From testing cricket bats to counting nocturnal mammals of the same name, more than 100 Nottingham students are making their mark on businesses in the region as part of a University scheme.
Now in its fourth year The University of Nottingham Summer Internship scheme has grown to support 75 businesses with more than 105 students.
The placements, which run from eight to ten weeks in the summer months, are part-funded by the University and help companies with a project or an issue they need support on.
Students at all stages of their degree can take part and some have impressed their placement hosts so much they have been offered permanent roles after graduating.This year’s students are working in roles including marketing, software development, social media, finance, scientific research, data analysis and engineering.
Hazel Clarke and Nicola Morton are working as Assistant Ecologists at EMEC Ecology in Brook Street, Nottingham.The organisation is a subsidiary of the Wildlife Trust and the interns are helping conduct surveys of newts and bats.
Hazel, who has just graduated in biology, said: “When I saw the opportunity I thought it looked really interesting. I’d done fieldwork before but nothing like this. I’ve really enjoyed the chance to put some of my degree skills to use.
Her supervisor Richard Anderton, Senior Ecologist & Arboriculturist at EMEC Ecology, said: “This is the second year we’ve been involved with the scheme. Summer is a busy time for us so it’s really useful to have extra pairs of hands, while the interns might not have awareness of our survey methodology they have a good baseline knowledge of ecology that would be harder to find if we just advertised the role more generally. It gives them a good taster of this kind of work.”
In Loughborough Harsh Shah is working as a Sales and Events Coordinator at Batfast, a cricket simulator company.Runish Gudhka, Founder of Batfast and a University of Nottingham alumnus, is supervising his placement. He said: “We had a computer science intern last year and we were really delighted with how they helped us develop our graphics and our software. In fact we offered them a full time role after they graduated.
“This year we wanted to focus on events and roadshows and Harsh’s CV stood out for us. He really understood what we needed and was able to get stuck in. We’ve also offered him a permanent position with us.“
We are a growing business and we’ve learnt as the scheme has gone on. It gave us the opportunity to use additional expertise from a pool of high quality student applicants. The university has also provided workshops for the interns to improve their knowledge and skills in particular areas of business which was invaluable.”
Chris Colegate, Careers and Employability Placement Consultant, at the University of Nottingham said: “This scheme has really gone from strength to strength as companies see how valuable an exceptional student can be to their business.
“Businesses interested in the scheme present their job offer to the university team who then advertise them across the university.
“We often have in excess of 500 applications for all the jobs but businesses know that from this they will have a dozen or more really good applicants. From the student perspective its great experience of the recruitment process and the jobs are often exclusive to our students so they have a better chance of being able to get that first foot on the ladder of opportunity.”
Anyone interested in taking on an intern can contact Chris Colegate Careers and Employability Placement Consultant 01157484522 / 07813531420.
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