Skip to content

NTU Employability team celebrate 10 years hosting placement students

As our latest round of recruitment closes for the next generation of NTU Employability placement students, we take a moment to reflect on the past 10 years hosting student talent across the team.

Two students reading textbook

As a department committed to connecting NTU students and graduates with employers, via work-like experiences, placements and graduate roles, it’s key that we too are providing internal opportunities for our talented cohorts. Over the years we’ve welcomed students into our Careers and Events, Employer Engagement, and Marketing and Communications teams.

Hosting a year-long placement offers a number of benefits to a business, including:

  • a cost-effective way to access talent
  • an opportunity to trial potential future employees
  • adding ideas, new skills and the latest knowledge into your business
  • access to specialist expertise and resources
  • a great way to raise your profile as a prospective graduate employer.

In recognition of 10 years of talent pipelines in the team, we caught up with some of our previous placement students to find out where they are now, plus their top tips for prospective placement students and providers.

Maria Piponides

Maria Piponides

Placement Year: 2021/22
Current role: Final Year student, BSc Business Management and Marketing

Memorable moment/highlight from your placement experience at NTU:

Whilst there were lots of brilliant highlights on my placement,  I loved assisting in the event preparation for the NTU Graduate and Placement fair. With this being the first in-person fair on my placement, it enabled me to take on responsibility within my team and gain first-hand experience of operating an event. Working with such a brilliant team was overall a really nice memory to take away from my placement.

Top tip for prospective placement students:

Completely submerge yourself into the placement and embrace every moment - it is one of the best decisions I made to complete a placement at NTU. It is an amazing opportunity for you to enhance your skills and knowledge, network, socialise and meet new people, and grow as an individual. Don't be afraid to ask questions, and make sure to be confident and be your authentic self.

Top tip for employers looking to host a placement student:

I think having placement students is brilliant for an organisation. They provide you with fresh perspectives and it will make a positive impact in their professional life. Supporting and empowering placement students, through giving them insight into the industry, whilst providing a safe environment, will enable them to become more confident and involved in the placement, which will ultimately boost their morale and performance.

Plans after graduation:

Currently in the process of applying for graduate roles within the marketing industry.

Hannah Yell

Hannah Yell

Placement Year: 2019/20
Current role: Commercial Graduate, Forterra

Top tip for employers looking to host a placement student:

My top tip for employers hosting a placement student is to be a mentor, friend, and coach. Facilitate the student to be independent and create their own opportunities within the workplace. The placement year flies by, but it’s important to remember this experience is invaluable in shaping the student’s final year of study and professional development.

Joel Alex

Joel Alex

Placement Year: 2018/19
Current role:
Employer Engagement Officer, NTU

Top tip for prospective placement students:

Reason to do a placement: Businesses are always looking for people with experience as compared to a fresh graduate and a placement definitely boosts your profile. For international students, doing a placement is a great foot in the door to the UK employer market and helps you integrate yourself better into the UK business culture.

Applying for roles: It is important to understand the transferable skills you gain during the course of your degree. Nowadays, businesses recruit from any degree discipline and train you into the role so you don’t need to specifically search for what degree you are studying and broaden your future career paths.

Memorable moment/highlight from your placement experience at NTU:

Being a part of the events team, the goal was to get businesses onto campus to engage with students. As part of my placement I would support the team with organising the careers fairs and have to liaise with multiple internal departments and businesses. Seeing this all come together on the day of the fair where we have over 120 companies and 2500 students in one place networking and discussing their futures was one of the most fulfilling moments during the placement.

Top tip for employers looking to host a placement student:

Placement students are a full time resource that join a business for a year and they always bring fresh insights and academic knowledge which can support the business. Recruiting a student on placement is a great way to create a talent pipeline for businesses as many students will go back to the same organisation after their degree.

Aidan Newbery

Aidan Newbery

Placement Year: 2017/18
Current role: Finance Graduate, Kier Group

Memorable moment/highlight from your placement experience at NTU:

Experiencing the fruition of months of hard work at the Placement and Graduate Jobs Fair which had over 150 employers in attendance to promote their opportunities to aspiring NTU students.

Top tip for prospective placement students:

Apply early and tailor your applications to each job description.

Top tip for employers looking to host a placement student:

Engage in employability events and raise awareness of your opportunities to increase the quality and quantity of applications.

Gurpreet Singh

Gurpreet Singh

Placement Year: 2017/18
Current role: School Marketing Executive, NTU

Top tip for prospective placement students:

Visit the Employability team as soon as you start your placement search! Getting started early will help you to understand what opportunities are available, which are best suited to your interests and how to start preparing your application. I'd also recommend reaching out to a member of the team that you're interested in a placement with to have a chat about the role too.

Memorable moment/highlight from your placement experience at NTU :

A highlight from my placement year was being able to work on the logo and design for the Employability Team's graduate website and branding. It was a really unique opportunity that allowed me to develop my creative skills and have something special for my portfolio.

Top tip for employers looking to host a placement student:

My top tip would be to make sure you're communicating the value of the work experience you're providing. For many students, it might be their first time getting experience in that industry, so making sure they know what skills they'll be able to develop and how the placement will benefit their career prospects is really important.

Samantha Smith

Samantha Smith

Placement Year: 2013/14
Current role: Marketing Director, Resolution Digital

Top tip for employers looking to host a placement student:

Hosting a placement student is a great opportunity for any employer. You’re able to learn from tech-savvy students who can come in and drive innovation, share fresh ideas, whilst also gaining so many practical skills on the job. Not only that, if your placement student(s) do a great job, you can hire them once they finish University, too.

Memorable moment/highlight from your placement experience at NTU:

Working within the employability team was so fun, I met some really great people in the team. The highlight for me was when I was tasked with getting students on the Clifton campus to visit the new employability centre. Everyone loves meerkats, so I invited a zoo-keeper and his three meerkats to the centre for the day. It was such a fun day, and so many students came to say hello.

Top tip for prospective placement students:

Take the time to look at what opportunities are available to you, and find something that you really want to do. From my experience, finding a placement in a marketing role is super competitive, and on reflection, applying to less roles and spending more time on each application would have really been beneficial for me. Try to get to know the team you’ll be working with before saying yes to the placement too, and ensure that the company you choose to work for is going to give you the best opportunity to learn on the job – Having the same values as the team you’ll be joining is also important for a great experience.

Learn more

Current NTU students looking to find out more about their placement options can visit MyEmployability.

Employers keen to explore the placement routes and other university engagement options can contact the team via talent@ntu.ac.uk / 0115 848 2189.