Benefits of Work Experience

Why is Work Experience So Important?

  • Work Experience can be great fun, rewarding, challenging and exciting!
  • Learning transferable workplace skills makes you more employable.
  • Gaining experience of different types of employment can help you broaden your experience of the world; it helps see things from another person’s perspective. Many students are surprised how exhausting a working day can be compared to being a full-time student, for example.
  • Work Experience is an excellent addition to your CV. Even the highest grades and most impressive extra-curricular activities can sometimes not be enough when employers are looking for the right person to employ – showing transferable work place skills can be really important.
  • Work Experience is a great way to illustrate your personal qualities at interview or in a letter to an employer / university: “When I worked abroad…” is a powerful opener to a paragraph!

What skills might I develop?

  • Communication
  • Creativity
  • Dealing with customers
  • Independence
  • Industry specific skills
  • Problem Solving
  • Use of technology
  • Time Management
  • Working in a team
Free Classroom Resources

You may be interested in some of our presentations and posters on the benefits of work experience that you can find on our classroom resources page.

Classroom Resources

A survey of UK business leaders in 2017 found that 93% of  them want compulsory work experience reinstated in schools, five years after the coalition government scrapped it.

In addition, more than two-thirds (68%) agreed work experience helped prepare young people for the world of work, and more than half (57%) stated it helps instil a strong work ethic.

Asked about the main problem they encountered when hiring young people, more than one in three of these business decision makers (39%) said most applying for jobs have little or no experience in the workplace.

Source: Jonathan Owens TES November 2017