News

Internship success

Published 12 January 2011

Graduates have hailed a University of Brighton internship programme as a major boost to their employment prospects.

The university secured funding for 38 graduate internship places in collaboration with the university's Careers Centre, Economic and Social Engagement department and employer partners. Graduates were paid to work for six weeks full-time in graduate-level positions and many found work opportunities.

All interns were given support through the employability skills workshop provided by the Careers Centre.

Christian Augustine, a graduate who completed his internship at Plastipack packaging company, had high praise for the scheme and said he gained job afterwards based on the computer skills he learned: "I think the Employability Skills Programme was the best part of the entire programme. It was a great opportunity for me and if I hadn't taken part, I would not have gotten a job now.

"It helped me improve my CV writing and presentation. I got a job on the last week of this internship."

Katherine Hope, Internship Officer for the Careers Centre, said: "There was such good feedback that discussions are taking place to see if future financial support can be secured to run similar internship programmes in the future.

"As well as benefitting the graduates, employers have also found the experience beneficial to their business."

Brighton and Hove Sixth Form College took on intern Yin Liao. College principal Chris Thomson said: "It's going really well - Yin is certainly doing work we would have struggled to find time for ourselves and it may make a material difference to how we develop some aspects of the college. We are really pleased and very grateful both to Yin and the Careers Centre."

University graduate David Scott, an intern at Haberdasherylondon Ltd design agency, said: "I have gained invaluable skills in the running and organisation of different projects, keeping up to date with clients and manufacturers, and surrounding myself with like-minded creative individuals has broadened my scope of work. I've also been lucky enough to be put through a week's intensive course on 3D computer modelling, and this has helped tremendously in me becoming more of an employable designer.”

Katherine has been credited with much of the success of the programme, promoting the opportunities, managing the applications and co-ordinating the programme to support all those involved.

She said: "It has been a pleasure working on a project that has been a win-win for all involved and has given me the opportunity to do a lot of cross-department working. Employers have found the programme useful in that they have been able to bring in graduate level skills to their business.

"Some have used the six week period as an extended interview process and in some cases taken interns on as full-time employees off the back of it.

"This programme was aimed at under-employed and unemployed graduates so involvement with this has given them opportunities to get paid for graduate level work, gain new skills, build on existing ones and through the employability skills programme we can offer extra support to help them reflect and build from this into full time employment."