Since the lockdown was introduced and normal life around the country has been put on hold, many students have been wondering what they should do about work experience. As a Year 11 student, I personally sympathise with this. The placements I had secured, which were due to take place at the end of my GCSE exam season, have been cancelled as companies weren’t able to move online. As the lockdown is gradually relaxed and businesses reopen, work experience opportunities will return. Yet the annual search for work experience for Year 11 students has been severely disrupted. Luckily there is a plethora of different online work experience placements and activities which students can engage with.
InsideSherpa
This is an excellent website which offers virtual internships or work experience placements from a wide range of companies. Placements are free and open to all, ranging from a global consumer banking placement by Citigroup to an engineering internship done with John Holland. These usually last 6 hours and involve a wide range of activities. You generally have to watch some tutorials and videos, read and learn new information, and complete tasks. Once completed, you can add your experience to a LinkedIn profile and your CV if you’ve learnt relevant new skills. The website is easy-to-use, excellently designed and I highly recommend it.
Visit their website here.
Youth Opportunities
There is also a wide range of opportunities available on this website, although we recommended spending time to select a placement that suits you from its broad catalogue. It offers courses, internships and more. One placement which looked really promising was an Australian data analytics virtual internship with KPMG. Like InsideSherpa, this particular course takes 6 hours to complete, is marketable and is free.
Visit their website here.
InvestIn
InvestIn Education are offering ‘Live & Online’ programmes to give students the opportunity to gain virtual experience from the comfort of their own homes. Students will be immersed in simulations of real-life work and professionals will be on-hand throughout to answer their questions. While these experiences are paid, they are considered worthwhile by lots of past consumers. There are programmes and virtual summer internships for lawyers, investment bankers, filmmakers and engineers to name but a few. Try and book in advance since spaces run out quickly.
Visit their website here.
A Range of Opportunities
There are also a range of individual opportunities dotted around the internet. You do need to know what you’re interested in, and use this to hone your research skills.
Some notable mentions are the Brighton and Sussex Medical School Virtual Work Experience. Amplify Trading are running a free ‘Careers in Finance’ introduction from 2-3 June. Barclays LifeSkills are running a virtual work experience with Freeformers, and Springpod will be running online work experience opportunities in the near future. Finally, The Lawyer Portal has information on several online work experiences in the legal industry.
It’s clear that despite the challenges faced by students wanting to learn and up-skill themselves using work experience placements, there’s certainly plenty of opportunities to achieve this online! We recommended using your research time wisely and being honest about what interests and inspires you.
