University of Manchester Careers Blog

We’re recruiting more (paid) part-time Applications Advisers for next year, and once again, are targeting our current postgrads (mainly PhDs) who will be University of Manchester students until 2014 (or beyond).

What is the job?
You provide a crucial service to our students (or recent grads) by giving feedback on CVs and applications, to help improve them.

It’s quick fire, only 15 minutes per appointment, and they’re booked back-to-back. You could see a 2nd year undergrad Nigerian electrical engineer looking for a placement, quickly followed by a UK mature art history masters looking for a job after graduating, followed by a Chinese final year economics undergrad applying for a masters, followed by … (you get the idea).

To see what we offer students, have a look at our Applications Advice page.

What are the hours?
You would do four shifts of two hours a week (morning, lunchtime, afternoon) during semester 1 (initially) and would need to be flexible, so we can provide a full cover service to our students as part of our team of applications advisers.

Is there training?
Yes – you’ll get training and mentoring from our careers staff, alongside the others we recruit. However, we hope it won’t all be new to you, as we’d love to find people with some prior relevant experience (see below).

Who are you looking for?
These posts are open to University of Manchester students only. Ideally, we’re looking for people who have some experience working before starting their current degree, preferably with some exposure to recruitment and/or counselling. As you will need to be available before the start of the next academic year for training, you will need to be a student already, and not expect to graduate before 2014.

This means you are probably a PhD who is not yet in your final year, but we could consider others. The main constraint on non-PhDs would be flexibility (and graduation) – you would need to be available at various times during the day, so it probably wouldn’t suit anyone who has to attend fixed lectures/tutorials.

You also need to be a skilled communicator, with excellent written English.

What is the pay?
£8.84 per hour (you would also get this rate for any time spent on training).

Why would I want to do this?
It’s a tough job (careers consultants also provide cover for this service, so I know what it’s like!) – but there’s nothing like helping someone see themselves and their capabilities in a new light, and helping them get that message across to potential employers. It’s also a real privilege to meet some fantastic students – and frankly can be pretty humbling when you find out what sort of stuff they’ve already done.

Want to know more?

• The advert – Applications Adviser (pdf)
• Further particulars – Applications Adviser (pdf)
• When it says on the advert, “we strongly suggest that you experience our Applications Advice Service or talk to Sarah Mallen or Dominic Laing about the role” – we mean it!

Hope to see you as part of our team for the next academic year.