Case Study - Suzanne Maskrey

Age: 23

Degree course and graduation year: BA Psychology (Hons) 2003.

Where did you do your placement?

Careers Advisory Service, University of Exeter. I did an eight-week STEP Placement as a Research Assistant and a five-month Graduate Business Partnership (GBP) placement as Employability Support.

What made you decide to do a placement in the first place?

I received an email about vacation work experience and was inspired to apply as my existing vacation work wasn’t providing me with any useful experience.

How did you go about finding and securing your placement?

• STEP: a list of vacancies were posted on the university’s Business Projects website and I was interviewed for the position.
• GBP: I was asked to return to the Careers Advisory Service after graduation and did not have an interview for that position.

Did you feel that you performed better in interviews for graduate jobs after having some experience?

The interview experience was not as valuable as the advice and guidance of my line manager. She (and careers advisers in the service) gave me useful pointers to improve my interview technique.

What did the placement involve?

• STEP: researching, collating data and writing up a 15,000-word report on Entrepreneurship support at universities nationwide.
• GBP: completing a number of stand-alone employability projects to cover the maternity leave of my line manager. These included web design, team development tutoring and data analysis.

Do you feel you had enough tasks to complete and responsibility in your role?

Most definitely – regarding the STEP placement, I could not have completed the project in the time set had I not pushed myself so hard.

What did the work experience make you feel about your career choices?

It highlighted my strengths in research, analysis and report-writing.

What did you find the differences were between being a student and working?

I preferred to work at the Careers Advisory Service (in terms of workload and productivity) as I achieved a great amount in a small length of time. I was extremely proud of my achievement. It was also really good to leave work behind at the end of the day!

Was the placement enjoyable?

Both placements were enjoyable, but STEP was the best as I had never completed a project of that size before and I really enjoyed getting my teeth in to it.

Were there any problems during the placement, and if so how did you overcome them?

At the start of the STEP placement I was a little reticent and found it difficult to push myself to make numerous phone calls to other universities and organisations. It paid off, as I now have a very confident manner when dealing with other people.

What kind of skills did you develop (either through official training or just generally) and do you find that these skills have been useful to you in working like after university?

I developed so many skills during the two placements! The main skills include: MS Project, MS FrontPage, Team Development Training, report-writing, analysis of large sets of data, literature searches, confidence, time management, deadline meeting and web design.

Do you feel that your work experience was valuable?

I feel that my work experience (not just STEP and GBP) has been as great in its contribution to my success, as my degree has. I am a strong believer that in order to succeed you must make yourself stand out from the crowd, and work experience is an excellent way of doing that.

How has your work benefited the company, i.e. what kind of projects did you carry out and what kind of a contribution did they make to the company?

My Entrepreneurship report was useful for the University of Exeter to assess its standing against other universities nationwide in terms of support for entrepreneurial students. The smaller projects I completed as part of the GBP placement contributed more directly to the employability section of the university.

Did you obtain you graduate job as a direct result of the work experience you carried out, i.e. did the company you were working for offer you full time employment or allow you onto their graduate scheme automatically after you final year at university?

Yes, they have asked me to return for two projects so far.