Do’s and Don’ts of Work Experience

Students

  • Do act professionally. Turn up on time, follow the dress code if there is one, stick to prescribed breaks
  • Don’t complain of being bored and expect to stay until the end of the working day.
  • Do be realistic about what tasks you will be doing. There is likely to be an amount of routine involved and not all of the tasks you do will be interesting.
  • Do ask what else you can do if you finish a task, don’t just wait until you are given another one, .
  • Do ask employees how they got where they are and what qualifications they needed.
  • Do talk to your supervisor, or contact the school or placement organiser if you have any concerns.

Parents

  • Do talk to your child about what careers interest them and what placements might be relevant.
  • Do encourage your son or daughter to take responsibility for getting to their placement on time and suitably dressed.
  • Do make sure the employer knows of any medical issues.
  • Do provide support and encouragement, but take a back seat so children can stand on their own two feet.
  • Don’t push your child into a placement because you think it is the sort of thing they ought to do, or because you happen to have a cousin in that field.
  • Don’t rush to collect your child from their placement at the first sign he or she is unhappy. Encourage him or her to resolve problems with the employer first, or to involve the school if that is not possible.
  • Employers
  • Do plan what students will do. This helps make the placement worthwhile, and also means you do not have to start from scratch every time.
  • Do give one employee overall responsibility for a person on placement – this can help develop supervisory skills in staff, while avoiding students being shunted between unwilling hosts.
  • Do try to provide a varied programme that takes in as much of the company or department’s work as possible.
  • Do set a project or task to complete during a work placement when there isn’t other work to do
  • Don’t make it too formal or create a programme that is too rigid: the idea is to introduce them to a new environment, not to replicate school.
  • Do help the student to learn from their placement.

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