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!
Read our detailed analysis of student feedback on work experience here – “One of the best weeks of my life”
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
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.
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
