So it’s been another couple of weeks, which means another blog. Actually got my first couple of recommendations for YouTube video of the week and LAD of the week recently so cheers for those guys. So let’s crack on…

First up, ‘YouTube Video of the Week’. Now I thought that I would get some inspiration for this weeks video from TV show ‘Rude Tube’, so I sat down to watch it and it turns out that weeks episode was all about sex so thought it might not be appropriate for the innocent minds of RMP and our users…

I was also shown a hilarious video by Wicko AKA Big Dog yesterday but similarly its not exactly appropriate, so you’ll have to ask him yourself! This weeks choice is a bit of a mood lifter, so although there may be some rubbish people out there, this is just to show that there are still some people out there doing some amazing things and to confirm that in general PEOPLE ARE AWESOME!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo0Cazxj_yc

I’d absolutely love it if you guys commented below and told me out of those, which was your favourite little clip. Mine is the guy doing that flip thing on the big bouncy ball (Not it’s technical term I’m sure).

So it’s that time for my ‘Purchase of the Week’ feature and I’m surprised I can even do one this week due to the pathetic attempt at a bank account I claim to have. I was recently on the road down in the beautiful South-West of England attending the Plymouth and Exeter Careers fairs and got peckish so decided to venture into a sandwich I have never tried before, a mouth-watering Bacon, Brie & Cranberry baguette. Now to many of you this may be the norm, maybe even a weekly occurrence, but for myself it was a strange combination that I had previously decided to steer clear of. I mean I’m sorry but who sat there hungry one day and thought “ohh you know what I could really do with? A bit of bacon, cheese and fruit!” It’s odd and you can’t deny it! However, as I have recently discovered it’s genius. I was just sat there letting this crazy arrangement of flavours do backflips on my tongue and absolutely loving it! So the moral of this story is to just try something different, if you can’t afford a holiday, you can at least let your taste buds take one!

Now time for something that I always like to put a lot of thought into, ‘LAD of the Week’. This week it’s a bit of a remember a LAD award as it goes to a natural born performer who played in one of the greatest rock bands of all time and had millions of people across the world left in awe as he dominated any stage he graced. I am of course talking about the late and ever so great Freddy Mercury, who 20 years yesterday we lost in an untimely death.

Queen has sold over 300 million albums worldwide and continues to live on through various fantastic (and not so fantastic) tribute bands as well as continuing to inspire many music-makers of the modern era. He is undoubtedly a rock-god who used every inch of the stage to perform classics such as ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and their most played song of all time ‘We Are The Champion’. Not only does he live on through his music but through The Mercury Phoenix Trust which raises awareness and helps educate those in the developing world of AIDS, the disease that took the legend away. So the only thing really left to say is RIPLAD.

As always it’s been a pleasure and it’s time for me to shut up and for you to get back on with some work!

Adue, Kwa Herini, Auf Wiedersehen and Goodbye!

Tom

Hi guys

Now I know I said I would be doing a blog every two weeks, and that it has been a lot longer than that since my last one. I do hate disappointing my huge fan base, the guys in the office and my mum, so from now on I’ll do my absolute best to keep the blogs flowing.

So let’s get back on track. First up, ‘YouTube Video of The Week’. This week we have a video that has spread like wildfire and is getting coverage from the likes of The Sun and CNN. Flashmobs have been a huge viral sensation for a few years now and this video continues that trend with a romantic twist. Watch the video (with sound) and enjoy… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy8D2mx2EVc

It is also a video that a member of the RMP family can relate to. The lovely young lady who is being proposed to was an ex-girlfriend of RMP co-founder Alastair Lindsay, when questioned on the video this is what he had to say:

“Fair play to the lad, he’s clearly more attractive, imaginative and romantic than me. She had a lucky escape and I wish them all the best.”**

The main difference I can see between Ali and Adam? About 3 Feet!

Now we have my ‘Purchase of The Week’ feature. I have been excited to write about this since it is all I have been playing lately. I went out and bought myself the incredible CD that is ‘The Kinks – The Ultimate Collection’. There isn’t enough I can say about this beautiful collection of music, hit after hit, tune after tune! Whether you haven’t listened to them at all or it has just been a while I urge you to revisit them. After a few days of running through the album and arguing with myself I have decided my favourite song is ‘Stop Your Sobbing’. This, however, was an extremely hard decision and it could have easily been 6 or 7 others.

It’s available from places like Amazon and E-bay for around £3!! Which is just outrageous for such a top piece of work.

Please let me know of any of your favourite ‘Kinks’ songs/gigs/interesting stories as I’m just discovering them myself and would love to hear them!

So Finally, we are brought to the “LAD of The Week” feature, something I’m always on the look out for. This week it goes to a man who time after time just amazes the nation with a look into the far corners of the world and the nature that inhabits it. That’s right, this week’s award goes to NatureLAD, David Attenborough.

His latest BBC series, ‘Frozen Planet’, started a couple of weeks back and it has been an absolutely storming hit (as most of his shows are). Even at the amazing age of 85 he manages to show an enthusiasm towards every living thing, from the micro-bacteria that lives on a snowflake to the breathtakingly intelligent Killer Whales and how they strategically take down their pray. He shows us parts of the world we never knew existed, and most of all does what no teacher in 12 years of school to do…get me interested in science!

The man is a true legend, and with that the big LAD nod of approval goes to him and his team for allowing us to discover things we never knew we could.

Sir David Attenborough….NatureLAD!

So it’s time for me to shut up and for you to get on with some work, cheers for reading. I’ll be back soon.

Adue, Kwa Herini, Auf Wiedersehen and Goodbye!

Tom

**May not be an exact quote

Nominations now open in the National Placement & Internships Awards 2012!

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!

Fancy hearing about a placement at TUI straight from the horses mouth?! Then read on as throughout the year, we will be following the progress of our Guest Bloggers. Meet Ben and Amy who have just started their placements with TUI….find out what they’ve been up to so far!

“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?

Could you ever imagine 60 interns from UBS learning to juggle, walk on stilts and form a human pyramid?  Well these are a few of the activities which aim to test new interns networking abilities, help them bond as a team and act as an icebreaker in a fun & comfortable environment.  Russ and I (Liz) from the RateMyPlacement team were invited down to a session to find out more….

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

RateMyPlacement named winners in the Barclays Take One Small Step Competition!

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

When it comes to your future, do you really want to waste time? From July 1, Ernst & Young are accepting early applications for our placements, internships and insights days.

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

Wow!  Hasn’t Higher Education gone mad in the last few days?

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

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