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Being an OU student
Being an OU student

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1.5 Careers and Employability Services

As an OU student you have access to careers information and advice from a specialist team of advisers.

In this video, Lynne Johnson, a member of the Careers and Employability Services team (CES), tells you more about the services they offer.

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Transcript

LYNNE JOHNSON
Hi, I'm Lynne and I work in the careers and employability services here at the OU. We are here to give you any kind of help or advice to do with your career. We can help you explore your skills and interests, find information on specific careers, and support your job seeking skills- things like writing an effective CV or preparing for an interview. And if you don't know what career might be right for you, then it's never too early to start thinking about it. A great place to start is our careers website. You can find us on student home. Just click on the link to careers in the top right-hand corner. From here, you can get information like careers options with your OU subject and read the inspirational case studies of what other OU students have gone on to do. You can download the career planning and job seeking workbook from the career site. The first section of this workbook is all about knowing yourself better. And there's is a really useful skills audit that can help you assess what skills you already have as well as activities to help you start thinking about what it is you really want from your career. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter. And that's a great way to find out about our upcoming online career workshops, interactive forums, and guest speaker talks, where you can join in and ask questions about careers. If you're job hunting, you can subscribe to Opportunity Hub, our online vacancy service, which will help you discover opportunities on graduate jobs, internships, and volunteering. So, whatever your career and employability questions, whether you're just starting to explore possibilities or in the midst of interviews, we're here to help. So do get in touch.
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As well as the direct one-to-one support the CES team provides, there are lots of resources available to help you plan and/or develop your career: including a comprehensive website and the Career Planning Workbook [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] , as mentioned in the video, which is a great way to start thinking about your future career.

Webinars and forums

CES also run webinars and forums covering a range of topics. Many of the sessions are recorded, so even if you can’t take part at the time you won’t miss out. There’s also lots of material you can access in an archive.

Subjects covered include things like:

  • Getting your foot in the door with an application form
  • Refining your CV
  • Careers in teaching.

There are also specific sessions run by large organisations looking to recruit OU graduates.

Activity 1 Careers webinars and forums

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes
  • a.Find the careers forum and webinar workspace (hint: search the Help Centre) and find out what webinars and forums are coming up. You might like to make a note of any that interest you.
  • b.Look at the list of recorded webinars and note down at least two that you feel could be of use to you.

Discussion

What you’ll have found of interest will, of course, be very individual to you. You’ll have noticed that many of the webinars are subject specific, eg Routes into accounting, while others were more generic and applicable to students from any subject area, e.g. Refining your CV.

For now you may find it useful to bookmark the site or make a note for yourself where to find it.

Now, you will look in more detail about how to access support across the university.