Work Experience, getting your foot in the door.

As part of our "Kick Start," work experience programme we have written an article to help give some pointers about getting your valuable work experience. We understand the importance of work experience for young graduates in the current job market, having the skills that are relevant to employers is essential to give them a head start in the job market.

On the back of the recent education reforms Nick Clegg has talked of the new Conservative ‘Social Mobility’ policy, an initiative targeting an increase in open work experience, opportunities based on ‘What rather than who you know,’ explained by Clegg as, prospects not opened by "who your father's friends are". The telegraph’s Daniel Knowels highlighted the relevant ‘leg up’s’ that various cabinet members were given, based on family connections to gain their place in the House of Commons. Despite Clegg’s claims however, in light of the unveiling of the plan he too admitted gaining a place at a top-banking firm through a friend of his father’s. The qualifications required were obviously in place in these circumstances, but as any undergraduate knows, getting your foot in the door of any company is about eighty percent of the battle in most cases, and knowing someone is the business is an obvious way to get your face known. The debate in this case was the ‘fairness’ of this relatively commonplace system and the disadvantage to those who don’t know someone on the inside...