Life beyond Southampton – graduate job hunting tips

Final Year students will know that it’s not only university work that fills their thoughts, but also the prospect of job hunting and preparing for interviews.

I, of course, was one of those students this year and after a lengthy application process I am pleased to say that I have managed to secure myself a graduate role! It’s a three year training post working with a hospital’s Medical Physics department, which will result in (another) Masters qualification at the end. It is a great feeling to have found something in my favourite field and it means I have been able to fully focus on this exam season.

However, although the applications occur in your final year, the job hunting process starts much earlier than that. Throughout your University degree you will undoubtedly be introduced to a wide range of different career choices, whether that be through modules taken, careers fairs attended, chance emails received or the University’s excellent Career Destinations portal.

I first discovered my graduate role during a Medical Physics lecture in Second Year, but it wasn’t until I received an email about a series of Open Days for the programme that I began to research the position. I took the opportunity to attend one of the Open Days (even though it was in Wales!) and asked as many questions as I could, which really helped me to conclude that this programme was definitely for me.

Career’s Fairs are not just great for advice and ideas – they’re a great place to bag yourself some goodies too! 

However, even after I found a profession that I was interested in, I still made sure I kept my eyes open to other potential opportunities.

One of things I actively did was to attend all of the careers talks hosted by the University’s Physics Society, which included presentations about teaching, engineering and radiation detection roles amongst others. Alongside this I always tried to attend the many Careers Fairs that take place on campus, as well as scouring through the many online resources the University has, aware that the more exposure I receive to the world of employment, the better my chances would be of securing a job come my Final Year.

Once I had found several different ideas (including medical physics, journalism, teaching and radiation protection) I then went about trying to get experience in the relevant fields. This included securing a medical physics work experience placement last summer, where I worked at Royal Berkshire Hospital for two weeks within the various Medical Physics departments, in addition to attending even more talks and trips and of course securing this blogging role!

My advice is that there’s no such thing as bad experience, so grab every opportunity you can! 

My work experience at the Royal Berkshire Hospital proved invaluable! 

I believe that work experience is invaluable, as not only is it great for the CV, but it lets you find out if it really is the career you want. It can sometimes take a while to find somewhere willing to take you on, but if you keep persevering and stay motivated, you will find that there are plenty of people and businesses who are more than happy to help you!

My final piece of advice is how to go about applying for jobs. I always make a personalised CV for each job, only putting down the most relevant experience, as employers aren’t going to spend the time searching through pages of information for your one key bullet point! The same goes for covering letters – keep it simple and concise and emphasise your most impressive points.

However, the most important points to remember when applying for jobs are to make sure you utilise the University’s many resources to the maximum and to maintain a positive attitude throughout!

Happy job hunting!

James