The RateMyPlacement Blog

Life is about the journey – a guide to relocating for placement opportunities

Tuesday, 2nd June 2009

Guide to Relocating and moving house

In these competitive times it is almost compulsory for students CV’s to contain more than a good degree qualification.

Employers want to see maturity, business acumen, and exposure to a real professional environment. Maybe more importantly they want to see that a candidate is self motivated, confident, pro-active and ambitious.

How can you build these skills you may ask; extra curricular activities at university (sports teams and/or society involvement – just for clarification), working abroad throughout your summer holiday or undertaking a placement or internship. These opportunities are all great ways of acquiring and developing these skills.

If you choose to do a placement or internship, (and naturally we would encourage you to do so!) relocating may be an unavoidable part of it.

Relocating might seem scary to begin with; but most of you, no matter how far you moved for university, will probably have dealt with the main issues of relocation before – money, building new social networks, finding somewhere to live, home-sickness etc.

When you break it down, the pros of relocating for an opportunity significantly outweigh the cons and that isn’t just when considering relocating to a big city or abroad. Moving to a smaller, quieter area will still enable you to experience all the pros – and maybe without spending as much money!

Here are our top tips for relocating… Automatic social network in place

  1. Throw yourself in at the deep end! When it comes to looking for somewhere to live use websites like Spareroom, Facebook, Gumtree, Craigs List, RateMyPlacement Forum; talk to your employer about any recommendations of good areas and places to live; look at local universities – most rent out uni halls throughout the summer at a cheaper rate to fill them up while you find your feet.
  2. Relax! In most companies you will not be the only placement students therefore you have an automatic social network and events calendar waiting for you.
  3. Embrace your experience! You may not get the opportunity to move away again, so enjoy the time you are there and get to know your new surroundings.
  4. Manage your money! As a student you are used to living on a shoestring budget. You will be being paid on your placement, so just make sure you live within your means.
  5. Save your money! Buy a 16-25 Railcard (formerly known as the Young Person’s Railcard, don’t ask why they had to change the name!) which will enable you to get home and travel around the country for 1/3 of the cost.
    6. Keep in touch with loved ones for free via Skype
  6. It’s good to talk! Get a good mobile contract with plenty of minutes for those hour long catch ups with Mum, Dad, Nans, Boyfriend/Girlfriend and friends! If your loved ones are technically minded maybe get Skype and a headset, Skype to Skype calls and video calls are free so you can talk for as long as you want.
Relocating to a new area at first might seem like a daunting experience, but is often an amazing one. You’ll meet new people, experience new surroundings and you never know, you may fall in love with the place and decide that’s where you want to start your career! With many students returning to their employer after graduation, what better way to find out if that is the place for you.
If things don’t work out? The beauty of a placement or internship is that it’s not forever… Before you know it, you’ll be waking up at lunchtime a student again!
Please feel free to post comments about your relocating experiences!
Happy Relocating! :-)

To download this article in PDF format, please click here.

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Your Comments

  • The only two criteria I had when applying to placements where that I wanted to work in finance and in London.

    I had heard London was a great place to look and I think I was attracted to the fast paced City lifestyle. Even though my family only live in Reading (30 miles from London) I knew I would sacrifice most of the fun parts of working in London if I had to commute from home. Fortunately my brother had a box-room so I moved into that in a flat in Kilburn, North London, which at £70 a week was ‘cheap’. That placement year was one of the best I have had living and working in London. I met 20 new people on my placement scheme, I joined a rugby club so had 2 nights training and my Saturdays sorted, had the other placement students from my uni in London too, plus London is one of the best places for nights out.

    Apart from the fun aspect of relocating to London, I must add a couple of warnings; it’s very expensive, I think I was about £2,000 worse off after my placement and it can be lonely unless you actively make the effort to meet people.

    Try relocating though, I carved out a great life for myself, and as we always say, it’s only temporary.

    ali – 2nd Jun 2009

  • I’m at Aston Uni but did my placement year working for O2 in Slough.

    I know when you say Slough, everyone normally laughs and thinks of Wernham Hogg and David Brent and to a certain extent its true, Slough isn’t great. However there are loads of big businesses just outside Slough (including O2!) and the train to Paddington takes 15 minutes.

    I was pretty sceptical about leaving the Midlands at first but once I was offered a job and decided to take it, I didn’t regret it once.

    Yes it is a big thing to consider leaving all my friends and family behind in the Midlands but there were plenty of other students around and we found a nice flat. It was an awesome experience to make a completely new set of friends, live somewhere new and experience loads of new things. As for Slough, well the train station works, and there’s a massive Tesco. We used to go out in Windsor which is just down the road, Reading and sometimes London because its so close. The rent is pretty high due to the proximity to London but I was getting paid enough to cover it and enjoy myself.

    I’d definitely recommend relocating and not being scared to do so, you won’t regret it.

    Samir – 4th Jun 2009

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