This resource will help staff in planning work placement preparation modules and in supporting students seeking placements. It does not address the needs of students already on placement and the staff supporting them - see contacts at the end for this purpose.
Support the work placement search process
Finding work placements will be more challenging in 2020/21. Many organisations may have a reduced workforce and will have other constraints upon hosting placement students. Face-to-face UK placement opportunities may be fewer and more competitive, and international face-to-face placement opportunities may face other restrictions.
Staff will need to prepare students seeking placements for this potentially more limited set of opportunities and actively seek and promote alternative avenues for gaining work-related experience.
One of these alternatives may be remote or virtual placements. Such placements (including remote onboarding and remote supervision) will be a very different kind of experience, potentially requiring more independence, and entailing more isolated working, compared to conventional placements. Students will need support in preparing for, seeking and managing remote placements. Better preparation should lead to more choice and more constructive experiences. Seeking a placement can be a lonely experience and setbacks can be frequent: creating a sense of community amongst those searching will be even more important than normal.
Preparing/positioning
Students can be supported in positioning themselves well for the remote placement market through developing and establishing evidence of online communication skills, remote presentation skills, the capacity to work independently etc. Training in the use of online selection tools (psychometric, intray exercises etc) as well as preparation for online interviews (with/without a live interviewer) will be critical. Careers have useful guidance on developing skills relevant to digital working contexts.
Searching
Some sectors and employers will be able to offer placements as normal. For these, established search techniques can be used. A number of job/internship searching sites have developed specific tabs/search categories for remote working and virtual internship opportunities in response to the crisis. A series of short-term placements may be more feasible than one longer term placement - your faculty will have policies in relation to this matter. For programmes which use a definition of placement that includes unpaid/voluntary work, more of these opportunities may be available than paid opportunities, but students may need support in shaping those opportunities into appropriately challenging and beneficial learning experiences.
Creating and searching for alternatives
Staff can also create and encourage take-up of alternatives to standard placements to facilitate work-related experience in the absence of a formal “placement”. Alternatives include:
- Students may consider approaching organisations and pitching remote projects/solutions (potentially in teams)
- Staff can develop “live client” components in established modules
- Simulation games can be used - developed in-house or subscribed to commercially
- Unpaid shorter term holiday internship opportunities and volunteering experiences rather than longer term placements can be taken up where student circumstances allow. Careers now has a Volunteer Co-ordinator who might be able to help
- Explore the use of the Independent Study Module for individual or group entrepreneurship projects
- Align dissertations to organisational needs to gain insider perspectives on employer needs (for example, NUS Dissertations for Good project)
- Build participation in free online work experience immersion exercises into modules
- Consider the creation and use of voluntary Brookes-based remote work projects as alternatives to conventional placements
- Make full use of the training, mentoring and award schemes provided by OBU Enterprise Support.
Supporting students in their search
Promote the ongoing value of skills and experience in remote working. Students searching for work placements will benefit from fora through which they can connect with fellow students, e.g. asynchronous discussion boards, synchronous informal ‘check-in’ sessions etc (potentially divided up into groups in the case of large cohorts). Also consider if you could build into your preparation activities returned placement students mentoring current students seeking placements.
Supporting placement providers
If OBU staff have relationships with placement providers, the providers could be supported in considering how to offer remote placements. The Institute of Student Employers has some relevant advice for employers.
Policy and practice will vary across the faculties and some faculties may have specific guidelines in place to support consistency.
The following members of staff can be contacted if you need signposting to teams or colleagues involved in placement search support and the oversight of students on placement.
- OBBS: Jonathan Louw (jlouw@brookes.ac.uk)
- HLS: Sarah Khan (skhan@brookes.ac.uk)
- TDE: Andy King (paking@brookes.ac.uk)
- HSS: Andrea Macrae (andrea.macrae@brookes.ac.uk)
Ensure all relevant activities are added to the Student Study Plan for the module in question.
Review all placement preparation plans with the priority of maintaining and growing the number of Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) and Widening Participation (WP) students who will benefit from placement/work experience, as these students have been underrepresented in this student group.
Ensure all relevant activities are added to the Student Study Plan for the module in question.
All online resources should be compatible with the UK Digital Accessibility Standards 2020. See Creating Digitally Accessible Learning and Teaching Materials Brookes Moodle course.
Use the Blackboard Ally tool to help check the accessibility of the content you have prepared (available within Moodle late July - early August 2020).