Surviving and Thriving Post-Graduation: WBS Careers Support is Here for You

17 May 2023

Careers Manager, Konstantina Dee, shares top tips on navigating your next step post-graduation and how the Careers team is here to support you. 

Completing your degree is a huge accomplishment and a major life milestone. You could expect to feel excited and relieved, hopeful and optimistic, but at the same time overwhelmed and anxious about your next steps. Whether you have found your first graduate job or are still looking for it, the post-graduation period can put many demands on you.

So here are our top tips on how to make the most of this challenging time.

Reflection

It’s especially important to treat the period ahead as one of transition and remember it will not last forever. You are opening the next chapter of your life. But before taking this step, it is important to pause and reflect on your experiences as a student. What were the things you enjoyed and excelled in? What are your strengths? What are the areas you can improve on? Take time to re-visit the Your Career Management course

Transferable skills

Once you have identified your areas for improvement, focus on building your skills and gaining additional experience. 

There are plenty of opportunities to volunteer or to take part-time jobs. Any of these can help you build confidence in working with people, organising your time, taking initiative and more. Managing your career shows self-discipline, creativity and problem-solving – skills highly valued by employers.

Timing

It may take time to figure out what you want to do next or to get a graduate job. Be patient and realistic about it. As the old French saying goes “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. Check out current job vacancies on the WBS Vacancy Platform.

Expectations

Manage your expectations and acknowledge that there will be challenges and uncertainties in the current job market. Be prepared to face some rejections, but don’t dwell on them too much. Seek feedback and plan what you can do better next time. Try not to compare yourself to others. Focus on your career plan and where you want to be.

Optimism

Be optimistic and keep going. Celebrate every achievement on the way.  

Flexibility

Remain flexible and open to new opportunities. Some sectors might too be niche and with barriers to fresh graduates at the moment. However, there are opportunities in others where you can use your transferable skills and gain experience. Reach out to your contacts and inform people you are looking for jobs. Engage with our sector-specific, regional and global alumni networks to see what other graduates from your course have gone on to do and find out about relevant events and opportunities.  

Support

The transition period, as already mentioned, can be challenging and overwhelming. You don’t need to go through this alone. Seek support from family and friends. Reach out to us.

The CareersPlus team are here to support you over the summer and beyond. Find out how: 

Extra Career Support this summer

  • Email guidance via ugcareers@wbs.ac.uk
  • One-to-one online/ video Career Coaching appointment arranged via email to UG Careers
  • Comprehensive online careers resources from CareersPlus 
  • A series of events advertised on my.WBS

UG Careers Bootcamp

Looking for a chance to work with some of the UK’s top student and graduate employers? Do you want to improve your chances of being successful in graduate opportunities? Do you want to get ahead of the competition and learn the key skills needed for every stage of the recruitment process?

Join us at the WBS CareersPlus UG Bootcamp at The Shard on Monday 25th September where you will be offered a visit to a company’s London offices for a deep-dive into what working for them could look like, followed by a networking lunch and case study exercises at our Shard base. Apply here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wbs/central/corporate-relations/careerbootcamp 

Alumni Careers Support Beyond the Summer 

As a WBS graduate, you will have access to a range of alumni careers services, including access to the WBS Alumni Careers homepage, hosting a variety of free resources for you. You will be able to book one free careers consultation and you will have access to our e-guidance service. Please look out for an email from the Alumni Careers in September for more details about these.

We look forward to working with you.