Demonstrating your value to employers in Paris

All students from the BAL and CEM faculties are eligible to participate on this opportunity. There is a maximum of 20 places available, with a minimum of 15 participants required for this opportunity to take place. Students are recommended to check the eligibility criteria before applying.

Trip description

When it comes to searching for a graduate job it is vital for students to have an understanding of the skills they possess and be able to evidence, demonstrate and articulate those skills within recruitment processes. This trip will enable the students to find their strengths and then be able to demonstrate those strengths through a variety of engaging tasks and activities hosted by careers professionals and employers.

The first planned activity will be with Tanium, a global Cybersecurity and systems management company who have a base in Paris. Tanium have had students work with them previously in a variety of roles and have reported that they feel that students usually struggle initially with successful communication and time management. As such they will be supplying a communication and time management task that will see the students split into teams and earn points by visiting landmarks and locations around the city. Each location will be worth a different number of points and new scoring locations will be introduced mid way through. Coming up with a good strategy, maintaining strong communication and keeping track of time will be vital to succeed. One team member will be the chief communicator and stay at base whilst the rest of the team navigate the city and accumulate the points.

In addition to this the trip will also involve further tasks and challenges with other employer partners including Enterprise Mobility and it will supply a varied range of tasks for students enabling them to demonstrate a range of different skills across the week.

The estimated total cost for travel, accommodation and transfers for this trip to Paris is £425. Students will be expected to pay the remaining amount after the £200 DMU Global bursary is deducted from the total.

Why take part?

This trip is an opportunity to explore and take in a fantastic city like Paris and at the same time learn about yourself, your skills and how these can be applied to recruitment processes. This will then maximise your chance of understanding how to navigate the graduate jobs market, how to impress and how to succeed within your future career.

Learning objectives

The main objectives of this trip are for students to learn more about themselves, the strengths they possess and understand how to articulate and demonstrate these skills in future recruitment processes. In turn this should maximise their chances of gaining a graduate job nice and quickly and then succeeding and progressing within their careers.

Prior to leaving for Paris, we shall gather as a group to discuss our strengths and what we believe we are good at, this will help us to split the students into teams and maximise the effectiveness of the activities. By doing this initial workshop we will be able to put people in positions to shine and ensure they have examples to talk about in terms of how they can evidence the strengths they possess. Initially some students may be unaware of what their strengths are so through discussion we may be able to establish what they do have to offer or ensure that we vary the experience they have in Paris to be able to find their USP.

When returning we will have a workshop focused on articulation of skills and thinking about what we learned whilst in Paris, what we did and how we can use those experiences to assist in future recruitment processes. What interview examples now exist, what proficiencies can be confidently added to the CV and what extra opportunities have we now opened up that can be applied to in the future.

Cultural activities

Culture will be fully integrated into all elements of the trip. The task with Tanium on the first full day will involve navigating the city and enable the students to get a feel for where everything is, stumble across some hidden gems and see some of the cities most famous landmarks.

Students will also be given free time to explore the culture of Paris and could visit popular attractions, such as; the world famous Eiffel Tower and the residence of the former Kings of France, Le Palais de Versailles. Students could also visit the Basilica of Sacré Coeur de Montmartre, walk along the Champs-Élysées from the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe, or choose to go to the Louvre Museum.