Graduate Prospects

Graduate Prospects, the Higher Education Careers Services Unit and Prospects.ac.uk

Established in 1972, CSU (the commercial subsidiary of HECSU) has recently changed its name to Graduate Prospects. Working in partnership with the most prominent official bodies in the field of Higher education, Graduate Prospects has been bringing students, graduates and recruiters together in for over 30 years. It is our close working relationships with HECSU (the Higher Education Careers Services Unit), AGCAS (Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services), Guild HE and Universities UK that allow us to maintain our status as the UK’s official graduate careers support service.

Graduate Prospects and HECSU

Graduate Prospects is the commercial subsidiary of the Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU). HECSU is a registered charity that supports the work of higher education careers services in the UK and Republic of Ireland and funds major research projects that benefit the higher education careers sector.

In recent years Graduate Prospects has also become the official partner of both UCAS and the NUS to ensure that we succeed in our Mission 'To be the leading UK provider of graduate careers and recruitment solutions'.

Placement opportunities

Graduate Prospects placements last 12 months and are based in our head Office in Manchester. The placement offers students the opportunity to gain real work experience within their chosen work function and working within different departments

The placement opportunities are available across different functions within the company. You could be working within our IT or Publishing/Marketing departments. During your placement, you can expect to gain experience of working in the UKs leading Graduate Recruiters, gain invaluable knowledge of working in teams, handing both large and small scale projects and having regular updates with your Line Manager to discuss your personal and business competencies.

Closing date (placements): Varies depending on vacancy

Duration: 12 months

When: July/August 2008

Quality Mark – What it means to us

Graduate prospects have been providing structured and well thought out undergraduate work placements for several years. However, during 2007 we decided that we were going to formalise our placements and ensure that all placement opportunities were standardised and inline with GPs policies and procedures.

The scheme was graded using eight different criteria (Commitment, Recruitment, Induction, Learning & Development, Assessment, Resources & Support, Programme Evaluation & Monitoring and Partnerships).

Now that we have been accredited with our Quality Mark, we will continue to work towards what we have out in place, so that each placement is valuable and the placement student is rewarded with transferable personal and business skills for when they return to university.

For further information about work experience, please visit Prospects.ac.uk.