Business Engagement: Accessing talent

Accessing Talent

Recruit and develop talent

Whether you recruit a graduate once, or you recruit thousands every year, we would like to work with you. Our Employer Engagement & Student Employment team, part of Student Employability and Academic Success, known to our students and graduates as Career Zone can offer you a variety of activities and events that can help to promote your brand on campus.

Our dedicated team will discuss your requirements and are keen to provide you with a solution to your recruitment needs. Not only can we help you reach our students and graduates, we also welcome employers and professionals to engage with us to deliver activities to help develop our students’ employability skills.

Here at Exeter, we use a dedicated careers platform called Handshake to support both students and employers. As a business you can use Handshake to advertise jobs, book events and fairs, and to reach out to students and graduates.

You can use Handshake to promote graduate vacancies, internships and placements, in the UK or around the world for free.

Vacancies will be visible to all current Exeter students (undergraduate and post-graduate) and to University of Exeter alumni.

Once you have registered and requested a connection with us through Handshake, we will review your request and you’ll be able to upload your vacancies. Every vacancy is reviewed by a member of staff before going live.

Student and graduate internships

Businesses can recruit current students into part-time roles through the Student Business Partnership Scheme. Our Graduate Business Partnership Scheme supports businesses to recruit graduates who have qualified in the last 3 years. The Internships Team will advertise and promote your opportunity through a managed application process.

With the support of the Internships Team you can:

• Connect with university students by offering paid employment opportunities

• Connect with final year students and recent graduates from all UK universities by offering early career employment opportunities

• Offer a challenging role that will support your business and help you to get on top of projects and tasks

• Provide an opportunity for students to apply their knowledge in a professional role alongside their studies or as a first job

• Raise awareness of your brand to the workforce of the future

Internships provide a valuable experience that connects talented students with employers for mutual benefit.

The Graduate Business Partnership includes many benefits to encourage graduates to stay or relocate to the southwest to start their careers. Our aim is to showcase employers in the southwest to retain and attract individuals with the skills our region needs.

A member of the Internships Team can meet you for an informal chat to learn more about your needs and provide guidance. You can contact the team at internships@exeter.ac.uk or call 01392 722617. Phone lines are monitored 9am5pm, Monday-Friday.

Career mentoring

The University’s Career Mentor Scheme was launched 15 years ago and has grown to become one of the largest and most successful employability schemes in the UK. In 2023, the scheme was a finalist in the Exeter Living Awards education category.

Mentoring is a rewarding practice where you can share your experience and expertise to benefit a student or recent graduate. Perhaps you were once in their shoes? You don’t need to have attended university to become a mentor, but you must have at least three years of industry experience and a passion for your work.

Our mentors are made up of working and retired professionals and Exeter alums who are based locally and all over the world. To register your interest in becoming a mentor, please complete the Expression of Interest Form, and a team member will contact you to go through the next steps.

Work placements

Work placements are part of credit bearing modules that students undertake as part of their degree programme. These are different from internships, which are taken as extracurricular, i.e., outside of the degree.

Placements are a fantastic opportunity for employers to reap the many rewards of recruiting one of our students. They can be offered on a full- or part-time basis as part of short-term or year-long placement programmes. Students are looking for employers across a diverse range of sectors and are interested in a variety of different roles.

If you have a project or job vacancy that you feel could make a good student placement, then get in contact via placements@exeter.ac.uk.

Careers fairs and events

Our Employer Engagement & Student Employment team allows businesses to attend several large-scale Careers Fairs held at our Exeter and Penryn, Cornwall, Campuses.

In addition, we work with dozens of businesses each year to create and deliver events designed to facilitate access to our students, whether through a presentation, skills session or networking event. These can take place on campus or virtually to meet your needs as a business.

With many years of expertise in organising and delivering events, from bespoke smaller events to Careers Fairs that accommodate up to 90 businesses, we can support you. To find out more or to set up a call to discuss further, contact employer-events@exeter.ac.uk.

Engage with our Cornwall campuses

Our Cornwall campus hosts several specialist disciplines, such as Renewable Energy, Environmental Science, Ecology, Geology, Mining Engineering and Sustainability. Our students are actively looking for placements and internships to complement their studies. If you have a suitable project, please get in touch at es-penryn@exeter.ac.uk.

For more information on employer engagement and student employment activity across Cornwall, please visit our Cornwall-focused webpages here.

Find out more

Please visit here for more information on employer engagement and student employment across Devon and Cornwall.