Future-Ready Award: Why You Should Consider It
What is the Future-Ready Award? and why should you get involved? Carmen shares her own experience with the award and explains why it's so useful for students.
What is the Future-Ready Award?
Queen’s University offers a Future-Ready Award for its students to acknowledge their initiative and drive to pursue experiences and develop their skills beyond the realm of academics.
Who Can Get Involved?
Any student can get be involved in the programme. There are three different ways to achieve the award:
1. You can complete a single route activity from the pre-approved list and be automatically recommended for the award on completion of the activity.
2. Complete 2 or more activities from the combined route activity list, totalling 30+ hours, then follow the steps in MyFuture to apply.
3. Under the Work Experience Route, you can apply by evidencing 50+ hours of self-organised, career relevant work.
What is included in the Future-Ready Award?
Extra-curricular activities recognised by the award can include volunteering, the leadership development programme, or a self-organised work placement.
Why is it Useful?
As you may already know, involving yourself with extra-curricular activities can help you to stand out among the rest. Employers now aren't only looking for good academic qualifications. They also want an all-rounder which means they are more likely to hire applicants that are actively involved in extra-curricular activities. Being involved in the award is a great way to demonstrate everything else you learned or achieved when joining extra-curricular activities.
My Experience with the Future-Ready Award
I recently joined and completed a Route B accredited programme for international students. The International Students Employability Workshop.
I would like to share my experience regarding this workshop as this was very helpful, especially when one is seeking for a graduate job.
It is divided into 3 workshops and held at the Students Guidance Centre. The first Workshop is preparation. The programme coordinator here was really engaging and helpful. The workshop allowed me to know more about the websites and resources on where to look for work experience or graduate work within the UK or globally. I was able to understand more about it by going to careers fair and workshops held by employers in which the information was provided during the Workshop.
The second Workshop was an informative session which involved the fundamentals of writing a CV. Here the workshop coordinator guided us through the content and structure of a good CV. This also includes how to write a spot on a cover letter.
The third Workshop was very practical. The workshop prepared us for what to expect during an interview. From how to dress for it and also how to embrace and be mindful about cultural differences when applying for a job. This final and last workshop was very engaging and insightful as there was a mock interview with the coordinators to give the participants a feel on what the actual interview would be like. Afterwards, there was a feedback session and from there, I was able to pick up points on which areas to improve on and not to repeat a similar mistake when I am called in for an interview in future.
Overall I think the Future-Ready Award is a great scheme to get involved with. It’s helped me already and can definitely do the same for you. If you would like more information on how to obtain Award accreditation, just have a chat with a Careers Consultant in the Students Guidance Centre. They’ll be happy to help.
Find out more
My Involvement in the Future-Ready Award Career Programmes
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