Careers Advice
Careers provides a range of facilities designed to help students make educated and informed decisions about their future after graduation. Career options can be explored in detail with full-time advisors who are available for consultation throughout the year. The Careers Centre supplies advice and detailed information about jobs and employers, advanced study, professional training, self employment and voluntary work, it the UK and overseas.
For most students, the final months can be extremely hectic and the Careers Centre, as a matter of policy, encourages postgraduates to register in their penultimate year, where appropriate, in order to ease as far as possible the amount of time spent later on careers research.
All postgraduates are, however, welcome to use the available facilities at any time, e.g. to attend information sessions and workshops, to investigate the vacation opportunities that exist during the summer for short visits to employers, including the graduate schools run by the major research councils, and most of all perhaps, to consult in the two reference libraries the extensive collection of literature on employment and training in many fields.
In addition, Careers contains a wealth of information and advice, together with searchable vacancy databases and useful links.
The Centre also operates a Part-time work to assist students seeking part-time or casual employment during their study.
Graduate Employment
Graduates of the University of St Andrews have a very good employment record and this is reflected in national university league tables. Currently, around half of all graduate vacancies are open to those of any discipline, ie the employer is not necessarily concerned with the subject of study, but more with the additional qualities a graduate possesses.
All employers now seek other competencies in addition to academic excellence. Interpersonal and transferable skills (such as teamwork and time management), acquired and developed through vacation work and extra-curricular activities, are of paramount importance in enhancing employment prospects/opportunities.
Another very important fact concerning the job market is the increasing proportion, currently around 50%, of vacancies open to graduates of any discipline where the employer is seeking a person of degree level ability and training.
Details of the careers open to graduates in many individual subjects and employment areas are clearly described and documented in a series of fifty-five Information Booklets written by Careers Advisers and available either from the Centre, or from Central Services Unit, Prospects House, Booth Street East, Manchester M13 9EP (Tel. 0161 277 5200).