» Economics
Ruth (graduated 1999)After graduating in 1999, Ruth joined the graduate training programme of an investment bank in London. She had known from a young age that she wanted to go into investment banking and was attracted to the operations area following a campus presentation. She spent a ten-week summer internship with the bank during her penultimate year at university, which inspired her to apply for the graduate scheme. Ruth is currently a supervisor in equity operations, running a team of nine staff and her role involves assigning work to the team, monitoring projects and training and developing her staff. She has worked in a number of roles in operations including account reconciliations, a front-office project role, equity sales support and her first people-management role in the Frankfurt Support Team where she was responsible for migrating controls from Frankfurt to London. Although London based, her role so far has included travel to Bombay and Frankfurt, plus two months’ initial training in the USA. Her job requires a good understanding across financial markets, for example having to deal with different market regulations in different countries and also knowledge of a wide range of financial products. Ruth has a number of options for career development. She can progress on the people management side, move to a different area of operations, work on projects or work overseas. » Geography
Sarah (graduated 2001)Sarah has worked for a Council since graduating in 2001. During her degree she carried out a six-month work placement at a City Council working for the department that included refuse and recycling collections. Her role there involved wider environmental topics but she found recycling the most interesting. She believes that a degree is beneficial for this type of role but the emphasis is just as strong on experience. She would advise students thinking of pursuing this type of role to contact a local authority for advice about module choices. Although the role requires a wide number of skills, Sarah would prioritise customer service skills, computer skills, the ability to learn quickly (as most of the learning takes place on the job), research skills, some technical knowledge (an understanding of logistics), presentation skills and team working. Sarah describes her main tasks as dealing with enquiries from the public and research (for example looking at what other organisations do, the viability of projects and what people really think about recycling). One of her main projects at the moment is to investigate recycling methods for non-wheelie bin properties. In addition, Sarah has to monitor and review schemes and conduct other monitoring linked to performance indicators. Overrall, Sarah says that the job is really interesting and it is very rare that two days are the same. However, local authority structures can be very hierarchical and she would like to move to a role with more responsibilities and be more influential at a higher regional level. » Law
ChristinaChristina graduated from the University of Sheffield with a degree in law and was considering a career in the legal profession. 'I enjoyed the course, but I could not quite decide on whether to pursue a career as a solicitor or as a policy officer. I wanted to be out there with people as opposed to being in the office. I liked the idea of investigating things and people. So I enrolled on to an MSc in Criminology; I believed it would give me some ideas about working in the police force and other aspects of the law. I enjoyed the investigative part of this course and decided that I wanted to go into the police force, but I was a bit concerned about the dangers involved. So I visited the careers centre at the university to see whether there were jobs out there that allowed me to combine my interest in investigative work without the dangers involved in police work. The careers adviser spoke to me about my skills and interests and then suggested suitable jobs for me, one of which was working as an inspector of health and safety for the government. The job appealed to me immediately and when I picked up various adverts for the job, I was amazed at how much it reflected my skills and interest - so I applied. The application process was very long and I would say to anyone that they must be single-minded and have a strong personality to succeed. I was successful with the paper application and was then invited for a half-day psychometric test. The test included a diagrammatical, verbal and numerical reasoning paper test - I was surprised that I passed! I then moved on to the next stage, which was talking to a panel about my skills, interests and motivations. I then had to participate in two group exercises and a case study. Through each stage I noticed that the number of applicants kept on falling, so that by the last stage there were only 20 people left. I have been in this job now for just over four years. When I started, I had to attend short training courses in communication skills and industrial applications. In the second year of my training I attended a modular training course at Aston University that led to the award of a postgraduate Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety. I have worked in different sectors such as the legal sector, because of my law degree. I have also worked in the service sector and am now moving on to railways. A typical week will consist of visiting businesses, reading all sorts of legal, health and quality standard documents, writing up reports, sometimes presenting a finding in court and, my favourite part of all, investigating, inspecting and observing either people at work or the work environment. For the future, I hope to move up the ladder to take on more responsibilities but for now this is fun!' Phil (graduated 1998)Phil graduated from the University of Aberdeen in 1998 with an honours degree in law and a Diploma in Legal Practice. After finishing a general traineeship with Bell & Scott WS, a medium-sized law firm in the centre of Edinburgh, he moved to Shepherd & Wedderburn to specialise in corporate finance law. Shepherd & Wedderburn is one of the largest firms in Scotland with between 300 and 400 staff. Phil chose corporate finance law after enjoying the exposure he had to that practice area while assisting in the sale of a well-known independent radio station based in Manchester and Leeds. In his two years post qualifying he has been involved in a number of large corporate finance transactions. His job involves, primarily, advising clients on mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures. He particularly enjoys the project management role of a corporate finance lawyer in a major transaction, stressing the importance of effective communication, teamwork and organisation to ensure that transactions are completed as efficiently and timeously as possible. The work involves a combination of office work and visits to clients and occasionally travel, mainly to London. Phil recently was sent on secondment to Scottish & Newcastle plc to assist their group legal services team. This provided him with the opportunity to establish a close relationship with one of the firm's most important clients and to familiarise himself with the legal issues prevalent in the beer industry - more importantly it gave him the opportunity to get free beer on a monthly basis! The variety of the work and the friendly and approachable nature of his colleagues make his role in the corporate finance division both challenging and enjoyable, with excellent career opportunities. » Psychology
Anissa Anissa works as an adviser in a university's welfare advice section attached to a student support department. She has a 2.1 in psychology and took a one-year break after leaving school – spending six months travelling in India, Australia and New Zealand and six months working in the council tax administration department at her local council. After completing her degree she again went into local authority administration – this time in the housing department. She had a behind the scenes job, but was now certain she wanted to work directly with people. She started working for one evening a week at a local youth advice drop-in centre and having done this for more than a year she applied for an administrative job at a university. Getting this job meant relocating, but she thought it was worth it to get a foot in the door as she had decided that student advice or counselling was her chosen career direction. She worked in the registry for a year, but again made contact with a local independent advice centre and did some evening work there. She was really pleased when her application to be a student adviser was successful and she has now been doing this work for a year. She is the finance and debt advice specialist within the team and has a colleague who works mainly with international students and another with students who have disabilities. She really enjoys the work and she says that compared to some of the voluntary advice work she has done, she finds that in this job there are sometimes more concrete solutions that she can suggest to her students. She is currently applying for a part-time diploma course in personal counselling. » Sociology
Liz (graduated 1997)Liz graduated from the University of York in 1997 with a degree in sociology. Human resources (HR) seemed a natural career choice. A sociology degree considers people, how they behave, interact etc and human resources enables you to apply the theories learnt in practice. 'Before I worked in HR I was interested in my own rights as an employee. As a youngster I had been interested in a career in law and personnel gives you a good grounding in employment issues and law, an excellent career if you like problem solving! When I finished university I studied full-time for a year to gain my Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) qualification. I undertook my first job as an HR adviser within The National Health Service (NHS) in Oxfordshire and was exposed to all aspects of the HR function. The NHS is a great organisation and an excellent employer to work for especially if you want responsibility quickly and the chance to gain experience in all aspects of human resources. Strong negotiation skills are required as HR in the NHS is fundamentally based on best practice and operates within a highly unionised environment. I was initially responsible for project work including the implementation of a new HR database, payroll improvements, policy development, recruitment and workforce planning. I then supervised an HR assistant and was involved in all aspects of recruitment, contract administration, disciplinaries, organisational change, remuneration and reward, HR advice, employee relations, and training. Within two years I was promoted to HR manager responsible for seven members of staff, and this allowed me to gain valuable management experience. I managed a project that dealt with the disestablishment of a trust. This involved the transfer of 5,000 staff, union negotiations and policy harmonisation. I have immense job satisfaction working within the NHS; although HR is removed from hands-on clinical care I know I am contributing to the workforce and this is helping to provide an invaluable service nationwide. The NHS has fantastic career opportunities and allows you to meet a variety of staff within a wide spectrum of specialisms'. | 
