We’ve all heard it before – it’s not what you know, but who you know. Well if that’s the case now is a great time to start building up your personal network. With Manchester Gold Mentoring, The Manchester Network and Meet the Professionals there’s plenty of opportunity to start making those valuable connections.
There are multiple benefits to having a careers mentor, or speaking to someone who was once in your position. Regardless of whether you know what you want to do or not, talking to someone who has been in your shoes can add a different perspective and help you to explore how best to utilise and talk about the skills you are gaining as part of your degree.
Manchester Gold Mentoring
Manchester Gold gives you the opportunity to ‘match’ with a graduate of the University and speak to them about life after graduation, how they started on their career path and the world of work.
Not sure what you want to do? Match with a mentor who studied your subject and find out what they’re doing now and how they got there. You can also find out about the different types of industries and jobs that are available to graduates with your degree.
If you have an idea of what you want to do you can match with a mentor who is working in that industry. Find out about the different jobs in that sector and get advice on what specific skills you need to develop and what experience would be useful for the job you want.
If the above hasn’t quite convinced you of the benefits of Manchester Gold yet read about former mentee Judith’s experience of the programme.
Applications for Manchester Gold are now open until Monday 18 February at 12pm.
The Manchester Network – Ask Me About
If you don’t want to commit to a 6 month mentoring programme check out Ask Me About on The Manchester Network. Rather than speaking to a specific mentor on a regular basis you can use Ask Me About to ask Manchester alumni one off questions about their job, industry or career path since graduating. Find out what it’s like to be a Producer on Netflix’s Black Mirror, ask a Senior Software Engineer at Uber to help sharpen your CV, or get your careers questions answered by the Women’s Programme Coordinator at the LGBT Foundation. You can use Ask Me About to get careers advice and even jobs from over 3,000 alumni professionals who are ready to help.
Sign in with your University username and password; go to the Mentoring tab to search for connections and then tap ‘send request.’
Meet the Professionals
You can also meet alumni in person on campus at one of the Meet the Professionals events. Talk to graduates who studied a similar course and find out about the diverse range of careers they have gone onto. These speed networking events allow you to find out about careers paths you never knew existed, and in small groups you get to grill a professional about their job, company, industry and how they got to where they are. There are a range of events taking place this semester covering a variety of sectors and subjects.
To see the full range of ‘Meet the Professionals’ events and register visit the webpages.