The event kicked off with the unveiling of the results from our recent First-Year Student Survey by our On-Campus Promotions team, followed by an incredibly inspiring and motivational key note speech from Olympian and former World Record Holder Steve Backley.

As a few of you have already requested, please see the industry facts and stats mentioned by Ollie during the Awards Ceremony.

You can also click on the link at the bottom of this post to view the presentation slides from the On-Campus Promotions session, ‘An Insight into Engaging with First-Year Students’.

Thanks,

The RMP Team

Ollie’s Facts & Stats of the Higher Education Industry: 

Where do we see the market heading?

In the UK last year there were 1.8 million full-time undergraduate students in higher education. 477,000 started in September, which interestingly is 5.6% up on last year’s stat. This year, with the increased tuition fees coming in for September 2012, UCAS have already seen 15% reduction in university applicants. How do we see this affecting the market?

Fewer students at universities will hit the institutions, and from reading through the 60+ university nominations across the 3 university categories, it’s overwhelming how much they are investing heavily in their employability agenda quoting figures in the tens and hundreds of millions of pounds. With fees rising so significantly, the return on investment from entering university to coming out of the other end is being increasingly scrutinised by students and parents. Therefore we personally see placements and internships playing a much greater role in academia, encouraged through:

• A rise in accredited work-based learning modules

• Increased resource and provision from the university

• Heightened awareness from students, and at an earlier stage

How are employers changing? The recent recession has taught most businesses to be more effective and justify every pound they spend. Across all our 200 clients, we see the average retention rates from undergraduate schemes to graduates is between 60 – 70%. This outlines how in the long term, attracting and retaining the best talent early can be a more successful and efficient form of recruitment. Anecdotally, we are seeing more and more companies engaging with the best talent earlier through starting and growing placement, internship and insight programmes and that’s reflected in our client base doubling in the past year.

Latest Graduate research from the article below in the Telegraph outlines:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/9005585/Graduate-job-competition-hots-up.html

“An extra 50,000 graduates are set to leave university this summer compared with five years ago”

“Employers have already received 19pc more graduate applications for roles compared with last year”

More than half of the recruiters warned graduates with no previous work experience had “little or no chance” of landing a job this year.

Specifically in the investment banking industry, 3 / 4 of investment bank graduate jobs will be taken by candidates who have completed industry placements.

More than a third of new graduate jobs this year will go to students who have already worked for the employer – a record high

In conclusion… All arrows point towards early identification, with placements, internships and insights becoming increasingly important…

-          to students needing to gain work experience before they graduate

-          to universities needing to differentiate themselves through their employability agenda to attract students

-          and to employers looking to recruit the best talent earlier, and most effectively

On-Campus Promotions Presentation Slides:

Please click on the link below to access the slides from the On-Campus Promotions session, ‘An Insight into Engaging with First-Year Students’ hosted by Ali Lindsay and Amber Jones.

An Insight into Engaging with First-Year Students – presentation slides

The Awards, sponsored by PwC, took place yesterday at City University, London, and were attended by over 350 representatives from both the corporate and higher education world.

The event kicked off with the unveiling of the results from our recent First-Year Student Survey by our On-Campus Promotions team, followed by an incredibly inspiring and motivational key note speech from Olympian and former World Record Holder Steve Backley.

The Awards were then presented by RMP co-founders Oliver Sidwell and Chris Wickson, closing with the announcement of the 2012 ‘Best Placement & Internship Employer’. Congratulations go to Barclays Capital.

For a full overview of the day and to find out which employers, universities and students picked up the prizes, visit our Awards website via the link below.

Check back next week for photos and videos from the day too!

The RMP Team

*Order of Awards presented are as follow:

University Awards:

Best University placement / Careers Service: Brunel University (Highly Commended: University of Dundee). Most Improved Commitment to Employability: University of Birmingham Careers & Employability Centre University Personality of the Year: Jim Wood, Newcastle University (Highly Commended: Graham Kaye-Taylor, Brunel University)

Student Awards:

Best Placement student: Lillian Hiscox, Microsoft Best Intern: Sophie Petrie, HSBC Best Student Contribution to a Small to Medium-sized Enterprise: Michael Daniel McAllister, Buzzlines Travel Best University Society: University of Warwick History Society Best On-Campus Promotions Brand Manager: Amelia Marchant, University of Surrey

Employer Awards:

Best New Provider of Work Experience: Cooper Industries Best Short-term Insight Scheme: Linklaters (Highly Commended: Simmons & Simmons LLP) Best Diversity in Work Experience: Civil Service Fast Stream Best On-campus Marketing Campaign: The Royal Bank of Scotland Group/ThirtyThree (Highly Commended: Ernst & Young/SAS and PwC/ThirtyThree) Best Small or Medium-sized Enterprise: ProspectSoft Distinctive Contribution to Work Experience (Special Judges’ Award): Champions Life Academy Best Medium-sized Employer: SAP Best Placement & internship Employer (Headline Award): Barclays Capital

*Note – the last two Awards were based on student-written reviews from RateMyPlacement who have completed placements and internships

www.rmpawards.co.uk

Thanks to all our sponsors for supporting the National Placement & Internship Awards 2012

In the last few months we’ve had a lot going on. In Product, we’ve been putting together and signing off our new brochures for 2012 and early 2013. We’ve also started work on planning the summer 2013 season and the 5 year strategy. Late trading finished selling for summer 2011 and have now moved onto Winter 2011. Early Trading are currently busy putting together information for the turn of year papers, special offers that go out to the national newspapers for January. And finally the placements in Cruise have been looking at new routes and areas for the ships to sail to for summer 2013 and selling the final seats left on the cruise ships for this year.

A few of use have been very lucky and have already gone on resort trips including a cruise around the Canaries, a trip to Majorca and a trip to Mexico. This has been really useful as it has enabled us to see the hotels and areas that we are looking after and really make the most of the product and holidays that we are selling. It has also got to the time of the year that we have all started to think about using the great holiday discounts that we get whilst we are here!

As well as our day to day jobs we have been helping recruit the new placements for next year’s intake. We have all visited a university placement fair somewhere around the country to talk to potential students about the scheme. It’s been a great opportunity to shout about how great our scheme is. We have met some really strong candidates at these fairs and have already carried out one assessment centre.

In November the guys in cruise organised a cake sale, quiz and raffle in the aid of raising money for Children in Need. The main prize was a weekend cruise to Amsterdam. A lot of organising went into this and the whole business got involved – the cakes in particular went down well! They raised a total of £1400, which was a fantastic effort!

We’ve got lots of things to look forward to in December. This includes the Commercial Christmas party, the placement Christmas party and the hanger visits to see our Thomson Airways aircraft undergoing maintenance. It’s going to be a busy month in the office as we all get ready for our busiest time of year in January. We would like to wish you all a Happy Christmas and look forward to welcoming some of you at the next assessment centre.

Wew are delighted to announce that nominations are now OPEN for the third National Placement & Internships Awards 2012, sponsored by PwC.

Due to be held on Wednesday 18^th January 2012 at City University in London, the Awards celebrate the outstanding achievements of employers, universities and students within the world of undergraduate placements and internships.

There are 15 Awards up for grabs, including 7 Awards for employers, 3 for universities and 5 for students. Awards up for grabs include ‘Best Placement Student, Best Intern & Best Society’ with up to £1000 for the winners!

Entering is really quick and simple just visit the website at www.rmpawards.co.uk

And fill in a nomination form before the deadline of Friday 18^th November.

To find out more, click here.

Good luck!

“Firstly we would like to say hi to all of our bloggers on the Rate My Placement Website! We’ll start firstly by introducing ourselves – we’re Amy and Ben, two of the nine new placements at TUI Travel this year. We’re both in the third year of our courses at Loughborough University. Amy is studying Retail, Marketing & Management, and Ben is studying Transport & Business Management.

The placements at TUI are based at the Head Office in Luton, are are in the Product, Trading, and Cruise departments, which all sit under the Commercial Division. Katie and Max work in Late Trading, Becky and Saoirse are in Early Trading, Holly trades Accommodation Only, Joel and Antoni are in Cruise whilst we’re both working in Product.

Over the next twelve months, Ben has been placed in the Short Haul team in product, looking after the resorts of Mainland Spain & Portugal, and Amy has been placed in the Long Haul team, working on the resorts of Aruba, Mexico, Cuba & Jamaica. We’d like to give you some information about Product which is central to the whole of the Commercial Division. Our job involves making key strategic decisions – starting with deciding on which hotels we will feature for each of our resorts, what product we’ll be selling, pricing them to ensure a strong profit, then designing and placing them into our brochures. Once this is all finalised and signed off, it gets handed over to our Trading teams to sell and yield manage throughout the season. We also have the day-to-day role of answering queries from anyone across the whole business about our resorts, as well as trying to ensure that they are selling well throughout the year, by analysing sales reports and meeting with the Trading team.

We’ll now give you a brief overview of Trading. They’re responsible for analysing sales and reacting with pricing decisions, depending on many things such as the current rate of sale or the state of economies around the world. For example, if they see that a hotel is not selling well in a resort, they will adjust the price in an attempt to try to increase demand to that hotel and hopefully the resort, too.

Lastly, but not least, the Cruise team have their own Product and Trading teams, similar to the above, but dealing with cruise holidays and the ships which fall under the Thomson & Island Cruises brands.

We’ll now give you a quick outline of our induction period. Lasting two weeks, we had an in-depth overview of TUI, along with some great activities to break the presentations up. Examples of which included a cocktail party activity (unfortunately, no alcohol was involved) which helped us to develop our understanding of the different TUI brands and products, a visit to the Thomson Airways hangar to see the aircraft undergoing maintenance, as well as a mystery shopping activity in our own retail stores to check up on customer service. We were made to feel really welcome by everyone for these first couple of weeks – we even went out for lunch in our teams on the first day!

This week at TUI in the Commercial Division has been People Week. Throughout the week, there have been many activities going on, including presentations taking place, similar to in our induction. On Wednesday night we also had a quiz – unfortunately we didn’t win but we had loads of fun and so many people got involved and had a laugh. The week has been ‘back to school’ themed, so today everyone came in dressed in uniform! (We both won the awards for being the best dressed in our department – great first impressions done for us!). We’ve also got some more exciting social events lined up for us, including team nights out, the TUI Sports Day weekend in Shropshire and, of course, not long now until the Christmas parties start!

That’s it for a few weeks from us, we’ll be updating you again soon. Don’t forget to check out our Facebook group as we’re now recruiting for next years intake!”

Join Tui’s Facebook group for more information, just click the button here. You can also find out more from Ben and Amy at TUI Travel, plus visit the Industry Zones on RateMyPlacement for more personal accounts from students on internships and placements!

Feel free to add your thoughts below! Would you like a placement at TUI Travel?

UBS has been working regularly with Circus Space as part of their training programmes as a means for interns to work on the 7 core competencies candidates are assessed on while having fun at the same time.  Circus Space offers a unique mix of circus skills including:

• Human Pyramid Building
• Juggling
• Double Dutch
• Stilt-walking
• Diabolo
• Tight-wire walking
• Plate spinning
• Plus many more activities to dabble in!

Both Russ and myself were lucky enough to get stuck in with the UBS interns and try our hand at juggling, double-dutch (skipping for all those who don’t know), stilt-walking and human pyramid building. It was a fantastic afternoon and it is clear to see why UBS and Circus Space have formed this unique partnership to develop the raw business skills and professional qualities needed for a career at UBS.

The UBS team enjoyed papping us all during the various activities and it was a great way to get to know your team mates.  As you can see in the picture on the right, trust is very important when you are relying on a group of people to hold you up!

Fancy following in their footsteps? Make sure you check out the reviews at RateMyPlacement.co.uk and find out more about the opportunities with UBS here.

Thanks UBS for a great afternoon

After a few nail biting weeks, we are proud and very chuffed to be named as the London winners in the Barclays Take One Small Step competition. This means we win £50,000 to invest back into RateMyPlacement and develop the business in the future….

Thanks so much for all the votes and support you have given us over the last few weeks, we couldn’t have won without you!

Celebrations are in order so look out for the pictures on our facebook group!

Thanks again for your support & votes!

The RateMyPlacement Team

A different approach

At Ernst & Young, we provide assurance and advice to companies ranging from entrepreneurial start-ups to major multinationals. But what makes us so different isn’t just the size and scope of our global business; it’s the value we place on the strengths and abilities of the people we recruit. Our goal is to help students find careers they’re suited to; ones that they’re naturally good at. We developed the Strengths Factor game to give students an innovative – and interesting- way to find out more about themselves and what working with Ernst & Young is really all about. It’s interactive, fun and only takes a few minutes to finish.

Our game is a starting point that tests your ability to organise and multi-task as well as your persistence, mental agility, awareness and logic. The result is a profile of your strengths – which can help you look at your career options in a new and positive light.

Looking for potential, not just achievement

When you’re at university, you spend a lot of time focusing on a particular discipline or field. Your achievements are important, but finding out you have other abilities can be refreshing. We want to introduce you to opportunities you might not have thought about, or even just dismissed outright. At Ernst & Young, your strengths can help you start a career with us now.

Visit us and try out the Strengths Factor game. Don’t forget you can apply to our internships, scholarships and insight days from July 1.

To find out more and to apply from 1st July, click the button below!

Ernst & Young Placements and Internships

The new White Paper, called Students at the Heart of the System details plans to make universities bid for a proportion of their places – a higher proportion than had been anticipated.

This proportion of universities bidding for places is “just the start”, said Mr Willetts. “We want to extend the system so more places are contestable.”

Whilst this is meant to be a step in the right direction, students are not happy!  Aaron Porter, president of the National Union of Students said: “Fees have been tripled and students have been exposed to the potential chaos of the market and yet there are still no concrete proposals for how quality, accountability and access will be improved.”

This report from the BBC is one of many published in the last two days….we want to hear your thoughts!  You can read the full article here.

Is it right to put students in the driving seat or is the prospect of graduating from uni with over £20,000 debt just ridiculous?

Let’s hear your vote

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!