Why get work experience?
Whilst getting a degree is key to accessing graduate opportunities, gaining work experience alongside your academic studies is equally important with 74% of employers agreeing that graduates with internships and placements arrive in the workplace with better skills and attitudes than those that do not (Institute of Student Employers Recruitment Survey 2024).
But securing work experience whilst at university can be a real challenge. Here we outline the different types of work experience you can consider, not only to build your skills and add to your CV, but also to develop your career ideas and professional network.
Types of work experience – Insight days, placements and internships
Large companies offer Insight Days and Spring Weeks usually aimed at first years, particularly in the Banking, Finance, Technology, Law and Consultancy sectors to help you gain a taste of the sector and learn more about the graduate opportunities in their company.
This Trackr resource is useful for identifying these opportunities along with important deadlines.
Mainly second year students can apply for advertised Placements, which are one year (usually paid) work experiences within a chosen industry, completed in the third year, with students returning to complete their final year of study.
At Surrey, placements have shown to significantly build student confidence with an impressive 48% of students offered a graduate job by their placement provider. Find out more about professional placements here.
Graduate placements are also sometimes advertised so do read entry criteria carefully.
Internships are shorter formal work experiences about 1-3 months in length and usually available to penultimate students. Some advertised internships are offered as solely virtual opportunities so do check what type is being offered. And plan ahead as summer internships can be advertised from the Autumn onwards as larger companies open applications up to 9 months in advance.
Competition for these formal opportunities is fierce but please don’t let that put you off. Help is at hand from the Employability and Careers team and do set up alerts for advertised opportunities on Surrey Pathfinder.
Informal and unadvertised work experience
Alongside applying for formal work experience, you can also be pro-active at creating your own work experiences by asking employers and your own contacts directly through networking (using LinkedIn and SurreyConnects) and speculative approaches. These opportunities can be useful when there are limited advertised formal work experiences in a particular field or when approaching smaller organisations.
You could ask to shadow a professional for a few days or contact a local company of interest to ask if you can arrange a few weeks of work experience. You never know where this approach might take you as some students have been able to secure an internship or placements using these methods. Although it may seem a bit daunting a first, do remember our friendly Careers Consultant team can support you with this!
Part-time work and summer jobs
We sometimes come across students who don’t include part-time or summer work on their CV, but we know that graduate employers really do value all work experience. Retail and hospitality experience, for example, are a great way to demonstrate a strong work ethic, teamwork, sales and marketing skills, customer service, leadership and commercial awareness.
And please don’t forget to include any experience gained in a family run business, your own side hustle, tutoring or campus opportunities such as working as a student ambassador.
Virtual job simulations and virtual sector insight experiences
Virtual job simulation platforms developed during Covid when it was not possible for students to go into an actual workplace. Whilst not a real work experience, platforms like the Forage are great at giving you an insight into working for a particular graduate employer or in a specific sector, particularly if you haven’t been able to gain formal work experience in your field of interest yet.
Bright Network is also running its annual 4-day virtual internship experience this July which is an insight event focused on entry-level candidates who have little to no professional work experience. This year is open to all first, second and penultimate year undergraduate students in the UK or those starting a master’s degree in autumn 2025.
- Business, Marketing, Operations
- Commercial Law
- Finance, Professional Services & Consultant
- Technology and Engineering
with the applications open until 14th July 2025.
Volunteering and extra-curricular activities
All volunteering is a great way to develop employability skills and build up experience particularly for working in the mental health, sustainability, health and social care and the charity sectors. You can also seek out roles where you can develop your skills related to your future goals such as marketing, finance or event management for a small charity or positions of responsibility in student societies.
So, if this has given you some ideas to try out, take a look at our resources below or consider booking an appointment with a Careers Consultant via Surrey Pathfinder.
Finally, remember you can impress employers further by recording your work experiences and extra-curricular activities through the Professional Skills Award
