Hopefully some of the options we gave you in the last section will have helped you narrow down what you want to do. This time we will provide you with some sources you will need to find more information about various industries and ultimately who has vacancies available.

Information resources…

Anyone for some shameless self promotion? Why not… www.RateMyPlacement.co.uk first of all. We have over 1,000 student reviews written about placements and internships from over 450 companies. Find out what your peers are saying about their own experiences. We also have advice and industry specific information.

Next stop has got to be your careers service or placements office, both online and offline. They will have all the information about careers fairs and presentations, bags full of brochures and magazines and of course years of experience. Go and visit them, or at least call them, to see if they can help. It is a good starting point.

Here’s some other useful website to help you with your research…

1. WikiJob.co.uk – has a great forum and industry specific information. Although it is mainly graduate focused, there is some information on placements and work experience, read and contribute
2. The Student Room – is also a very active community with all sorts of discussion, careers being one.  
3. HereComesTheBoss – if you are bored of reading all your information, why not watch their extensive video content. We recommend Hanson TV – always good for a laugh.
4. Benedix – if you are after a job in Banking and Finance look out for the advice sections of Benedix, and also find out about the training days they run.
5. Realworld Magazine – for information about jobs and careers.

Job vacancies…

As you may have noticed there aren’t many websites that give information on just placements and internships, and we are one of that small number. We are obviously aiming to be the number one resource for placement and internships, and although we believe we’re pretty damn good, there’s a few other websites out there that you may want to check out.

1. Us again! RateMyPlacement.co.uk – We focus on work placements and internships. Jobs are listed on our job board. Click here for full listings
2. InternOptions – For students wanting to work in Australia or New Zealand.
3. Shell STEP – For summer internship schemes at SMEs (Small to Medium Sized Enterprises).
4. IST Plus – For placements and internships in the USA, Canada and abroad.

Your Careers and Placements service at your university is also a key place to look – Many will be password protected but hopefully you should have access to them, they will have job vacancies listed.

Speculative Applications…

Know of a company that you think you’d like to work for? Go for it! We know of quite a few plucky students who have managed to persuade a company that they can offer a great deal and have secured themselves a job. You’ve got absolutely nothing to lose in speculatively applying to a company that takes your interest – you should be able to find some contact details via their website. Send off a CV and Cover Letter explaining not only what you could bring to the company, but the benefits of hiring a student and you never know…

Once you have searched all the available work placement and internship vacancies, hopefully a few should have that have caught your eye. Make sure you know when their deadlines are, it would a massive waste of time to do all the applications just to find out the deadline was the 21st January rather than the 21st of February. After that, make sure you look at the company websites, find out exactly what roles the company has and in which locations. Ask your careers service whether they know about the company and they may even be able to point you towards a student who has worked there before. Ensure you check our student reviews as we are most likely to have a personal account from someone who has had first-hand experience working with the company.