Uni Careers Service - Any good?

Eliza252

Hi, I am looking at signing up to my graduate careers service (University College London) - I am desperate to get into the NGO sector, (spciefically refugees/health) hopefully undertaking some training when I get the money.
I need some advice on the most appropriate job I could get now, where I should volunteer, where I can look for funding etc etc.
I am going round in circles searching the internet.
The grad careers service is £50 to sign up to - anyone had any experiences good/bad with graduate uni careers services - is it worth it? anyone know of any free resources I'm not exploiting?
Thank you!

lellie

ours is crap but free.. am shocked that they charge you though!! Can't imagine they have much more info than ours.

surfcat

mine (at oxford) was crap but free.

It had tonnes and tonnes of information about how you could 'think outside the box', about how 'no two days would be the same', ie managament consultancy and investment banking and all that other boll*cks. But when it comes down to finding a career that would use your degree (in my case physics) there was very little indeed.

I remember the careers book well, more than a hundred pages on finance and management and a token page on alternative careers such as working for greenpeace.

I do remember tho' that for NGO work your really have to fight for it as competition is intense.

Eliza252

Thanks, it looks like my service is very expensive in comparison then - although it might be because its a graduate services now that I'm no longer a student. I also found out that they charge £20 for an hour long interview!! :eek: crikey, I'm going to need a pay rise to be able to afford it!

NGO Sector, I know very, very competitive. I am looking at doing something very specific as this seems to be the winning formula.
Possibly logistics (as in transport logistics, people/aid that kind of thing)
or public health - a fairly diverse spectrum but at the moment my qualifications are fairly general so I can afford to speculate!
I've got some voluntary work, liasing with detained refugees in London and also as a community worker... still, could do with some professional guidance -especially as I cant afford to pay for further qualifications at the moment...

The_Bhoy_3

That's pretty crap if they charge to use it... Ours (at Glasgow) is free.

You can generally look at the stuff listed on other uni's career webpages and you might see different things listed. I'm pretty sure you can access Glasgow's without being a student there. Also, you can register on Edinburgh's page without having gone there and they seen to have quite a lot of good jobs listed (though I only know with regards to my field, finance).

Basically, you should try looking up the careers web pages of as many unis as you can think of on Google and accessing those you can without paying or being a student there. You should find a decent amount of stuff hopefully!

Good luck...

Savvy_Sue

It will help to know where most of the NGOs advertise any jobs, because if you don't see them advertised you won't have a chance!

Ask the group you are / were volunteering with if they can help with that. Also let them know you're interested in paid work and see if there is anything going there.

Good luck!

lellie

you need to be registered at manchester to access theirs.

there are plenty of unis where you don't though. look at the areas you are interested in going to - and then look at all the universities in that area for things listed.

lellie

see I think our careers service is crap.. yet it's just got voted the best :S

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/press/title,27252,en.htm

Gavboy

lellie wrote:

you need to be registered at manchester to access theirs.

You don't, you can access all the information the same as you can with most uni's, I've just done it and am not a manchester uni student!

lellie

Gavboy wrote:

You don't, you can access all the information the same as you can with most uni's, I've just done it and am not a manchester uni student!

hmm I needed an manchester.ac.uk address to sign in and get more stuff..

Gavboy

lellie wrote:

hmm I needed an manchester.ac.uk address to sign in and get more stuff..

You can get a good lot of info about particular careers and how to get into particular fields which is what the OP was looking for. Also tons about application forms, interviews etc. By you saying you need to be registered to access it is not strictly true so I didn't want the OP not to have a look when they could find some good stuff there.