This blog is designed to keep you up-to-date with Careers Education, Information and Guidance (CEIAG) available locally, nationally and through the school. I’ll be posting information about employment and training opportunities available locally as well as details of open days and useful websites. The world of education, employment and training opportunities is changing rapidly so keep checking in for the latest information.

Mr Cross


Thursday 31 December 2015

Apprenticeships in Hertfordshire

Here is an update (provided by Youth Connexions) of Apprenticeships within Hertfordshire in December 2015: 

Apprenticeship vacancies:

  • 236 Employers offering 312 opportunities
  • 81% Intermediate Level
  • 19% Advanced Level
Wages: 
  • Average wage £154 per week
  • Approx. 94% paying above the National Minimum Wage (NMW)
  • Wage ranges from NMW (£3.30 per hour) up to £350 p/wk.
  • Highest paying: £350 (AA Retail Agency Department Apprentice with Collins Grice Long Ltd in Baldock)
Most Popular Sectors: 
  • Business, administration and law (38% of vacancies) 
  • Retail and commercial enterprise (28% of vacancies)

How to "ace" your next interview ...


The Government's 'Vision for Apprenticeships in 2020'

On 7th December the government published it’s Apprenticeship Vision for 2020 and how they plan to achieve the 3 million Apprenticeships over the next five years, including forcing large public sector bodies to employ apprentices – and make sure that they make up at least 2.3% of their workforce – creating an extra 200,000 apprentices by 2020.

The report promotes the “employer-led” approach and introduces a new independent “Institute for Apprenticeships”, made up of employers, business leaders and their representatives who will regulate the quality of Apprenticeships.

The report further clarifies English and Maths qualification requirements within Apprenticeships levels: “We must ensure apprentices have the literacy and numeracy skills they need for employment…That is why all apprenticeships include English and Maths at their heart, through a choice of GCSE or Functional Skills qualifications depending on what is most appropriate for the apprentice and their programme, if these are not already achieved:
  • Level 2 apprentices are required to achieve Level 1 in English and Maths to complete their apprenticeship and then must work towards Level 2;
  • All Level 3 and 4 apprentices must achieve Level 2 in English and Maths prior to taking their end-point assessment.”

Sunday 22 November 2015

Opportunities at AECOM

AECOM, worldwide provider of professional technical and management support services, is recruiting for Trainees and Apprenticeship positions from 16+ in their St. Albans office. There are lots of vacancies available, with incorporated on-the-job training as well as being assigned to a suitable College course. If you are interested an Open Evening is being held on Thursday 3rd December 2015, starting from 5.00pm. Email openevening2015.uki@aecom.com if you would like to attend.

Recovering Jobs Market

The Hays recruitment agency has said that a recovering jobs market, a UK skills shortage and an increase in business confidence, will put pressure on employers to increase salaries next year, with one in five employers expected to increase pay above 2.5%. Hays surveyed 20,000 employers and employees in the UK. The latest survey by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation found that 80% of businesses plan to hire permanent staff in the next three months, and 76% plan to increase headcount in the medium term. A shortage of contract/temporary workers is expected for technical and engineering roles (16%), construction roles (11%) and driving/distribution roles (11%). [ source: GTAssociates ]

Thursday 12 November 2015

The benefits of being "well-rounded"

The job market is becoming increasingly more competitive, especially for young people looking to get a foot in the door of their chosen career. New research by expedition experts, World Challenge, which looked at 500 UK small and medium-sized enterprises, found that young people who took part in extra-curricular activities, such as volunteering and team sports, were likely to be more successful in gaining employment. As well as making applications stand-out, extra-curricular activities also demonstrated transferable skills such as team-working.

Sunday 8 November 2015

Careers in Law

As of April 2015 there were 132,087 practising solicitors, the total number on the roll was 167,147. Women make up 48% of the profession, however only 30% of partners are women. As of April 2014 there were 15,690 barristers of whom 81% were self-employed. Women make up around 35% of all practising barristers. As of May 2015 there were around 20,000 trainee and practising legal executives, of whom 74% were women. Please note that there are many more people taking law courses than there will ever be jobs for, and the minimum annual trainee salary has been abolished, which means that law firms can (and many do) pay the minimum wage.  [ source GTAssociates ]

What employers want

A major study of graduate recruitment practices was undertaken in 2014 by the Institute of Employment Studies and the Higher Education Careers Service Unit. They undertook in depth interviews with 76 employers of varying size and 30 stakeholders, including university careers services. Most employers said they had a huge number of applicants but often struggled to find the right people, with most large companies saying “They wanted fewer but better quality applicants”. A number of employers were giving much more attention to apprenticeships and ‘growing their own staff’ and there was a “blurring of jobs occupied by graduates and non-graduates”. 

Most recruitment activity is now online, this makes it more accessible but means that employers have a much higher number to sift through. Some employers are moving recruitment earlier to the start of the final year, with a few recruiting in the first and second year. Many employers used work experience to build relationships with students in their first and second year. Some used social media to attract and keep in touch with the type of student they want. Most large employers had specific links with some universities, with targeted institutions responsible for a large proportion of the graduates they hired. Work experience was, “Of high and growing interest to employers of all sizes and nearly all believed that work experience helps graduates develop the skills they require and so leads to improved performance both in selection and at work”.

Employers want to recruit graduates because “Of their perceived intellectual/analytical abilities, their ability to learn quickly and to bring fresh ideas”. The skills they look for can be summed up as; 
  • Intellectual ability, including the ability to solve problems quickly and learn quickly. 
  • Communication and people skills. 
  • Positive work and commercial attitudes. 
  • Flexibility and resilience in the face of change and adversity.

Thursday 5 November 2015

Careers in Healthcare

A new Health Careers website was launched by Health Education England this week, bringing together the information from NHS Careers, Medical Careers and PHORCaST (public health careers) websites. It provides detailed information on more than 350 roles in health, real-life stories and videos and a comprehensive course finder which lists more than 1,000 courses leading to a career in health. The new site also allows you to save your previous searches and personalises your homepage based on your interests. There is also a compare roles tool where you, you can get bite-size information on up to three roles in health and save them to your account. Health Careers has been built following in-depth research and user testing, and created with the user experience firmly in mind. It has been designed to be compatible with all browsers and devices, including mobile phones and tablets. Visit the site here.

Wednesday 4 November 2015

British Intelligence Apprenticeship

British Intelligence Higher Apprenticeship - IT, Software, Internet and Telecomms
£17,539 pa - Cheltenham

This is a Technical Apprenticeship like no other. On top of developing unique technical skills, you'll be at the heart of British Intelligence. Working on some of the world's most sophisticated technical systems and equipment, you'll help to protect the UK against cyber threats, terrorism, espionage and organised crime. 

This exciting programme starts in September 2016 and offers a mix of classroom learning and practical experience, including a variety of research, development and project work. You'll be taking on real business challenges that will stretch and develop your expertise in areas such as cyber security, engineering, signal processing and telecoms. In the second year, you could have the chance to work in London at MI5 or MI6.

On completion, you'll have a Foundation Degree in Communications, Security and Computing (with the option to convert to a BSc at a later stage) and a Level 4 Diploma in IT Professional Competence.

To join us you'll need a strong interest in programming and technology and will either have, or will be expecting to gain three A-levels at grade C or above, or equivalent, including at least two in Science, Technology, Engineering or Maths related subjects. 

To find out more and apply, visit www.mi5.gov.uk/careers

Friday 30 October 2015

"Earn or Learn" task-force announced

The Paymaster General, Matt Hancock MP, who chairs the Government's 'Earn or Learn Task-force', has said he wants to create a 'no excuses' culture. The Government is to require young unemployed people to attend three weeks of 'boot camp' at job-centres, teaching them vital job application skills, or forfeit their benefits. As of April 2017, under 21s will lose all benefits if they are unemployed for more than six months and fail to undertake an apprenticeship, training or community work placement. The classes will take place within the first three months of their claiming job-seekers' allowance. Read more about the Government's plans here.

Unusual Apprenticeships

The Daily Telegraph has compiled a list of "unusual" Apprenticeships. They range from training to be a crime scene photographer to becoming a fashion and textiles technician. Read more about them here.

Support for Work Experience

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has called for the government to bring back compulsory work experience for under 16s, saying that 82% of more than 3,000 bosses they polled supported the move. The coalition government scrapped compulsory work experience in England in 2012. BCC director, John Longworth, said scrapping compulsory work experience had been "careless... but it is not too late to correct the mistake". The survey found that 79% of employers agreed with the statement that ‘Work experience is vital for equipping young people with the skills they need’, whilst 55% valued volunteering and 69% said paid part-time work was key. However, 36% of employers admitted that their own firms offered no work experience. Large employers were most likely to offer placements, with 88% of firms with more than 250 employees offering placements. However, in employers with less than 10 employees 59% offered no work placements. 
[ source GTAssociates ]

Wednesday 14 October 2015

Morrisby Career Profiling

The Vocare company is offering to run the Morrisby Profile in school for students in Years 10 to 12. This is a series of tests lasting approximately three hours which the Morrisby organisation uses to generate a profile of an individual’s interests, abilities and aptitudes relevant to the world of work. You can try some practice profile questions here.
If there is sufficient interest, Vocare would run the tests in school on the morning of 18th April 2016 which is the INSET day after the Easter holiday. If only a few Beaumont students wish to take the test, Vocare may offer them the opportunity to complete the profiling at another local school. This letter and pamphlet from Vocare provide additional information about the Morrisby Profile. If you wish your child to undertake the profiling, please return the slip to me at school as an expression of interest. No payment is required at this time but should the process proceed, payments can be made through the school's electronic payments system or by cheque.
The school has hosted Morrisby Profiling in previous years and students and their parents have valued the outcomes but please note that Vocare is a private company and not part of Beaumont School. Several organisations offer free, on-line, basic skills profiling tests, some of which can be accessed through this blog …

Monday 12 October 2015

Apprentices set to out earn some Graduates

The Boston Consulting Group has modelled the earnings potential for Apprentices and concluded that school-leavers who take the best apprenticeships should earn about £1.4m over their working life, which is £51,870 more than the projected earnings of a graduate from a non-Russell Group University. The modelling estimated that Oxbridge graduates would earn almost £1.8m over their lifetimes, and graduates from other Russell Group universities £1.6m. The next group was Higher-Level Apprentices who take a level 5 qualification equivalent to a foundation degree, who were slightly ahead of graduates of non-Russell Group universities. These graduates were only fractionally ahead of higher-level Apprentices with a Level 4 qualification, who were projected to earn £8,160 less over their working lives.

Advanced Apprentices with level 3 qualifications had much lower projected earning power, estimated at just over £1m, but were forecast to earn more than those who just had A levels. When the forecasts were expressed as average annual sum, rather than lifetime earnings, graduates did better than the best Apprentices. However, apprentices typically start earning three years earlier than university students.

Wednesday 30 September 2015

Planning to be a Doctor?


... Then you must take a visit to The Medic Portal. It really is a "one stop shop" for all the information you need. For those of you writing your UCAS Personal Statements, try these three links:


Will there be an exodus of Junior Doctors?

The government's decision to impose a new contract on junior doctors has led to a massive increase in the number registering to work abroad. Doctors who want to work abroad need to obtain the Certificate of Current Professional Status (CCPS) from the General Medical Council (GMC). Last year the GMC received 4,925, but in just 3 days following the announcement of the new contract, the GMC received 1,644 requests. A Department of Health official accused the BMA of “prompting” the increase in applications. They said, “We suspect this sudden spike in CCPS applications is prompted by the doctors’ trade union which is deliberately misrepresenting our contract proposals”. The figures relate to all doctors and not just juniors and the GMC does not break down the figures by level of experience. The most popular destinations to emigrate to are Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The devolved governments in Wales and Scotland are not adopting the new medical contract.

The "Graduate Premium"

A study, by researchers from Cambridge and Harvard universities and the Institute for Fiscal Studies has looked at earnings from tax records, student loan repayments and labour force survey returns for 260,000 people across a ten-year period from 1998 to find out the "graduate premium". They concluded that graduates earned £10k-14k more in their early careers than people of a similar age who did not go to university. Male graduates earned on average £29,500 a year after working for 14 years compared with £17,000 for men who did not go to university. For women, average salaries were £21,600 for graduates and £11,000 for non-graduates. The study looked at all non-graduate salaries, which included large numbers of adults on very low pay.  [source GTAssociates]

Universities ranked by graduate employment prospects

The Sunday Times newspaper has looked at the employment prospects for various courses and universities. Bear in mind that a 100% employment rate is unlikely as, in 2015, there were around 200,000 graduate level jobs, but 375,000 new graduates as well as job hunters from previous years. That being said, the paper produced various charts using the criteria of the percentage of students in further study or a ‘graduate level’ job.

COURSE (best)
%
1
Medicine
99.30%
2
Dentistry
98.90%
3
Nursing
96.30%
4
Radiography
95.20%
5
Veterinary Medicine
95.10%
6
Physiotherapy
92.40%
7
Pharmacology & Pharmacy
91.30%
8
Land & Property Management
82.60%
9
Building
92.20%
10
Civil Engineering
91.90%
COURSE (worst)
%
1
Animal Science
38.90%
2
Creative Writing
45.40%
3
Sociology
48.30%
4
Hospitality & Leisure
48.70%
5
Social Policy
51.10%
6
Drama, Dance & Cinematics
51.50%
7
Communication & Media Studies
52.30%
8
East & South Asian Studies
53.90%
9
Psychology
54.90%
10
Anthropology
55.00%


INSTITUTION (best)
%
1
St George’s, Uni. of London
93.40%
2
Imperial College
91.10%
3
Cambridge
89.30%
4
Oxford
87.10%
5
Birmingham
86.70%
6
Kings College
85.70%
7
Bath
85.20%
8
Durham
84.40%
9
Sussex
84.10%
10
Loughborough
83.70%
INSTITUTION (worst)
%
1
University of East London
45.60%
2
London Met
47.70%
3
University for the Creative Arts
52.00%
4
Liverpool Hope University
53.90%
5
Southampton Solent
54.60%
5
Newman University
54.60%
7
Westminster
55.10%
7
Bath Spa
55.10%
9
Gloucestershire
55.70%
10=
Goldsmiths
56.00%
10=
Uni. of Highlands & Islands
56.00%


Wednesday 16 September 2015

More Builders needed

A survey by the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) has found that 66% of its members have had to turn down work because they do not have enough skilled tradesmen, while almost half have been forced to outsource work. David Ritchie, chief executive of Bovis Homes, said the skills deficit was pushing up the price of hiring tradesmen, while Jeff Fairburn of Persimmon said rapid growth in the industry had caused a “squeeze in terms of resources”.

Employers say that young people are being put off construction work because they believe the industry is low paid, however, according to the FMB, a 23-year-old bricklayer with five years experience can earn £31k, whilst in London,  a similarly qualified brickie could be paid up to £52,000, making the trade an attractive option for many.

The cost of going to Uni

Students' annual living costs (outside London)

Rent £4,989

Food £1,954

Household goods £363

Insurance £42

Personal Items £1,917

Travel £1,705

Leisure£1,190

Total: £12,160

[ Source: National Union of Students ]

Universities in England are allowed to charge up to £9k a year in tuition fees, with repayments to begin once students graduate and earn more than £21,000 a year. To cover living costs, students can borrow up to £5,555 outside London and £7,751 for students in London. In Scotland there are no fees for Scottish students, whilst in Wales the annual fee cap for Welsh students is £3,810. In Northern Ireland, fees for home students are capped at £3,805.

Most Students are also in paid jobs

A survey by the National Union of Students of 4,642 university students has found that 77% are in paid employment, up from 59% last year. The average student earned £412 a month, with women earning 36% less than men. Most said they worked part-time, but 14% said they held down full-time jobs during term-time, holidays or both; 56% said they worked because they had under-estimated the expense of university, especially the cost of accommodation, whilst 87% said developing additional skills and enhancing their CV were important reasons for working whilst studying. The survey also found that 53% said they depended on their parents to help them through university, and 74% said they relied on a student loan as a main source of income, up from 67% last year and 60% in 2013.

The Graduate Gender Gap

Female graduates are more likely to find jobs after leaving university but men who find work earn higher starting salaries. Official figures show that 75% of women who graduated last summer had found work within six months of leaving university, compared to 71% of men; 8% of male graduates said they were unemployed, compared to 6% of women. However, men on average had a starting salary of £21,000, compared with £20,000 for women  In addition, 10% of men had a starting salary of £30k-£40k compared to 5% of women. The figures were based on responses from 424,000 students, and matches other research on the persistent pay gap between men and women.  [ Source: GTAssociates ]

Wednesday 19 August 2015

Thinking about a "Plan B"?


If your GCSE or AS results were not what you expected and you need to re-think your options, DON'T PANIC, help is at hand! There are lots of things you can do.  Start by reading this ...

  • Talk to someone at school.  Senior Staff will be available in school on Results Day and you can book an appointment to speak to someone to get advice about what you can do next.
  • Talk to a Youth Connexions Personal Adviser. Our Beaumont PA, Claire Blanchard will be in school from the start of term and you can also contact her through the St Albans Youth Connexions website.
  • On GCSE Results Day, Thursday 20th August, Simon Stothard from Youth Connexions will be available to talk to in school. He can work with you on a late application to College or help you with other pathways such as entering employment or an Apprenticeship. 
  • Visit the Youth Connexions "one stop shop" in Catherine Street. You can find out the details here. It will be open on Results Day.
  • Think about an Apprenticeship.  You can find all the information you need at Apprenticeships.org. You simply fill in your details  -  like a mini CV  -  and then you can search the opportunities available and applying is easy as your information is stored.
  • Think about applying to Oaklands College. They have Open Days this month for late applications. You can find the details here as well as on the Oaklands website. 
Check out ChannelMogo for general information and advice.
Use the 'search' tool on this blog to explore further options.

Keep calm and talk to someone to get the impartial advice and guidance you need ... Good luck!