Getting an international perspective on your business?

Written by Margaret Holbrough, Careers Consultant, Graduate Prospects, May 2008

In the last edition of the newsletter, I wrote about the processes and procedures that employers would need to follow if they wished to offer a placement, internship or other period of UK based work experience to an international student studying overseas. The rules and regulations are many and no doubt daunting.

However, the topic of this edition of the newsletter is more of a 'good news' story after the 'bad news' of last time, as it focuses on the much easier process of employing on a part-time or temporary basis, an international student who is currently studying on a higher education course in the UK.

First of all, just to clarify the terminology, an international student is one who is not from an EEA country [1]. EEA nationals are free to work without restrictions in the same way as a UK student would be, albeit with the advice that too much term-time work commitment can be very detrimental to their studies.

For students from some other European countries there are new regulations that may require them to register with either the Worker Registration Scheme [2] or the Worker Authorisation Scheme (Bulgaria and Romania), but once they have done so, they are free to work in the UK too. Full details can be found on the Border and Immigration Agency website.

So, the international students studying here who face restrictions on their working hours are those from all other parts of the world and whilst they are not free to work as and when they please, they do have permission to undertake quite a significant amount of work, both during term-time and at vacations, making them a very viable option for your recruitment into sandwich placements, internships or other formal work experience schemes.

The guidelines for international students, as described on the British Council website, are these:

If your application for leave to stay in the UK as a student has been successful, you should be given a passport sticker that allows you to:

work part-time up to 20 hours a week during term time and work full-time during your holidays
work full-time at the end of your studies, during the period when your course has finished but your immigration permission to be in the UK has not yet expired (normally for a maximum period of four months)
work full-time when your studies have finished, while you wait to hear whether an International Graduates Scheme application is successful (provided you make your application for the International Graduates Scheme before your student immigration permission expires); you can carry on working full-time even after your student immigration permission expires if you are still waiting for a decision on your International Graduates Scheme application at that stage (until a decision is made)[3]
take a full time work placement with an employer as part of your degree programme (sandwich degree students)
take an internship placement with an employer.

You should not work if your visa or entry clearance sticker or immigration stamp or UK Residence Permit states 'No work or recourse to public funds' or 'No recourse to public funds. Work prohibited'.

British Council Education UK website

So for employers the advice is to check the student’s passport and as long as permission to work has not been withheld you can recruit an international student to undertake work experience of any sort, within the guidelines given above, without having to seek any further permissions or permits from the Home Office.

Your international recruits will need a National Insurance number, which they get after attending an interview with the Department for Work and Pensions, but they don't need to have the number when they start work. You can employ them and deduct NI contributions while they are waiting for their NI number to be issued. Further details can be found on the Jobcentre Plus and Department for Work and Pensions websites

In many other areas of the world, as they are in the UK, the graduates who are most highly sought after by the larger organisations are those who have acquired some relevant work experience. Consequently, many international students, alongside their EEA counterparts, demonstrate a high level of motivation and commitment to placements and internships, where a truly valuable experience can be obtained. They are often industrious, willing and eager to learn and may provide your business with an interesting international and alternative cultural perspective.

The countries that comprise the EEA are Austria, Belgium, Republic of Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway,Portugal, Spain,Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.
Czech Republic,Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.
A new scheme replacing the IGS and offering international graduates a 2-year post-study scheme is about to be introduced.