For students
Contacting the Employer
Email Contact with Employers
If you are emailing an employer with an enquiry about work experience, don’t forget to treat the email as an additional piece of formal business communication. Even if you’ve attached a cover letter and resume, the email itself will be the first piece of information about yourself that the employer will read. Ensure you write it in a business-like fashion.
Do: use a similar style of greeting and general language as you would in a cover letter – read the recommendations and examples included in this website.
Don’t: treat the email in an informal way. Avoid chatty, casual language. While you may be used to contacting your friends, tutors or current employers in a relaxed fashion, this email is going to a business or professional who doesn’t know you. You want them to remember you for all the right reasons! Be business-like and polite.
Resume
Your resume for the most part will be similar to the resumes you assemble when applying for other positions like vacation work, graduate recruitment programs and professional vacancies.
Cover Letter
Most of your applications enquiring about work experience will be unsolicited; you’ll be ‘cold canvassing’, applying not in response to a specific advertisement, but speculatively. In that case, the covering letter will be particularly important; and the opening paragraphs even more so!
Do not produce one cover letter and send it out to multiple employers. Such a letter would have to be very general in tone and content, and could not reflect each potential employer’s circumstances & needs. Produce a specific cover letter for each employer.
After introducing yourself, you will need to state very clearly the reasons you are seeking work experience, and how you see the work experience helping you achieve your career goals. Most importantly, emphasise what you can offer the organisation.
Be aware that in addition to the knowledge gained in your discipline or field, you will have gained general skills important to all employers and essential for many job roles. These skills are often referred to as ‘employability skills’, and include communication, teamwork, problem solving, planning and organising, self-management and initiative, being responsible for your own learning and the ability to use information technology. It’s likely that you’ve developed these skills through a range of activities: your academic studies, employment, voluntary work, community activities, and membership of clubs, sporting teams or other societies.
Once you have an offer you will need to arrange the following:
- Complete the Work Placement form (PDF 23Kb)
- Have it signed by a lecturer
- Return the form to Careers and Employment before your placement begins
- Forward a copy of the Information for Employers form to the prospective employer
How much time can I spend on work placement?
Under the Work Placement (unpaid) Program you can spend up to 4 weeks with a single employer. In order to maximise your exposure to industry you can spend up to 8 weeks per year on work placement. This can be organised in a variety of ways; for example you might like to work with two host organisations per year and spend four weeks with each. Alternatively you might like to divide your time between three organisations as long as the total time spent doing work placement does not exceed eight weeks. To maximise your work placement opportunities you need time to understand the work, the culture, the environment and get to know the staff. Therefore you should aim to spend a minimum of 2 to 3 weeks in any one workplace.
Work placement can be either full-time or part-time. During the vacation periods it can be full-time; however during the academic year work placement days must be organised around your lectures, tutorials, laboratory classes and other university commitments. You cannot miss classes in order to complete your placement.
Work placement certificate
Please arrange time with your supervisor to complete the work placement certificate at the conclusion of your placement.