A mixture of lectures from well known faces, focused workshops, and their new purpose-built location behind the library, will lead to a successful Enterprise and Employability Week, the Opportunities@Lincoln team hope.
Best selling author Bill Faust (“Pitch Yourself – Most effective CV you’ll ever write”) will be sharing his knowledge on Monday, November 16th at 2pm in the EMMTEC. He offers great advice on how to stand out from the crowd and get your CV noticed.
Enterprise Rent A Car, winner of numerous employer awards, such as “Target Job national graduate recruiter of the year 2008”, will be running a workshop on Monday at 11am in the Enterprise building. This offers a chance for students to get direct advice from a prolific employer.
Alongside this, University of Lincoln journalism graduate Gina Davies will be launching her new free society, Deviate on Thursday at 6pm at Varsity on Guildhall Street, in the city centre.
Dragon slayer Sharon Wright, who appeared on the BBC show Dragon’s Den, will be headlining the launch. She was described as the first person to “make all five of the Dragons’ jaws drop”, according to Theo Prathitis from the programme, before she secured an £80,000 investment in her business.
Davies has been employed by the university to bridge the gap between students and the professional advice available at the careers centre. The society will offer a casual environment for students to develop their career prospects, helping with internships and work experience among many other things.
The society is promoting young entrepreneurship, and students will get a chance to enter a competition to win £50 of high street vouchers with those with the best business ideas being shortlisted. The entries will then by narrowed down in an “X-Factor”-style show with the best idea being put forward to represent the university in a national Dragons’ Den style contest in May.
Mandy Jones, the head of Opportunities@Lincoln, has praised their new location for helping them improve the service they offer. “In the Internet age everything seems so distant so it is nice to have more of a physical presence at university to encourage people to come and see us,” Jones said.
Mark Stow, a “student opportunities manager”, also feels that the new building has helped the team draw in better speakers and has boosted students’ interest. “The building is more welcoming and accessible than the old office, and the one-to-one drop-in sessions we run have been better attended already,” Stow said.
The timetable for the week, which starts Monday 16th, is available at www.ulcareers.co.uk. Some workshops need booking in advance, but this can be done online. The Opportunities@Lincoln team feel everyone will find there is something useful on the agenda and some of the events offer food and drink.