Careers

Planning your career

From the moment you arrive at Glasgow, you will hear about the wide variety of career events and opportunities on offer. You’ll have the chance to meet global recruiters on campus, learn about volunteering organisations, alternative career options, work experience and part-time work, and you’ll gain access to expert guidance and specialised information to help you make informed choices about your future.

Introducing our careers service

Whether you know exactly the career you want to follow or need some ideas, we help you make the most of your choices. Our Careers Service has specialist staff available for face-to-face consultation all year round.

We provide you with

• opportunities to meet global recruiters on campus
• access to work experience placements
• help to identify gaps in your CV
• links to postgraduate opportunities in the UK and overseas
• an online career management system which alerts you to events, jobs and information relevant to your interests and choices.

What’s more, at Glasgow we work to build employability skills such as communication and presentation into all of our undergraduate degree programmes, allowing you to build up your confidence, abilities and self-awareness every day. 

Find out more

• visit the Careers Service website
• Tel: +44 (0)141 330 5647
• Email: careers@admin.gla.ac.uk

A degree from Glasgow gives you great career choices

The career paths our graduates take are as varied as our graduates. Did you know that around 60% of advertised vacancies in the UK are open to graduates of any discipline? The class of 2008 became (among other things)

• 271 primary teachers
• 214 hospital doctors
• 161 secondary school teachers
• 91 engineers
• 68 veterinary surgeons
• 35 accountants
• 29 teachers of English as a foreign language
• 29 software developers
• 22 university lecturers
• 15 biological and life scientists
• 1 professional footballer.

Where do you see yourself?

Travelling to exotic and exciting locations doesn’t have to be done in your spare time. Instead, you can find a job in the place of your dreams. The class of 2008 found their way to employment in 32 countries. The most popular destinations were Australia, France, Spain and the USA.

Opportunities

We provide you with lots of opportunities to gain different forms of work experience and network with a wide range of global graduate recruiters, small to medium enterprises (SMEs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and voluntary organisations. These take place throughout the year, so watch out for news about these at www.glasgow.ac.uk/club21.

Club 21

The Club 21 Business Partnership Programme is a structured work placement scheme specially designed for students at Glasgow. With over 120 employer members (local, national and international), students can apply for between 8 and 12 weeks’ paid summer work experience, allowing them to apply some of the knowledge they’ve gained during their studies, as well as develop valuable skills that make them even more marketable when applying for graduate jobs. Some of the placements even attract a scholarship of £1,000.

Many students who have already taken part in Club 21 have found that it has helped confirm what type of career they would like to pursue after graduation, while, for others, it has opened their mind to new ideas and opportunities.

What do our students say?

‘With interests in marketing and finance, I was able to join Clydesdale Bank on a three-month internship. Due to ever increasing competition for jobs in the graduate workplace, it is imperative to have first-class work experience before you graduate from university. Club 21 delivers that.’
ThaWatchai Srihathai, Economics and Business & Management

Skills for Work

Skills for Work is a unique series of networking events offering students who are interested in particular industries to meet and chat with employers working in that area. Currently we are running four Skills for Work events per year:

• charities
• engineering
• science
• financial services.

All the organisations attending the events have job, placement or training opportunities to offer. Feedback from students suggests that they enjoy talking informally to employers and asking them about what opportunities they have. Employers return time and again as Skills for Work enables them to meet students genuinely interested in their industry and spot future recruits.

What do employers say?

‘By attending the Skills for Work Financial Services Fair we are able to meet with a variety of students and showcase the opportunities that we have both locally and nationally.’
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

Summer Graduate Fair in Scotland

Organised by the University of Glasgow, the national fair attracts over 90 graduate recruiters and 3,000 students and graduates each year. Aimed at new graduates, the fair also attracts lots of students from undergraduate courses wanting to network with employers early. Many students and graduates attend armed with up-to-date CVs; many others come along merely to find out what jobs are available at the present time and take the next step towards their future career.  

Internship Fair

Each November, we organise an Internship Fair. Open to all students, the event is attended by a wide range of organisations offering different kinds of work experience and internships, including volunteering, working on summer projects overseas, internship programmes with businesses, and opportunities within the University’s student societies and clubs. This is a great opportunity to see what’s available and for you to start planning your summer months.

What do the companies say?

‘The University of Glasgow offers various opportunities for us, as a major IT employer, to get exposure to students from a variety of faculties, therefore giving us the best opportunity to reach a wide population. The range of events that an employer can get involved with is vast.’
JP Morgan Scotland

Enterprising students

If you have entrepreneurial flair or simply an interest in enterprise, Glasgow Student Enterprise helps you to develop new skills by taking part in social events, competitions, training and hands-on learning experiences that give you the chance to manage and work with small businesses. The team aims to help you be more confident and creative, meet some of Scotland’s most entrepreneurial and motivational speakers and travel the world. Over the past few years we’ve taken students to events in Singapore, the USA, Slovenia and Australia.

Amanda Jones and James Brown founded Red Button Design after their idea for an innovative water transport, sanitation and storage device won them first place in the University’s Big Idea competition in 2006.

Amanda and James (pictured), with support from Glasgow Student Enterprise, were able to develop their idea into a highly sought-after product – the Reverse Osmosis Sanitation System (ROSS).

ROSS allows individuals to collect water from the nearest source – whether contaminated or not – and sanitise it for drinking or bathing. The system is designed to bring relief to 1.2 billion people in the world without safe water.

James and Amanda are in the process of bringing to market the ROSS. To date they have had in excess of 40,000 units requested. The International Federation for the Red Cross has agreed to field test it at their own expense. In addition, the World Health Organisation (WHO) have committed to supplying WHO field staff to assist them in the development of the product in India.

The Red Button duo say: ‘We aspire to develop products about which we can be proud. Products which address real human needs, not just human desire. Products which are simple in their design and conception but have consequences on a global scale. We aspire to drive change.’

For more information about how Glasgow supports student enterprise, visit Student enterprise