Choosing Options after Year 11
Finding Work and Developing your Employability Skills
Work Experience is a great way of learning and improving your Employability Skills in a practical setting. It may also lead to a real life job or further volunteering opportunites in the future.
How to find Work Experience
A work experience placement not only enhances your knowledge and helps you on your course, it gives you a great insight into a job or industry.
Other useful sites to help with Work Experience
The table below shows how many hours you can work each week in a part-time job and the times you can start and finish.
Permitted hours of work | |||||
| Daily limit (hours) | Daily limit (hours) | Daily limit (hours) | Weekly limit (hours) | Weekly limit (hours) |
| School day | Saturdays and school holidays | Sunday (school terms or holidays) | During term time | During school holidays |
Children under 15 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 12 per week | 25 per week |
Children 15 and over | 2 | 8 | 2 | 12 per week | 35 per week |
Earliest start time | 7:00am | 7:00am | 7:00am | 7:00am | 7:00am |
Latest finish time | 19:00pm | 19:00pm | 19:00pm | 19:00pm | 19:00pm |
Employability skills are the transferable skills needed to make you ‘employable’.
Employability depends on your knowledge, skills, attributes and attitudes, how you use these and present them to employers.
The following have been defined by the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) as employability skills that employers are looking for, in addition to a high level of academic achievement:
- Self-management
- Teamwork
- Business and customer awareness
- Problem solving
- Communication and literacy
- Application of number
- Application of digital technologies
There is an additional “unwritten skill” that you need to be able to demonstrate the skill of presenting and promoting yourself well in interview.
Whether you are looking for part-time, full-time or casual work, you will need to contact employers yourself.
You should:
- Look at the vacancies notice board in schools, colleges, academies or careers centres.
- Look in local shop windows.
- Make copies of your CV to give to local businesses.
- Read local newspapers and magazines.
- Look at websites of companies that you would like to work for to see if they have any vacancies.
- Use your personal network - family, friends, neighbours, etc.
- Write to companies that you would like to work for asking if they have any opportunities available.
Do some research - find out as much as you can about:
- what the company does;
- what the employer wants;
- and what the job involves
Searching for a job isn’t easy and you will need to be:
- Positive
- Realistic
- Organised
- Persistent
Then work out how much your interests, abilities, experiences and achievements match this job.
Finding out about the types of jobs that people do, where these jobs are located and how many people are employed in different types of jobs is called Labour Market Information (LMI)
If you want any help with applying for jobs, contact your Connexions or YSS Adviser who will be able to help.
Remember when emailing or phoning:
- Always end your email or phone call on a friendly and positive note
- Do not use text speech
- Always use a professional email address
- Always thank people for their time
