Deadline In 2 Weeks!!! Apply To Travel To Canada, No TUITION, No IELTS.Â
Are you an international student who wants to stay in the UK for your career? You might be wondering how you can do that if you don’t have any work experience. Well, in this video, I will share with you the strategy on how to get a job in the UK with a visa sponsorship even if you have little or no work experience.
Hello everyone, I’m Valeria and I’m an education and career consultant for international students in the UK. On my YouTube channel, I share tips and advice on studying and working in the UK. Throughout my career, I’ve talked to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of international students and a very common topic that comes up is how can I stay in the UK for my career even if I don’t have any work experience.
Deadline In 2 Weeks!!! Apply To Travel To Canada, No TUITION, No IELTS.Â
I’ll be honest, it’s much easier to get a job in the UK if you actually have relevant experience, even if it is from your home country. But it is also possible if you are a fresher, if you have no experience. Actually, I have done it back in 2015. I got a graduate job even though I had no professional experience, only part-time jobs. And many of my clients get jobs in the UK even without relevant experience. So it is possible. And without wasting any more time, let’s get to the actual advice I want to share with you today.
Get experience outside your course
The first advice I would give to anyone who is a fresher and wants to get a job in the UK after their studies is to get experience outside your course. I know it seems like a silly advice: to get a job without experience, get experience. But I don’t mean to get professional experience. I mean do something outside your course. I don’t want your CV to be empty with just your bachelor’s or master’s or school grades. It has to have something.
First of all, consider getting a part-time job. Not only it will pay the bills, but also it will improve your CV. And there are a lot of students who do jobs as sales assistants or work in a restaurant and it does help them strengthen their CV. Obviously, you’ll have to explain your experience in the right way for it to contribute to your profile, but it does help having any job in the UK, even if it is a part-time role.
Then, obviously, there are many things you can do outside your course, such as leadership, volunteering, and part-time jobs at university. It will also help you with interviewing and applying for jobs, because you’ll have to bring a lot of examples of different situations from your life. And they don’t have to be from professional work experience. They can be from a volunteering project or from leadership projects, for example running a society or working in a society as a member.
If you’ve spent three years as a bachelor student in the UK and you haven’t done anything outside your course, you will struggle to stand out. Just to give you an example, I had a volunteering experience in my CV, I had a leadership experience, I was the president of a society and I was the treasurer of another society. And obviously, I had several part-time jobs. So if you didn’t have a chance to secure professional experience or internship, even back in your home country, you don’t have an excuse why you didn’t get any volunteering or leadership experience on your CV.
Develop technical skills outside your course
Advice number two is to develop technical skills outside your course. What do I mean by that? Even though we are studying a relevant degree to the job we want to do, sometimes we lack technical skills, for example, ability to work on Excel, ability to use different software, programming skills, analytical skills, and so on. So if you already know the job you wish to have, perhaps you can read the job descriptions and see what kind of technical abilities are required. Maybe you need to do certain formulas on Excel, maybe you need to be good at AutoCAD or Revit software if you’re an engineer, or if you’re a marketing student, perhaps you need to be good at Google Analytics or running Facebook ads, and so on.
So if you already know the career path, I would really recommend brushing up on your technical abilities. There are many online courses and resources that you can use to learn new skills or improve your existing ones. For example, you can use Coursera, Udemy, LinkedIn Learning, or YouTube to find courses or tutorials on the topics that interest you. You can also get certificates or badges that you can add to your CV or LinkedIn profile to show your proficiency and credibility.
Having technical skills outside your course will make you more competitive and attractive to employers, especially if you are a fresher with no work experience. It will also help you perform better in the job, as you will be able to use the tools and software that are essential for your role. So don’t neglect your technical skills, and invest some time and effort in developing them.
Learn technical skills on your own
Advice number three is to learn technical skills on your own. I don’t recommend spending a lot of money on these types of certificates, but perhaps there are some free ones or anything offered by your university. But you can also learn a lot of these things on your own, using YouTube or the internet. At least, when you interview, you’ll have the technical ability, even if it wasn’t taught well at the university or it wasn’t taught in depth at the university.
The mistake here would be to try to learn all the software without knowing which career you want to pursue. In that case, you’ll waste a lot of time trying to figure out how to use engineering software, even though you want to be a business analyst. So it’s only for people that already know the direction of their career.
Technical skills will be valued at the interview stage. They will be looked at on your CV, but also, when you start working, you’ll pick up things much quicker when you already know how to use certain things.
Try to get an internship in the UK
Advice number four is to try to get an internship in the UK. There are different types of internships in the UK. The ideal situation for international students is probably to go for a summer internship in a corporation or a company that sponsors international students. So these firms actually have quite a lot of internship programs, which means they bring on the student for 10 or 12 weeks in the summer. If they perform well, they’ll make them an offer for a full-time job, and you don’t have to apply for a full-time job during your final year. It’s quite convenient.
This is actually what happened to me. I did an internship at an investment bank and I got a job offer based on my performance in my internship. So how do you get that internship? You have to apply for this internship usually in your penultimate year. What does it mean? It means that the year before your last year. So not your final year of study, but the year before your final year of study. So for a bachelor student, it is usually the second year, if it is a three-year course. For a master’s student, it could be the final year of your bachelor’s degree. Obviously, you have to check with the company what are the entry requirements. And if you’re lucky, you’ll get the internship and your job offer will be sorted before you even graduate.
Obviously, if you don’t get a job offer or if the company doesn’t sponsor international students, it’s still amazing to get this internship in the UK, because it will really strengthen your profile. To get this type of internship that I have just described, remember that you have to start applying at the beginning of your second year or penultimate year of study. And not all master’s students are eligible for this type of internship. Sometimes it’s just for people that are doing a bachelor’s degree.
And if you’re not eligible for this type of internship, you can consider many other internships. For example, other companies offer off-cycle internships, so you can start them during the winter time. And there are other internships offered to already graduated people, so you don’t have to be a bachelor student when you apply to this type of internship. Keep in mind that sometimes these internships will be offered by a company that does not sponsor. Maybe the company does not offer a permanent role eventually. But it’s still a good experience to get, because it will be easier to get a permanent role or a full-time role if you already have some kind of internship. And it’s easier to get an internship than a full-time role.
The summary of this advice is: try to get UK experience, even after you graduate and you’re looking for a full-time role. Perhaps it’s better to just go for an internship first and then transfer to a full-time role, if you can’t get the full-time role straight away.
Apply for graduate schemes
Advice number five is to apply for graduate schemes. And I have a whole video about what is a graduate scheme and how it differs from other jobs. And I’ll have a link somewhere here, so you can check it out. But to give you a summary, a graduate scheme is a specifically designed job for a graduate without experience. And usually, it involves some kind of training or maybe a professional qualification. And to apply for these positions, you don’t need to have any work experience. Actually, for a lot of these roles, the requirement is that you don’t have any work experience. So that’s good news.
And another good news is that a lot of these graduate schemes are offered by the companies that sponsor international students. The big sponsors that will pay for your visa and you can switch to a skilled worker visa straight after your degree. That’s exactly the role I got. I got the graduate scheme in human resources.
We talked about the good news, but there are also a lot of things to consider when it comes to graduate schemes. First of all, you have to apply for them in advance. So a lot of the graduate schemes start in September. And if you want to get a September, let’s say 2023, start, I advise applying as soon as the doors open for applications, which is usually summer 2022 or autumn 2022.
The second thing to consider is that they are very competitive. It’s not impossible to get through. A lot of international students do it. A lot of my clients have done it. I’ve done it. But it is a long process. You need to have a lot of energy to prepare for each stage. You’ll be rejected at various stages and you’ll feel drained. And also, you’ll have to prepare for each stage. So each stage will require different preparation. If you’re someone who hates online tests or being timed, you might struggle, because a lot of these graduate schemes involve some kind of online testing in the beginning of the application.
I think it is a great option for a lot of international students, but at the same time, I think that it’s not for everyone, because of the long application process and also because you have to apply in advance. But the other thing that is great about graduate schemes is that master’s students are often eligible to apply. So if you’re a master’s student without experience, you can apply for these graduate schemes. And also, if you already graduated, but you have, let’s say, less than two years of work experience, you can also apply for those graduate schemes. You don’t have to be a student most of the time to apply. Obviously, read the entry requirements to find out whether you’re eligible. But I’ve noticed that most graduate schemes say you have to have zero to two years of relevant work experience. And you can either still be a student or you can already be graduated.
So in summary, there are specifically designed jobs for graduates without experience that get sponsored for a skilled worker visa in the UK.
Apply for junior positions or entry-level jobs
Advice number six is to apply for junior positions or entry-level jobs. These types of positions are usually open when the business needs someone young or junior in terms of experience. There is a business need to hire someone and to train them. Usually, these roles don’t require a lot of experience. Maybe they require some basic skills or knowledge, but not a lot of experience. So that’s good news for you, if you are a fresher with no work experience.
The bad news is that not all of these positions are offered by the companies that sponsor international students. So you have to be careful and check the company’s website or the job description to see if they are willing to sponsor you for a visa. Sometimes, they will explicitly say that they don’t sponsor or that they only accept candidates who have the right to work in the UK. In that case, you should not waste your time and energy applying for those jobs, because you will be rejected anyway.
But sometimes, they will not say anything about the sponsorship or the visa. In that case, you can still apply and hope for the best. Maybe they will consider you, maybe they will not. But you have nothing to lose by trying. And sometimes, they will say that they are open to sponsor or that they will consider candidates who need a visa. In that case, you should definitely apply and show your interest and motivation for the job and the company.
The advantage of applying for junior positions or entry-level jobs is that they are usually open throughout the year. So you don’t have to apply in advance or wait for a specific time. You can apply whenever you see a suitable opportunity. And also, they are usually less competitive than graduate schemes, because they are not as popular or as well-known. So you might have a better chance of getting an interview or an offer.
The disadvantage of applying for junior positions or entry-level jobs is that they are usually less structured and less supportive than graduate schemes. You might not get a lot of training or guidance or feedback. You might have to learn on the job and figure things out on your own. And also, they might not pay as well as graduate schemes, because they are not as prestigious or as demanding.
So in summary, there are junior positions or entry-level jobs that are suitable for freshers with no work experience, but you have to be careful and check if they offer sponsorship for a visa.