RateMyPlacement named finalists…

We have been named in the final 3 of the Barclays ‘Take One Small Step’ Competition for London, which means we now have a 1 in 3 chance of winning £50,000 to help us grow the business!

And to win, we need your help! The winning company will be the one that has the most votes by 9am on the 27th June so we would really appreciate it if you could take a couple of minutes to visit the takeonesmallstep.co.uk website and vote for us!

Simply click on the button below, hit the ‘Vote for this entry’ panel on the right hand side and enter your email address. You’ll then need to click on the link in the automated email that you receive to ensure your vote is counted!

Click below to vote online and text too!

You can vote once online, as well as once via text message. Text RMP to 62555. SMS votes will be charged at your standard user network rate.

Is University enough anymore?

As many students will be be graduating in the next few months, it seems they are joining a crop of graduates that are already struggling to secure employment. A common phrase you’ll hear from many of these students is.. “I seem to have missed this years crop, so I’m going to fill my time and try again next year…”. The article below, which sights RateMyPlacement as a great source for finding a Placement or Internship, an experience often leading to graduate employment, is named “Graduates: The forgotten generation”. The full feature, by Sam Barrett, can be viewed on Moneywise.

Graduates: The forgotten generation

It seems a degree is no longer a guarantee of a job: one in five graduates left university without a job in 2010, according to the Office for National Statistics. More worryingly, the unemployment rate among new graduates is increasing more rapidly than for the UK workforce as a whole.

Find an internship

Employers are increasingly using internships to cherry-pick candidates. There are thousands of these available, ranging from ‘open days’ to year-long placements. Oliver Sidwell, a founder of ratemyplacement.co.uk, says: “An internship can look very good on your CV and many employers will pick the majority of their graduate recruits from their interns.”

This is what happened to Kimberley Low, 21, from Hinckley in Leicestershire. Now in her third year of law at Oxford University, she had an internship with Linklaters at the end of the second year. As well as being paid £350 a week during the placement, Kimberley also bagged a training contract with the company.

Details of internships can be found through university careers services or by trawling the internet, with sites such as ratemyplacement.co.uk… full of the latest opportunities.

Tough times for young people

Kimberley says: “I applied as soon as details of internships became available at university and spent time making sure my CV and applications really stood out. The application process was pretty tough, with thousands of applicants being whittled down to 30 places. I would definitely recommend it, though. It’s a great way to compare different companies and I learnt so much about the legal profession from the experience.”

Kimberley’s tips for anyone looking to secure an internship are to prepare rigorously by finding out as much as possible about the organisation; show you’re well-rounded by including plenty of extracurricular and work experience on your application form; and be enthusiastic.

“Apply early too,” she adds. “Although the deadline may be months away, some firms, especially the smaller ones, will have filled their internships long before this date.” But not every internship is as positive as Kimberley’s, and horror stories abound of weeks spent making tea or filing for low or even no pay. This is particularly the case in competitive sectors such as the media and architecture.

Improve your Employability

If your reading the article thinking you need to secure a Placement or Internship… look no further! Visit our Jobs section for the lastest Placement and Internship vacancies.

Already secured your Placement or Internship? No problem… why not check out reviews from your peers? You can see what to expect from your Employer, as well as all the other stuff, such as the social life and cost of living! To view 5,000 reviews from students who have been there, done it, take a look at our review section.

The National Placement & Internship Awards

It is important to point out that Kimberley Low, mentioned in the article, was a winner of “Best Intern”, at the 2011, National Placement & Internship Awards. If you think you’ve got what it takes to win an Award, or to find out more, visit our Awards website here.

Kim managed to exceed all expectations during her 4 weeks at Linklaters and her knowledge, manner and quality of work was likened to that of an Associate rather than a Vacation Scheme student. Standing out in a programme full of good people makes her achievements even more fantastic, a worthy winner of the Best Intern Award.

Please leave your thoughts below, we’d love to hear from you! To view the full article, click here to visit Moneywise.

The TUI Placement students continue to have fun…

The summer 2012 brochures are now stacked neatly on the shelves, the placement students are recruited and are waiting to start in August and we’ve all made the most of the travel benefits we have here at TUI… it’s been a great few months!

After months of hard work from the product team, the summer 2012 season went on sale on the 5th May. Now the trading team are in full swing of pushing early bookings so if you want to get away, get in there quick! There has been more hype around this launch as the brand First Choice has moved to the “Home of All Inclusive”- now only selling All Inclusive package holidays from summer 2012 onwards. This brand differentiation is a big move for TUI and is a first in the Travel Industry. So to celebrate TUI hosted a beach-themed day in head office. Going with the All Inclusive theme, the canteen was transformed into a free bar with a live guitarist and the cocktails and beer went down nicely. Besides all the cocktails, we had stalls from the Orlando, Tunisian and Porto Santo tourist boards as well as a cruise stand and numerous product stands. All the staff were dressed in summer and beach themed clothes, one of the placement students even went as far as coming into the office in a wetsuit bringing along a canoe- our Managing Director was very impressed with the effort!

Keeping inline with the hectic schedule, we were also joined by the new placement students on launch day. The day was really important as the students were able to meet each other and their colleagues for the first time. They took part in numerous activities, learnt more about their specific job roles and were give information about the local area. The evening saw both the current and future placements hit Luton Town for an all you can eat Chinese buffet, a few games of bowling and a few drinks in the local. All the forward planning meant the day ran smoothly and we’re looking forward to officially welcoming the new students when they begin in August.

Time is creeping up on us as we only have 3 months left here. We’re still making the most of the fantastic travel opportunities, taking holidays to places such as Jamaica, The Canaries and cruises around the Western Med.

During the next few months, product will be working on 2nd edition brochures, late trading will be pushing last minute summer holidays and early trading will be focusing on the launch of summer 2012. All in all, another busy few months…

What do you think of the TUI Placement Scheme? Would you like to work here!? Comment below!

MSPs have become embroiled in a cash-for-access row after it emerged that Holyrood internships were being sold for over £5000.

Edinburgh University has confirmed making £1.7 million in fees from selling placements to students.

One Holyrood source said the revelation made “a mockery” of the Parliament’s much-vaunted equal opportunities policy. Interning, the practice of working for free to gain experience, has rocketed up the political agenda in recent months.

Nick Clegg’s opinion

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg slammed internships, saying they benefit those from wealthy backgrounds. Critics say the middle-classes use their connections to fix placements for their children, and young people from poorer families cannot afford to work for nothing.

Clegg said: “For too long, internships have been the almost exclusive preserve of the sharp-elbowed … Unfair, informal internships can rig the market in favour of those who already have opportunities.”

The Liberal Democrat leader’s solution is to advertise work opportunities competitively, while also offering “proper remuneration” to interns.

A commission chaired by former Labour Cabinet minister Alan Milburn also concluded: “Securing an internship all too often depends on who you know.”

One of the most elitist intern schemes…

The Sunday Herald can now reveal that one of the most elitist intern schemes exists not in London, but in the Scottish Parliament.

Since 1999, Edinburgh University’s Institute of Governance has run a 15-week placement for undergraduates, which ends with interns completing a research project. The programme is centred around a student getting an internship with an MSP. Hundreds of students, mostly from the US, have participated, as have dozens of MSPs.

The “Parliamentary Internship Programme” states: “Enrolment into the programme is highly selective and will be restricted to about 20 students in any semester.”

More controversially, entry is further restricted by the fact that the University charges over £5000 per internship, which covers administration of the scheme as well as tuition and teaching costs.

Although some students have paid for the scheme through a scholarship, critics believe the fee may exclude academically able students who do not have deep pockets.

Fears also exist that the internships mean politicians getting free labour without paying the national minimum wage.

A Holyrood source said: “This scheme makes a mockery of the Parliament’s founding principles of transparency and equal opportunities for all.

“The new Presiding Officer needs to decide if she is comfortable with an arrangement which allows an outside body to make money in return for providing access to MSPs and Parliament staff.”

How Edinburgh University stands…

According to figures obtained by this newspaper, the intern programme has poured money into university coffers.

In 12 years, the institution has taken over £1.7m from students for participation in the scheme.

The fee has risen from £3640 in 1999 to £5560 last year, while the number of internships has doubled in the last 10 years.

The annual financial benefit to the university has also jumped, from £69,160 to £222,400 in a decade.

The scheme comes in spite of a Holyrood committee existing solely to “consider and report on matters relating to equal opportunities and upon the observance of equal opportunities within the Parliament”.

Unsurprisingly, the scheme is hugely popular with the students who can afford the £5000 to get a prized CV boost.

Brian Gilbert, who was on the 2008 programme, is quoted on the School of Governance website saying: “This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I am so happy to have done this.”

Naser Javaid, who interned for Tory MSP Sir Jamie McGrigor, said: “I have absolutely fallen in love with Scotland … I had the most wonderful experience and coming here was the best decision I ever made.”

The university’s website says 23 MSPs, spanning the political spectrum, accepted interns from the programme in spring last year.

These included SNP MSP Alasdair Allan, Tory leadership hopeful John Lamont, and former LibDem member Jamie Stone, described as a “stalwart” of the scheme.

The Holyrood row comes after the UK Conservatives were criticised for selling internships at a fundraising event. Tory supporters paid around £3000 each so that their children could get placements with City hedge funds.

John Wilson, an SNP MSP for Central Scotland, said: “Edinburgh University has a lot of explaining to do, as it appears to be using its privileged position to profit from the Parliament. I would imagine there are many MSPs who do not know that these interns are paying for their places.”

An MSP who accepted an intern during the last term said: “I knew nothing about the fee.”

A spokesman for Edinburgh University said: “This is an academic programme in which we work very closely with MSPs and their staff. The period which students spend in Parliament is an integrated, supported and assessed part of the wider internship programme. Our students are properly trained and informed to work with MSPs.”

Asked what the fee covered, the spokesperson said: “Tuition, teaching, supervision, administration of the programme itself, as well as the central services which are vital to any educational experience.”

A spokesperson for the Scottish Parliament said: “Individual members and parties take responsibility for intern arrangements.”

What are your thoughts? Comment below!

How can you make the most of your long Summer breaks?

By improving your CV and gaining some excellent work experience on a placement or internship, that’s how!

The live chat on the Guardian yesterday on the 5th May saw several experts in the undergraduate market (we couldn’t be there!) discuss how important work experience is for students to improve their employability.  It was great to hear members of the panel refer to RateMyPlacement as the place to search for placements and internships.  A big thankyou goes out to Donna Miller at Enterprise Rent-A-Car who mentioned RateMyPlacement as her ‘favourite place for interns and placement schemes’.

Thanks Donna!  There are still opportunities available for all of you who are thinking about what to do over Summer.  Don’t let another Summer fly by with only a tan and an empty wallet to show for it….good luck!

For all the latest roles available visit RateMyPlacement.co.uk

The RateMyPlacement Team