Oxford Careers Service

Initially, it is probable that you will access us via our extensive website, www.careers.ox.ac.uk, where you can register and find out a great deal about several aspects of career searches and planning. But there is much more at 56 Banbury Road – about 500 yards on the right past the point where St Giles forks. Apart from the Christmas and Easter weeks and one week in the summer (check the website), the Service is open on weekdays from 10am to 5pm. During Michaelmas and Hilary Terms, and the second half of Trinity Term it is open on Saturdays from
10am to 1pm.
 
At the Careers Service, you can expect to find:
 
- the Oxford University Careers Service Guide, which contains a wealth of advice and information about the stages of an effective career search: making a realistic personal assessment, exploring different occupations, focusing on a particular career, researching employers, making applications and handling interviews and job offers. The Guide also covers further study, vacation work, working abroad and taking time out.
 
- our computerised careers guidance system, Prospects Planner, which helps you to relate your qualities to different occupations.

 - a wide range of employers’ literature can be found in the Information Room, with copies of annual reports,  notes of visits to employers by Career Advisers, comments from students on their vacation experience, records of interviews and press cuttings.
 
 - the Work Experience area, which covers all sorts of activities, not just career-related placements, which will help enhance your knowledge and experience and develop your skills during vacations.
 
 - the Contacts Scheme - a data-base of over 3000 recent graduates who can answer questions about the work they do, the organizations they work for or how they got their jobs.
 
 - material to help you prepare your CV and covering letter, tackle application forms and prepare for aptitude tests, interviews and assessment centres.

People
 
Careers Advisers are available for both longer (45 minute) and shorter (15 minute) careers discussions to a talk about the reports obtained from Prospects Planner. All you have to do is sign on the list near the Duty Adviser’s corner; you will not normally have to wait for more than half and hour for your meeting. You can make a start with your career search at any time, but give yourself enough time to think through what you want. Explore the possibilities and perhaps use your vacations for some hands-on experience, we suggest that you do not leave it much later than the beginning of your penultimate year to at least to register and start to use our websites.
For more info see careers.ox.ac.uk
 
Cambridge Careers Service

The Cambridge Careers Service is located in Stuart House, Mill Lane (just next door to the Mill Lane lecture rooms). It opens Monday to Friday between 9.15 and 5.15 during full term and for the same hours but with a lunch break during vacations. Full details are given on our website www.careers.cam.ac.uk.
 
Contrary to popular belief, the Careers Service is not just about jobs. It’s a resource centre. We can help you to find internships and vacation work, sort out what to do in a year out after graduation, set up postgraduate study in the UK or abroad and – crucially – stop you saying, ‘I haven’t a clue what I want to do’. And of course we do advertise jobs, but they’re not all in banking, law and management consultancy. Over 3,000 organisations advertised their vacancies with us last year, which included openings for writers, political researchers, overseas aid workers, advertising executives and country house managers.
 
Developing ideas

You can come and see us at any time while you are a student here (and afterwards – the Service remains open to graduates). You don’t need to have a grand plan before seeing us. We can help you develop ideas and test them out. You can come and talk to a Careers Adviser, try psychometric and aptitude tests, and come to any of our 80 events and briefing sessions on a wide variety of occupations and careers. Find out what jobs are on offer (long term, stop-gap or vacation) by trawling our job site, Vacancies Online. Cambridge came top last year of all UK universities in graduate employability. Despite what you might think, the world of Cambridge and the world of work are not totally different: they ask for a lot of the same skills and aptitudes. The teaching system, the intellectual rigor necessary to achieve your degree (whatever your subject), and the multitude of extra-curricular activities on offer all help you to develop skills that employers want. The Careers Service can help you to recognize the skills you already have, and to match them to employers’ needs.
 
Making choices

To move on successfully from university, you don’t have to make ‘the right career choice’. When you choose your first job you aren’t choosing a career for life. Most Cambridge graduates have several different jobs in several different employment  contexts during their working lives. You will change, and you can change your work to suit. But you do need to put in some effort and the earlier you do so the better. Register on our website, www.careers.cam.ac.uk, where you can sign up for our email service, click ‘view job vacancies’, see what’s on every term and find out about organizations visiting Cambridge. Come and see us at Stuart House.
For more info see www.careers.cam.ac.uk