Hi! I’m Abby and I’m a 2nd year English student currently doing my work placement with Careers & Student Opportunities.

Manage Your Future is an interesting resource to use with lots of useful articles, interactive programs and videos to use all relating to common practices within careers. This can relate to: CV’s and cover letters, mock interviews and assessment centres, ways to develop your skills and information about self-employment and starting your own business. It is an extremely useful resource for all students, regardless of what degree you are currently pursuing.

It is a good way of getting some information about an area you would like to improve on or learn more about. For example, I used the cover letter builder as a way to learn what you need to include. This formed the basis of my cover letter for my appendices for one of my modules. The resource gave me the information that I needed about what I needed to include and was clear and concise. Therefore, I gained the information that I needed quickly and effectively.

Videos

It also includes videos from external employers. This is a way of having a clearer idea of what external employers are looking for. It was interesting to listen to the videos in order to gain a better understanding of what the employers that are working in a range of fields look for in elements of recruitment such as CV’s and interviews.

Self Development

Another interesting section is the self development area. This would be good for those students who are not quite sure what they want to go into. In addition, it would be good for those who are not quite sure what sorts of relevant skills they possess. The section ‘Develop a Plan’ is good for thinking out what you want to achieve and therefore it stresses the importance of making goals. It also seems to relate to the range of different things that you need to think about such as values, interests and what you want to develop. It also says about how you can use the plan you put together for putting together or developing your CV. A lot of the elements of Manage Your Future link well together as well as working well individually. This helps to make it easier to understand what you will need to in order to move forward with the goals you have set.

Mock Interviews

Another interesting element is the mock interview section. This is a good tool to use when you have an upcoming interview to prepare for. It is useful for seeing some of the most used questions and practicing what your answers to them would be. This can help to make sure you are properly prepared for the actual interview. It is also a good way of moving past the simple questions, such as strengths and weaknesses. This can help to move onto more complex questions such as competency based ones where you have to back up your point with evidence.

Career Assessments

This section is good for identifying areas where you need to improve in. This can help to improve not only during your time at university, but also when you are at work. This includes information about personal resilience. This gives information about coping with work related stress and how to manage your workload effectively. It also gives you a quiz to assess your personal resilience. It also gives you advice after the quiz about how you can improve your general level of resilience. This can help you to not become consumed by the amount of work you have to do. It could also be a useful resource to use during your degree, in order to determine how your level of stress is affecting your work.

The Career Award

Manage Your Future is also the place to look for the Career Award. It’s so simple to get started, and the flexible task lists mean you can make it work around your schedule. The Awards all use elements of the Manage Your Future resources to help you build skills and experiences to prepare you for life after university.

Abby McMurdo is a 2nd year English Literature student.