you down. take a look at these
techniques from Cambridge:
http://www.counselling.cam.ac.uk/relax.html
- Eat well the
night before and
get a good night's sleep. No
last minute cramming. Eat breakfast too as the glucose from both meals
will help you think and perform to the best of your abilities.
- If offered a drink, use your common sense. The
best option is to take a glass of water or refuse. A large
skinny latte with soya milk, a dash of hazelnut syrup and a sprinkling
of cinnamon with two sugars is not only sickly, but somewhat
indulgent.
- Take the time
you need to answer questions thoroughly,
thoughtfully and intelligently. It is immeasurably better to
take some time and give a thought out sensible answer than a quicker,
hurried less considered one. Remember - the time feels a lot
longer to you than it does to the person waiting, so take those extra
few seconds
...and
some comments from the perspective of the interviewers;
"Try to relax and be yourself. Listen to the
question, but
if you become flustered it is absolutely fine to ask the interviewer to
repeat the question or to take a couple of seconds to reflect. The
interviewer will want to get the most from the interviewee, otherwise
how can they make a fair assessment of an individual’s
ability to
do the job?"
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Thanks
to all who applied to our internships this year.
Applications
have finally closed for UBS, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, National
Audit Office and Barclays. Congratulations to all of you who were
successful and commiserations to those who were not on
this occasion. Applications will reopen in the Autumn so do
reapply later this year. Tips for the internships will feature in the
next edition of eAbility so look out for them.
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In this
month's eAbility, our useful links section features a selection
of well-known graduate job sites and general
job-seeking websites to get you started on your job search.
Jobsite
UK a
job search and jobs by email service
Guardian
Jobs
the jobs site for the daily national newspaper featuring jobs in a
variety of different sectors, Jobmatch and Jobs by Email
Jobs Go
Public jobs in the public and not for profit sector
Work
for MP.org for the budding politicians, lobbyists and
campaigners amongst you
Charity
Job for jobs in charities and voluntary organisations
Jobs.ac.uk
a specialist site for
those of you who are not quite ready to leave the ivory towers!
Contains jobs in research, science, academia and related
professions
Jobcentre
Plus part of the DWP, this site gives advice on seeking
work-related benefits, plus features an online jobs search
engine
Monster
contains the full range of online career and recruitment resources
Find
A Graduate
Job jobs for graduates
Find a Student Job.Com jobs for
students
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Don't
stay in! Make sure you have something more to talk about
than the academic side of life. Shape, an
organisation that promotes deaf and disabled people's art has
listings for March and April here:
Shape
March listings and
Shape
April Listings
Shape
are dedicated to removing barriers to the arts and culture and
you can become a member. Request an Access assistant
or even volunteer to become one and see productions for free!
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Would
you like to be featured in the next edition of eAbility?
Do you run a social event, a careers fair or do you have a
disability
or employment website?
Get
in touch. Send an email to
info@eability.org
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