Work placements are an excellent way for you to boost your skills and gain a foothold in the world of work. They can help you to make industry contacts, prove yourself, build your confidence, increase your overall employability and can also be excellent preparation for when you finish your qualification and are ready to explore the jobs market.
Still not sure whether or not you should undertake a work experience opportunity? To help you make up your mind, here are our top 5 reasons you should complete a work placement with Trucklink EU:
1. LEARN PRACTICAL SKILLS
Lectures and coursework are great ways of expanding your subject knowledge, while practical lessons can teach you new skills. However, there is nothing better to help you remember what you learnt than putting your new skills into practice!
Doing a work placement can also help you learn more about a specific industry by meeting people with many years of experience. Putting your knowledge into context like this can be really useful when you return to classes.
2. DEVELOP EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS
As well as improving your practical skills, a work placement can help you to learn what we as employers call “transferrable” skills. These are skills that aren’t necessarily related to your degree subject, but are very important. Some examples of transferrable skills include problem-solving, time-management, leadership, communication skills and team work.
While you may learn some or all of these skills during your studies, it's important that you can apply them to the workplace setting too. Building on your team-working skills is also especially important if your degree involves a lot of solo studying.
3. CHOOSE YOUR CAREER PATH
One of the main goals of studying a degree is to get a job afterwards. However, if you’re not sure yet which job you’d like to do, a work placement can help you decide. We give you the opportunity to try out different roles on your work placement, and talk to people with various jobs to see the roles that you might suit you best. There are so many jobs that exist in logistics that you may not know even existed!
4. OFFERS YOU INVALUABLE NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES
Work placements open doors to people and experiences that education simply can't. It gives you the opportunity to learn from, shadow and lean on industry professionals who have thousands of networks through their years of experience in logistics who are always on hand and happy to help you on your work placement journey.
5. THE STUDENTS LOVE IT AND IT EXCEEDS THEIR EXPECTATIONS
Elliot, a business studies student from South Leicester College, has recently joined our team on a work placement, here's his perspective:
"Before Christmas Trucklink visited my college and gave a presentation to the students. I thought about it over Christmas as it seemed a more interesting industry than I first thought. I have found it completely different to what I thought it would be, it is more IT reliant and far cleaner than I thought it would be!"
"I’m not so keen on the warehouse side as I found it a bit boring! But have shadowed the Fleet Manager, Andy, and that was really interesting. I didn’t realise how much compliance, rules and regulation was involved in transport. The team have been really friendly and helpful, especially the office manager, Natasha."
What would you say to someone who isn't quite sure whether to come on a work placement?
"Give it a go! It's not what I thought it would be like at all."
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DO A WORK PLACEMENT WITH TRUCKLINK EU
If you’d like to take advantage of a guaranteed work placement, you can kick start your career path with a placement at Trucklink EU.
Find out more about our placements by emailing Paul Whelan on paulw@trucklink.eu.com