As we prepare for another summer 2018 graduation, the Give a Grad a Go team have been reflecting on our time spent partnering with top universities and student societies throughout the 2017-18 academic year.
Throughout the year, we worked closely with 15 societies from 11 of the UK’s top-ranked universities.
Whether it was running on-campus employability workshops, or launching our community of final-year students known as our Boost network, the team have been busy engaging with current students up and down the country.
Through our work with different universities, we not only raised the profile of Give a Grad a Go and the companies we work with, but we were also able to help students increase their employability and career prospects.
It’s been a great academic year for Give a Grad a Go’s university partnerships – check out the highlights below!
Give a Grad a Go’s Society Partnerships
Throughout the 2017-18 academic year, we partnered with a number of different student societies.
We were delighted to renew some of our longest-standing partnerships, with the likes of the Edinburgh Business Society, St. Andrews Entrepreneurs and UCL Guild, as well as kicking off some brand new ones – with societies such as the Edinburgh Women in Business Society.
We’ve loved working with so many fantastic student societies and seeing them promote our brand on-campus.
And here’s what they had to say about working with us…
Ellie Jarvie, President of Edinburgh Business Society
“Give A Grad A Go is an incredibly friendly and easy to work with organisation. They have benefitted our members through supporting students as well as attending events hosted by the society – creating new opportunities for our members as well as adding to their employability. Our points of contact at Give A Grad A Go are very approachable and help ensure our collaboration is beneficial to both parties.”
Emma Payne, Sponsorship Officer of Edinburgh Women In Business Society
“Give A Grad A Go have been my favourite sponsor to work with over the past year! The Student Outreach Executive at Give A Grad A Go has gone above and beyond in ensuring that our partnership has been as effective as possible by for example providing a semester’s worth of social media posts in the first week of term – which the marketing team loved!”
Marco Donlic, Sponsorship Officer of St Andrews Entrepreneurs
“We found working with Give A Grad A Go an extremely rewarding process- not only were we able to offer amazing recruitment opportunities to our members but Give A Grad A Go offered extensive resources such as CV reviews and on-campus talks.
Such support allowed us to attract more students to our society and provide one of a kind resources to help them with their personal journeys of entrepreneurship.”
Amber Goodwin and Mila Mundrova, Co-Presidents of Cambridge Advertising & Marketing Society (CAMSoc)
“Working with Give A Grad A Go this year has been an amazing opportunity for the Cambridge Advertising & Marketing Society.
Our members have benefited from the continuous support network, with a number of our members successfully signing on to the Boost programme.
We have hosted events which were received extremely positively by our members, as well as giving some students a chance to work directly with Give a Grad a Go on their marketing strategy.
“With the financial support of Give a Grad a Go, we were able to launch our first ever CAMSoc brand project which provided even more opportunities and skills to our members.
As a committee, we felt especially supported by their Student Outreach Executive who gave us incredible advice both as Presidents of the society and as students looking to enter the world of work.
Our success and growth as a society this year would not have been possible without the help and support from the team at Give a Grad a Go.”
Boost
This academic year also saw the launch of a brand new initiative – Give a Grad a Go’s exclusive network of final year students, Boost.
Boost has already offered recurring careers-related support to over 70 hand-picked soon-to-be graduates, with weekly 1-to-1 bespoke career consultations throughout their final year at university.
For their career consultations, students were paired up with somebody from our team of graduate career experts to cover a topic of their choice – anything from discussing how best to prepare for interviews, to exploring specific roles and sectors.
With the pressure to secure a graduate job during university rising, these sessions provided the perfect opportunity for the Give a Grad a Go team to share their wealth of careers knowledge with current students.
Here’s what some of our Boost members had to say…
“It was really useful getting personalised advice before my first assessment day, which was a totally new experience for me”
– 2018 Cambridge graduate, Modern & Medieval Languages
“I started to explore options I hadn’t considered before – knowing that my career expert is out there to help with the daunting process is reassuring”
– 2018 Exeter graduate, Geography
On-campus events
The 2017-18 academic year also saw the team clock up some serious miles – as we ran a total of 9 on-campus employability workshops at 6 of the UK’s top universities.
Travelling the length and breadth of the UK, the topics of these workshops ranged from interview and assessment day preparation – to how to write the perfect CV and cover letter.
At each of the events, we gathered feedback from just under 100 students in attendance – and one key question we asked our students was “What is your biggest career concern?”
From the data we collated, it’s clear to see that the primary concern for students was finding the right job – in terms of winding up in a dead-end job, and simply not knowing what the ideal career will look like.
Another big concern for students related to the application process itself – including worries about putting together CVs and cover letters, and concerns about not standing out in interviews and assessment days.
If you would like to know more about our events, head over to our roundup blogs – where you can read more about our on-campus events in Semester 1 (2017) and Semester 2 (2018).
Over the course of the last academic year, we’ve been busy building and sustaining partnerships with the UK’s top-ranked universities and their student societies.
Connecting with current students all over the country has already helped to raise both our profile and that of our clients – and we can’t wait to see how our partnerships continue to develop next year!
If your student society would be interested in partnering with Give a Grad a Go, get in touch with the marketing team at [email protected].
And if you are a business looking to increase your on-campus presence, we can help!
Contact us on [email protected].
Looking to Hire Graduates for your business? We are the UK’s Graduate Recruitment experts – contact us today to find out more about our services.
