Employability
Giving you a competitive edge
Choosing the right business education provider is one of the most important career decisions you’ll ever make. Choosing to join the School of Management means you can feel confident about getting a great return on your investment.
Our numbers really do speak for themselves. Our MBA programme is ranked, 4th in the world for career progression, 1st in the world for value for money by the Financial Times MBA Online Ranking 2022 and 90% of our graduates are employed within six months of graduation (HESA).
Everything we do, for the time you are with us and beyond, is geared towards enhancing your employability.
Career Booster Programme
Our Career Booster Programme is a distinctive and uniquely valuable resource available to all of our graduates throughout your time with us. An annual, week-long series of more than 60 workshops, masterclasses, webinars, presentations, lectures and panel sessions. These are all free to attend and aim to boost your:
- Academic skills
- Employability skills
- Career options
- Enterprise skills
- Networking skills
Delivered by sector experts, our industry partners, guest speakers and alumni the programme covers so much from Bitcoin, Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies to hands on experience of Psychometric Tests. Career Booster is a ‘one-of-a-kind’ opportunity to get ahead.
Find out more about the Career Booster Programme.
Business Connections
We work in a number of ways with companies of all sizes from large multi-nationals to micro organisations. Our International Advisory Board includes Senior Management representation from BBC, BMW, Coca-Cola and Google. We work with SAS, who are the world leaders in analytics software, to provide students with the real-world project experience for careers in an increasingly data and analytics-driven world.
Our Bloomberg Trading Room enables students to experience a simulated environment which allows them to gain an appreciation of “real life” decision-making within the finance and banking industry.
Employers attend our recruitment fairs to promote their career opportunities directly to our students and proactively engage through a number of business and community initiatives.
Our courses and employability
Our courses are specifically designed, with our industry partners and advisors, to meet current business needs. Employability and enterprise, skills fundamental for your employability and career development, are integrated strongly within all of our programmes.
We have a great history of employer engagement in our Undergraduate and Postgraduate degrees to enable work placements, internships and live briefs that equip you with real-world work experience and enhance your employability.
Find out more on our study page.
Sandwich Years
In a competitive graduate market, valuable experience and employability skills gained from a year’s work placement will differentiate you from the thousands of other graduates seeking work. The most obvious advantage is that you get to do a placement with a company, build up your work experience, enhance your employability, and establish contacts in your chosen industry. We find that students return from their placement year with their confidence and personal skills enhanced and ready to implement their focused plan for the future.
The School of Management has an excellent network of organisations that offer placements including:
- IBM
- Vauxhall
- NHS
- GE Money
- Arris (formerly PACE)
- Enterprise Rent A Car
- Cummins
- Peugeot
Together we ensure your placement is appropriately challenging and that you can make a real and positive impact on the business.
My placement year has been a great experience and has helped determine my future career path. I would definitely recommend doing a placement year to anybody.
Maddie O'Dwyer, BSc (Hons) Marketing
Career Support
The University is committed to helping students develop and enhance employability and this is an integral part of many programmes. Specialist support is available throughout the course from Career and Employability Services including help to find part-time work while studying, placements, vacation work and graduate vacancies. Students are encouraged to access this support at an early stage and to use the extensive resources on the Careers website.
Discussing options with specialist advisers helps to clarify plans through exploring options and refining skills of job-hunting. In most of our programmes there is direct input by Career Development Advisers into the curriculum or through specially arranged workshops.
