Nikolay Lyasnikov, Doctor of Economics, Professor of Management and Marketing Institute of Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration:
Most vacancies for students are in commerce and food industry. The offered remuneration, for example, in Moscow begins from 30 thousand roubles, achieving the level of 80 thousand roubles (however this is associated with special conditions of the employer (sale fee, specific fields of work, etc.). And according to the advertisements of employment agencies, there are quite many such vacancies. What is more, students from technical universities are most often employed to sell technical or technological products.
Unfortunately, there are not any special scientific studies dedicated to the transformation of professional choices of students and the change of future specialty occupations due to the experience obtained as a result of the real working practice. It is exactly the testing of own personal and professional competencies in the real working environment that makes one confirm or deny his vocational choice.
According to the figures provided by opinion polls, the students who already have some experience choose the employer most often based on such criteria as: 70% of candidates care for the pay level, 60% are concerned about the opportunity of personal and professional development, the company image plays an important role for 60%, and opportunities of promotion make a difference for 56% of job seekers.
Inna Alekseyeva, General Director, PR Partner:
Many employees of PR Partner started their career with the agency from the intern position, when being in the last years of university. The main thing is to be focused, know how to set priorities properly and have time management skills. Otherwise, when at work, the student will prepare for training sessions, and when in class, he will write a report for his client.
Student vacancies are posted on special websites or group pages in social media. If you already decided where you want to work, send your CV to the company directly via the website. You can also contact the practical training department at university, which will help with the internship with the opportunity of further employment.
As a rule, students work flexible hours, therefore, depending on the workload and the quantity of hours, they can earn up to 30 thousand roubles.
If a student attending a humanities university has a good portfolio, it will be easier for him to find a job during his academic years. In this case he will be able to decide faster whether the chosen field suits him or he should choose the other area after the graduation.
Natalya Storozheva, Recruitment Consultant, Russian School of Management:
If the student you know complains about the difficulty of finding a job, it means that he simply does not want to bother. There are plenty of employment options: evening and part-time work, remote and project work, occupational and hourly menial work – one can choose any format, if there is a will and persistence.
Work that is close to the future profession is very useful for obtaining practical skills and entering the professional environment. For instance, students studying marketing can work as assistants for relevant agencies when they prepare and pursue marketing research, advertising campaigns, promotion actions. Future PR specialists should try to earn doing copywriting and writing the content for websites, furthermore, their knowledge and skills will be demanded by employers to maintain corporate accounts in social media and to prepare materials for mass media. Sociologists and psychologists in the pre-election year could try hand at holding opinion polls, campaigns, voter education and other types of political activity. The job related to the studied profession affords an opportunity to obtain practical and skills of interaction in the profession. However, such employment is not always paid well and distracts the student from the academic activity, ‘drawing’ him over from the world of theory to the live and vigorous practical activity.
If the student faces the task to earn money fast, then the evening or hourly work as a waiter, an administrator, a courier may bring ‘quick and easy money’. This, as a rule, does not allow him to immerse in the profession, does not help the career or building business relations, but this allows gaining the financial independence that is so important at this life stage. In addition, the traditional student job is deemed to be teaching private lessons to pupils or first-year students, translation from foreign languages, work with the text that can be done remotely at any convenient time.
Valentin Ostrovsky, Manpower Market Expert, Head of Strategic Projects, CAF Group:
First of all, it is worth paying attention to the offers of large fast food and retail chains, where one can often find part-time work.
Today, the development of job search portals is a great aid in searching jobs for students. Every day they post up to several thousands of job offers targeted at students. Another prospective job search area is social media, where in multiple groups one can find a lot of offers.
It should be noted that most offers for students will be characterised by a rather small remuneration and associated with low-skilled work.
The overwhelming majority of students studying by correspondence work somewhere. However, students studying full time are also quite able to find a job. Offers for them come up regularly. They are not only job offers for promoters working in the evening or waiters, as many may think. All depends on the skills and competences of today’s students and their academic achievements. Nowadays, one can often find offers from large companies that invite promising students to work for them or complete an internship, and thus get a future loyal employee that completed the on-boarding procedure.
Moreover, today we can see more and more offers related to remote work.
As a rule, offers for students cannot boast a high pay level. Promoters in Moscow can count on 500 roubles per hour on the average, if they meet all the employer’s requirements. In regions, this amount is considerably lower. However, this work often takes only a couple of working hours a day, which limits potential earnings very much. Doing skilled work is another pair of shoes, in this case the remuneration may reach several thousands roubles per hour. This is typical of offers in the IT industry, for example, when one fulfils orders writing programme code areas.
Certainly, working in the future degree field is the most preferable case scenario for the student, toward which he should necessarily strive. However, in today’s circumstances this is not always possible and the probability of finding the job that would not damage the teaching and learning process is higher, if one has a look at the entire range of offers in the market.
Margarita Kashuba, Marketing Director, Englishdom:
We invite students beginning from the 3rd year, to complete a paid internship as a teacher and a teaching methodology expert, and if the cooperation turns out to be successful, we offer a permanent job. Of course, working hours are subject to discussion, but they determine the pay level. Our offer is good for those who already made up their mind about the future profession. However, students say that one can find a job not related to a certain specialty. For instance, a promoter. There is a huge number of supermarkets and shopping centres where regular advertising campaigns always need students. Students are also invited to work as a call-centre operator. This job quite often requires the fluent English, depending on the employing company. There are always vacancies for interviewers and shop assistants, couriers and flyer distributors. In general, work does exist and there is a plenty of work.
Kseniya Safiulina, Senior IT Recruiter, Badoo:
In our company, it is the monitoring team that has the most successful practice of work with students. This team monitors the load on servers, the user activity, the operability of services and much more. The area of responsibility of employees includes sharing information about occurred incidents with responsible persons (system administrators, developers) as well as some independent troubleshooting.
This is shift work that is good for students because it allows them forming their work schedule based on the class timetable at university. The shift schedule that is built up in advance helps students understand what lectures he will have and plan the work/studies schedule in advance. Also, the shift schedule creates a non-standard working week for the employee. It is 40 hours for ordinary workers, but about 30 hours on the average for shift workers. Fewer working hours at the beginning of the career, on the one hand, physically help withstanding the work load and the initial stress and, on the other hand, allows devoting the remaining time to what one really wants to do, i.e. study (not to the prejudice of the financial condition) or work more (without the loss of academic hours).
Working with the monitoring team is not an internship, but rather a true position. It involves bonuses in the form of the salary (which is not common to the opening of the career), a social package and other benefits for employees (lunch, events and corporate trips, massage, sports masterclasses). We also help with materials for completing the thesis, if the student studies in the profession-oriented area.
Vasily Podkopayev, Senior HR Manager, BDO Unicon Outsourcing:
Many companies are ready to offer an unpaid internship for students in various areas, however, not many applying newcomers will be comfortable with such conditions. Therefore, students look for different ways to earn money: many of them accept entry-level jobs in retail, fast food industries, call-centres, courier services, etc. However, let us look the truth in the face, this kind of experience will hardly be a big advantage for the further career building.
Today, we are witnessing an actively developing information technology market, many specialised companies are hunting for students studying technical and IT disciplines. In this case, students have an opportunity to be offered a job after the successfully completed internship or, for example, take part in the competition for junior part-time positions. A big advantage will be the knowledge of software programming languages (even if you learnt them on your own) and, of course, the English language.
Students doing HR-related courses may start work in the field of recruitment. Many recruitment agencies wish to employ students as researchers/personnel research specialists. This is a good experience for the future as work in agencies is usually multitasking and under time pressure, the load is high and allows gaining experience in selecting specialists in different industries. Certainly, recruitment agencies are not very comfortable with this as many come to gain initial experience and then continue developing in-house (therefore, the agency incurs expenses for recruiting and training a new employee + lost potential gains). However, in my opinion, such practice will continue existing for quite much more time.
Furthermore, large companies are often ready to employ assistants for the HR department and financial services on a part-time basis. In this case they often can be hired on the basis of independent contractor agreements. Nevertheless, such experience will be as useful as work for the company on the basis of an employment agreement.
Students studying economics/finance can start work in the position of assistants to accountants/financial departments. A good deal of employers on job portals usually offer this opportunity for students. If the potential employer is not ready yet to accept an employee with a flextime, pay attention to the programmes for young specialists held by large audit and consulting companies. For example, BDO maintains the annual programme BDO Start to search for assistants for the audit function. This is a good chance for students and recent graduates to start working on large projects in the international company.
It is more convenient to apply for a permanent work with the company if you are a 3-4- year student. These students can agree with the employer and the institute on combining work and studies. In many cases the parties find a way to accommodate the request, and you can work almost the full work week. The only issue is that there are such companies that do not wish to grant an educational leave to their employees. Therefore, this matter should be better discussed with the employer during the interview and employment. Perhaps, you will need to take a leave for the examination period. However, for example, in the accountant’s department your attendance at work during the reporting period may be truly important.
One should also keep in mind the competition in the labour market. Employers have a great choice of young specialists. If you are eager to work for the largest companies, pay attention to learning English as it will raise the prospect of your successful employment and will increase your value as a specialist in the labour market. And, certainly, apart from a good theoretical background, the experience plays an important role. Show the employer your interest in work and development, demonstrate good theoretical knowledge. If you have some relevant (even if little) experience, there are higher chances that you will be invited for an interview and further work.
Summarising the above, I would like to wish the present-day students not to ignore major subjects, read business-related books/solve case studies, gain hands-on experience and be committed to achieving their goal. The mere theory gained as a result of reading course books (often outdated) may not give a completely true idea about work.
Tatiana Kocheryuk, Personal Development Trainer, Coach:
Both extramural, and intramural students can virtually find a job. Of course, quality studies require quite much time and dedication, but it is a question of load distribution. There are options that allow working, but with the employer not involved. For example, writing advertising articles for magazines, making presentations, teaching private lessons, drawing up different kinds of documents. Why not? It is a different matter if you want not just to work, but also have the length of employment recorded in the employment history record book. Then you will have to look for vacancies with flexible hours or the piece-rate pay.
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