International, national and local research indicates that studying abroad can help enhance future career prospects and options, enabling you to demonstrate a range of experience and skills which you might not otherwise have gained. The experience itself, as well as the skills gained whilst abroad, can help your application stand out from the 100s of other applications when applying for jobs and / or higher degrees, as well as providing interesting and engaging examples that can be advantageously used in interviews.
A Careers Session for students who have returned from studying abroad.
This session is for returning students and takes place at the start of every academic year.
This workshop is an interactive session, which will identify the key skills you have developed during your time studying abroad. We will discuss how to express these skills in both a written format (on CVs/application forms) and in a verbal manner (during interviews). The session will be led by the University Careers Service who will outline what other services & resources are available to you when making any future career plans.
Unsure how to present your time abroad in a relevant way on your CV? Do not worry - please see our guide for tips on how to format your CV to include work experience, examples of how it could look, and how to show off your international skills!
The interview need not be a daunting part of the employment process! Take a look at our guide on how to utilise your experience abroad and impress the interviewers from the onset.
You might be surprised at how even the smallest thing you did overseas can be drawn upon and highlight important global specific skills. We have compiled an extensive table of example experiences, the associated skills, and how these could be presented within a CV, interview or applications.
Do you still need convincing that studying or working abroad can really give you that edge in the graduate job market? We have summarised some of the most recent reports on research into studying and working abroad, employability and what employers are looking for. Read our summaries or download the reports here.
(British Academy, March 2012)
This report focuses on the significant benefits that studying on the Erasmus year abroad scheme has on the skills and prospects of a student, its primary goal being to provide advice to the Government, Universities, Students and Employers about how to increase participation in the scheme and therefore increase the employability of UK Graduates.
By compiling evidence from other recent literature it builds a strong case for the quantitative benefits of the study abroad year. GlobalGraduates, who helped collect data for the report, also have a short powerpoint presentation detailing some of the most pertinent responses from the survey on their website here. The highlights of the report are below and the full document can be downloaded here.
“A recent report, Global Graduates into Global Leaders, asked multinational companies employing UK graduates what skills they required. For global graduates, over and above core graduate competencies such as teamwork, communication, presentation skills, time and self-management, and professionalism, employers want ‘additional critical competencies’. These include: a global mindset, global knowledge, cultural agility, advanced communication skills, management of complex interpersonal relationships, team-working and collaboration, learning agility, adaptability, flexibility, resilience, drive and self-awareness.
These are precisely the skills developed by the year abroad and which the British Academy- UCML survey highlights. The top requirement, even more important than language skills, is ‘an ability to work collaboratively with teams of people from a range of backgrounds and countries’. Adaptability, excellent communication skills and the ability to learn in any culture or environment are also highly valued global competencies, meaning that "experience of working outside their home country and immersion in a different culture can catapult a graduate into being considered for rewarding and challenging roles”. One section highlights the demand for keys skills supplied by the year abroad.
Development of language skills
To learn a foreign language well is to acquire a wealth of culture beyond textbook knowledge. And to learn a language outside of its spoken environment is to learn it incompletely. The 2011 CBI Education and Skills Survey10 highlights language skills as particularly important in sectors such as manufacturing, banking, finance and insurance – reflecting the globalisation of organisations. Moreover, with only a quarter of businesses expressing no need for foreign language skills among their employees, the greatest demand is for a level of language skills that can help in building relations with overseas contacts. The development of language skills in the environment in which the target language thrives opens up a world of encoded and tacit knowledge that must be experienced – and not simply taught.
Skills for competitiveness, professional development and employability
The 2011 CBI Education and Skills Survey found not only that over 58% of employers
expect to increase their demand for higher-skilled employees, but also that a majority (52%) are not confident of meeting their need for high-skilled employees. The year abroad provides a foundation not only for basic skills in working life, but also for those which enhance competitiveness, providing the edge for UK graduates in a way that allows them to compete internationally.
The study finishes by advising students to
(Dr Abigail Diamond, Liz Walkley, Peter Forbes, Tristam Hughes and Jonathan Sheen, June 2011)
By surveying and collecting case studies from global companies who seek to employ the Global leaders of tomorrow this report seeks to answer the simple questions…
“Are there a set of characteristics and competencies that enable graduates to be successful globally? If so, what are they, and what can businesses, universities and students do to encourage and develop these competencies?”
It is particularly useful in identifying the key skills that such companies are looking for. This report is most useful for those seeking a career in a global company as it has many case studies from such companies detailing what they look for in graduates which can be very useful in preparing for interviews or assessments.
The full report can be downloaded here.
(Giorgio Di Pietro, October 2013)
Giorgio Di Pietro (University of Westminster) uses sample data on recent Italian graduates to investigate whether participation in study abroad programs during university studies improves graduates’ employability prospects. The motivation for research has been a great participation in the ERASMUS program (2.2 million participants since 1987) and expansion of this program to ‘ERASMUS for all’ that was to be launched in 2014.
Di Pietro is using a rather more scientific and statistical approach to test the theory of study abroad experience enhancing employability prospects of graduates. He perceives this approach as filling the hole in rather qualitative and incomplete research on the issue. OLS fixed effects and IV fixed effects regression techniques are used in an attempt to correct the endogeneity problem.
Data used in this study come from a nationally representative survey conducted by ISTAT (Italian National Statistical Institute) in 2007. This survey includes information about participation in international exchange programs, employment status after graduation, personal attributes parental and socio-economic characteristics.
The empirical results point to a quantitatively small positive effect of studying abroad on the likelihood of employment after graduation when using the ordinary-least-squares (OLS) model. However, when selection into international exchange schemes is accounted for, the effect becomes larger and statistically significant: “UDFEs IV estimates indicate that the graduates who studied abroad as part of their degree are 24 percentage points more likely to find employment 3 years following graduation relative to their non-mobile peers.” (Di Pietro 2013)
This finding is mainly driven by the fact that employability prospects of graduates from disadvantaged (but not very disadvantaged) backgrounds are significantly improved when participating in study abroad programs.
Click here to download the full survey.
(Leo Boe and Daniel Hurley, March 2015)
A comparison report between the academic attainment and employment outcomes of mobile students, and non-mobile undergraduate students who completed their studies at the end of the 2012/2013 year. Data was collected from the Student Record and the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey. It details the differences in academic attainment and employment outcomes, the type of people who undertake study or work abroad placements taking into account socioeconomic background, ethnic background, gender, discipline and location of study into account. It then reports extensively on the outcomes of mobile students as graduates.
The main results of the study’s finds are that, upon six months after graduating:
A particularly interesting part of the study was the ‘Spotlight on STEM’ students’ where higher salaries, job positions and degree results are indicated to be higher for mobile students compared to non mobile.
Click here to download the full survey.
Want to dig even further into how studying or working abroad can boost your employability? Or maybe you want information to find work overseas or how to build upon your international experience? We have compiled some of the most useful websites to get you started
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