School of Social, Historical and Literary Studies

Work experience: Building your skills and experience

A good degree is a great start, but it is rarely enough, whatever job role interests you. It is important to get relevant work experience and build the skills employers look for while you are studying your degree. This will increase the likelihood of you finding a good job after you graduate. It will also help you get into postgraduate study, as many courses expect relevant experience too.

Look at these examples below:

Sarah studied a degree in English Literature. During her course she became interested in a career in marketing, but having researched the job she was concerned that she didn’t have relevant experience.

She started volunteering in the marketing team at a local theatre, becoming involved in promotion campaigns and also market research. Her experience also helped her develop good administrative experience. She really enjoyed this experience and it confirmed to her that marketing and events management were the careers that interested her most.

In her final year she successfully found a job in a local company as a marketing and events assistant. The employer provided feedback that it was her experience that helped her get the job ahead of business and marketing students.

David studied Criminology and Criminal Justice. He knew he wanted a job working directly with offenders, having studied the Community Justice Unit. Having researched a range of related jobs in probation, drug and addiction services and housing he realised he needed to get experience working with clients with these types of barriers.

He got voluntary work in a mentoring role with a local charity working on projects with young offenders. This built his confidence and experience and in his final year he was able to find casual paid work as a support worker in a bail hostel. He successfully gained employment working as a project officer with a drugs charity when he graduated.

The best advice is not to wait until you have decided your career plans before getting experience. Use your time on your course to build your experience gradually. Even if you have only very vague job ideas getting experience will help you:

• Develop skills relevant in a wide range of areas
• Build your confidence in what you can do outside of your degree
• Find out more about possible job roles and test ideas

What can you do?

There is a lot of terminology used around work experience which can be confusing:

• Internships: there is no real definition of these, and internships can take many different forms. They may be paid or unpaid, full-time or part-time, undertaken by students or graduates but they will normally involve reasonably long-term experience and the intern will normally be undertaking a real task, not just shadowing.
• Work experience: this term is used as a catch-all for all sorts of opportunities, but will often be used for shorter periods of experience.
• Placements: these tend to be more formal structured opportunities with organisations. Placements may be year-long or vacation placements. Vacation placements are usually aimed at level 2 students.
• Work shadowing: this involves ‘shadowing’ or observing the work in a particular organisation or career role and could last from a day to a couple of weeks.
• Volunteering: this will normally take place in the third or charitable sector and can be undertaken full time, part-time or on a casual basis. Volunteering can involve a range of different activities and responsibilities. It can provide an excellent route to gaining experience and testing out ideas.

Getting experience while you are studying your degree in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

The University of Portsmouth and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences is committed to helping you develop the skills and experience you need while you are studying with us.

Faculty/School Opportunities

Through your Faculty and Programme area you will also be able to access some great work experience and internship opportunities. These will be publicised to you by your tutors. These can be undertaken as part of your degree course, or as an extra-curricular activity. 

Purple Door Careers and Recruitment Opportunities

Purple Door Careers and Recruitment is the part of the University set up to help students and graduates with all areas of career planning and jobsearch. They have links to a wide range of charities and organisations offering high level volunteering opportunities that can be undertaken while you study. Opportunities are in a wide range of areas from media and marketing, to finance and admin, to care and education roles. There are also many opportunities involving working with young people and offenders. Look at www.port.ac.uk/careers for information on Purple Door Careers and Recruitment and how they can help.

University of Portsmouth Students’ Union (UPSU)

Through the Students’ Union you can get involved in a wide range of student activities and volunteering. You could get involved with the student newspaper (Pugwash) or radio station (Pure FM) to build great media experience, become a course representative, or join one of the many student societies and clubs and get involved in their organising committees. Look at www.upsu.net/activities for information on the opportunities available.

Accrediting your work experience/volunteering

The experience you gain will be invaluable, but it may also be possible for you to gain accreditation for the experience you undertake.

Gaining academic credit for your experience

Level 2 Learning through Experience (LiFE) Unit: if you choose this unit you will be able to gain academic credit related to your work experience. This will create space within your timetable to undertake your experience. You will be required to undertake academic assignments within the LiFE unit to set objectives for your experience, keep a journal during the experience, and produce a reflective summary after your experience.

Choosing a work-related learning unit on your course: Some programme areas provide optional or core units which include a work placement, for example, journalism offers core level 3 work-related learning units in a digital journalism or PR, and History offers a level 3 Heritage Unit, which involves a placement. Students undertaking the Year Abroad in SLAS are able to undertake a work placement as an alternative to a university placement during their time abroad. Research your programme area to identify if similar opportunities are available.

Volunteering Accreditation

Through the University of Portsmouth it is possible to gain a nationally recognised volunteering award through an external organisation. This is organised by Purple Door Careers and Recruitment.

Should I get paid?

The rules around payment of work experience are very complicated. Recently there has been a real growth in unpaid work experience/internship opportunities, many of which have been full time for a considerable period of time. The Government is currently looking closely at this type of opportunity to make sure it is not breaking National Minimum Wage rules. There are exceptions to these rules, for example some organisations are exempt (e.g. charities and statutory bodies) as is experience that is gained as a compulsory part of a course, but in other areas of work experience the National Minimum Wage rules may well apply.