Before you start your penultimate year, it\u2019s a good idea to start researching different industry sectors and employers; the Gradcracker Toolkit<\/a> is a good place to begin. From this you can gather an idea of the types of career paths you might like to explore further \u2013 perhaps through a placement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Use our Company Hubs<\/a> to find your favourite employers and start building your Follow list to receive job alerts from companies you\u2019d particularly like to work for. If you\u2019re hoping to complete a summer or year-long placement, this will ensure you don\u2019t miss out on any of the year\u2019s action!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some students will have the opportunity to complete a year-long placement<\/a> between the penultimate and final year of their studies. If this applies to you, you\u2019ll want to start applying to opportunities from the Autumn of the year before you intend to start your placement. (This will most likely be your second year at university.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The summer after your penultimate year will be your last opportunity to complete a\u00a0summer internship<\/a>\u00a0as an undergraduate. As with year-long placements, you\u2019ll want to be applying to opportunities from the Autumn. This is a particularly good year to gain some work experience, as there\u2019s a chance you could secure a full-time position with the company for when you graduate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are planning on getting some work experience in the next year or so, I\u2019d recommend having a think about what you\u2019d like to get out of it. Perhaps there\u2019s a certain skill you\u2019d like to develop, or a topic you\u2019d like to learn more about. Going into your placement with an idea of what you\u2019d like to achieve will help you get the most out of the experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Equally, there are plenty of other ways that you can progress aside from work experience. What can you do to take your understanding to the next level and improve your performance in assessments? You might also like to think about boosting your CV by joining a STEM society<\/a>, if you haven\u2019t already, and getting involved in extra-curricular activities, volunteering, or anything else that will help you demonstrate those all-important soft skills that will grab employers\u2019 attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Graduate opportunities will be open to you from the very beginning of your final year \u2013 so it\u2019s important that you\u2019re ready. The more career-planning you do now, the less pressure you’ll be under in your final year, when you have to juggle job applications, final projects and exams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Start thinking about what types of graduate positions you\u2019d like to apply for. Have a look at the Graduate Jobs<\/a> on Gradcracker to get an idea of what\u2019s out there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Make sure you are following the companies you\u2019d particularly like to work for once you graduate, and are receiving their graduate job alerts. While you might not be able to apply to graduate opportunities just yet, receiving alerts from your favourite companies will introduce you to the types of roles they offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can update your alert preferences in your dashboard<\/a> at any time, but it\u2019s important that you are receiving graduate job alerts from your favourite employers before you enter your final year. This will ensure you don\u2019t go unaware when these companies open their graduate vacancies, which is likely be from September onwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can do this \u2013 best of luck!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n ______________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n Big thanks to\u00a0Hannah Vernon, Media & Communications at\u00a0Gradcracker<\/a>, for writing this blog! We hope you find these tips on getting prepared for your penultimate year of university useful.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Please be reminded that if you need careers support, your Careers Team is only an email \/ a message away!<\/p>\n\n\n\n E:<\/strong> careers@westminster.ac.uk<\/a>| Website<\/a> | Facebook<\/a> | Twitter<\/a> | Instagram<\/a> |Careers Blog<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Get prepared over the summer Before you start your penultimate year, it\u2019s a good idea to start researching different industry sectors and employers; the Gradcracker Toolkit is a good place to begin. From this you can gather an idea of the types…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":652,"featured_media":12630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-employer-guest-blogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/652"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12633"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12635,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12633\/revisions\/12635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Sandwich students, get ready <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Last calling for summer interns<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Set yourself some objectives<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Prepare for final year <\/h3>\n\n\n\n