UCD Career Development Centre : FAQ

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q. Where can I find information about volunteering?

Q. Where can I find careers information for students and graduates with disabilities?

A. Much of the information and advice for disabled students and graduates is the same as the general advice contained in these FAQs and on the prospects website.

However, students and graduates who have a disability will often have to address additional issues, which may or may not affect their job seeking and career development.

Important decisions about how to market yourself, when or how to disclose your disability and how to find positive employers may all feature in your job search.

You may also have to think practically about certain issues such as how your disability could affect your work and your ability to carry out the tasks involved. Would you require specialist equipment to undertake your work? What information would you need to disclose to your employer in order to feel comfortable in the work place?

Having a disability should not be considered a barrier to getting a job. Figures from a survey carried out the UK in 2002 showed that only 6.3% of graduates who classified themselves as disabled were unemployed six months after graduation. This can be compared with 4.6% of graduates who classified themselves as non-disabled.

Useful advice/information appear on the following websites:

Ireland

The disability and health section of Prospects.ac.uk covers some of the above raised issues, including reasons for disclosure of disability or health problems, how to judge when it is best to disclose this and examples of positive discrimination practices. There is also a section containing contacts and resources

SKILL, the website of the National Bureau for Students with Disabilities, is dedicated to the support of students and workers with disabilities. This includes features on legal matters, forums for discussion of topical issues as well as many useful web links and resources.

Another website worth checking is Ready Willing and Able. RWA is a recruitment bulletin for disabled people containing job vacancies posted by progressive employers as well as features and editorial addressing concerns that affect disabled people in the workplace.

If you have a specific query that you cannot find the answer to then you may wish to make use of the prospects.ac.uk email a careers consultant service. If you are an EU national who has graduated within the past five years you are eligible to use this free personalised information service. Email your question and you will receive a response within three working days from one of our specialist advisers.

Q. I'm a graduate seeking a job. What should I be doing?

A. Job seeking can be daunting. Firstly, you might want to consider developing an action plan to keep your job seeking targeted.

It will help to make the task ahead earsier if you split it into various stages and tackle these one by one. See action plan (pdf). Secondly, you need to prepare your documentation. Each job advertisement will have it's own specification and you will need to prepare a sound CV and a personal statement that you can develop into targeted job applications as nescessary. However, there are certain questions that you will need to consider so as to make successful applications:

how well do you know yourself?
what are your strengths and weaknesses?
what skills and attributes can your offer an employer?
which occupations are you interested in and do you have the skills and knowledge for these?

Click on Skills employers seek for further advice/information
Career Planning has useful online self-assessment links

So, moving on, it is then important to develop your job-search strategy and identify where jobs are advertised and when applications should be made.

This can include several techniques:

1) Using the internet
See Job seeking advice (related resources) to find out more, or visit CareersConnect, our vacancy database.

2) The national press also advertise certain types of vacancies on particular days of the week
See Job seeking advice (related resources) to find out more

3) Employment agencies
You can often use employment agencies to access vacancies that might not be advertised elsewhere. As well as the 'high street' agencies, more specialist ones exist that concentrate on placing people into jobs in a particular sector. See Job seeking advice (recruitment agencies) to find out more.

4) The speculative approach
By approaching a company speculatively you may uncover an opportunity that you otherwise may have missed. Try to find out as much as possible about the company and the type of opportunities they may be able to offer before applying. If possible, identify the name of a person to contact. Then it is usually best to forward a CV and cover letter, being specific about the type of work you are seeking within the organisation, but also indicating your flexibility and willingness to take any related work to gain experience.

While this approach may not yield a very high response rate, however, it takes just one of your chosen companies to respond positively to give you the break that you need. Evidence shows that some places really do keep information on file! Following up your speculative letter with a polite telephone call to the right person may help to make your CV more memorable.

Once you have gathered together all the relevant information to start your job search you should set yourself realistic targets that fit in with your current commitments. Maybe try to make a certain number of applications and/or speculative letters weekly. Develop a routine of checking the appropriate publications and websites so that you learn about the most recent postings as soon as possible. This should give you sufficient time to put in a good quality application. To find out more click on Job seeking advice

Q. I'm not sure what kind of job I want

A. Starting off on the career ladder can be quite daunting, especially when you are not sure about what job opportunities are out there.

Some graduate jobs require specialist degrees, however, a very large number of graduate jobs will accept graduates from any degree discipline, making your career choices more numerous than you may have first imagined.

A good starting point would be to clarify your personal requirements concerning the work that you do. Gaining a clear idea of what you definitely would like and dislike in a job is the first step to consolidating your options.

It may be useful to take your job seeking right back to the beginning of the process. Click on What different jobs involve to find out i.e. the type of jobs that could interest you; and to explore employment sectors.

You may want to visit Career Planning (step 1). Here you will find links to career planning websites including Prospects Planner, an interactive tool to help you to define the most important elements you are looking for in your career and which also suggests specific options that match your interests, motivations and requirements. See how well these results compare to the areas of work you have already identified.

Another option is to find out what other graduates in your programme do. This may bring up some ideas that you have not thought about already.

It could be useful too, to try and speak to people already doing jobs that particularly appeal to you. If possible visit them in their workplace or organise some work experience to find out more / gain an insight into the working environment.

Careful research and an honest insight into what you want from your career and what you can realistically achieve should help you to clarify your career goals. Remember that many careers do not follow a rigid path, but develop organically, so by following the route that you have thoughtfully researched and which currently feels instinctively best can lead to future opportunities opening up.

Prospects.ac.uk also contains a series of graduate case studies where you can find personal accounts of the job-seeking experiences of a number of recent graduates.

(With acknowledgement to Prospects.ac.uk for use of some of its material)