This blog is written by SDN Senior Associate, Phil Golding.
As the new academic year begins with fresh-faced T Level students, it can be easy to focus all your attention in these first few months on helping your new cohort settle in, get up to speed with curriculum content and start exploring employability skills.
However… the race to secure T Level industry placements has already begun – and it’s a marathon, not a sprint!
It takes time to build those meaningful relationships with employers and get commitment over the line. This is why it’s important to make plenty of time this term to reach out to employers, begin those conversations and secure commitment for later in the year (and the subsequent years ahead!).
In this blog post, we give you three top tips to help you kick start those conversations and provide a link to a free Continuous Professional Development (CPD) programme for Employer Engagement staff…
Map your existing employer relations
Start with the familiar. Your school or college already has a network of relationships with local businesses and alumni. These existing connections are potential gold mines for placements.
Work with colleagues to identify where you already have relationships. This could be through contractors – like caterers, IT suppliers, after school clubs and more. It could be through staff spouses who own businesses or work in HR roles locally.
By starting with the familiar, you are talking to people that already have a connection with your school or college so are more likely to listen and engage.
Use this free resource to map your existing employer relationships.
Don’t give up at the first hurdle
Whilst it’s great to contact employers you have existing relationship with, you’re likely to have to approach employers cold too. Lots of people will send out an email or call a business once, and take silence as disinterest. But you shouldn’t – persistence pays off!
If you think about it, most employers and HR managers are swamped with their day-to-day operations. Your first email or call might get highlighted to follow up on at a later date, but eventually slips down the inbox as more pressing matters occur.
By crafting a series of emails or newsletter (or both!) that gently nudge and remind employers of your offer, will get you more intro meetings in the diary.
Why not check out these free email templates that you can adapt and use to send to employers you don’t have an existing relationship with.
Know your onions
Great – you’ve finally got some new employers to talk to about industry placements in detail – you now need to convince those employers industry placements are beneficial for their business and get commitment over the line.
Before you go into these meetings, it’s vital that you not only speak their language and understand their sector, but can answer their questions too.
“Why are the placements block release?”, “What have students already learned?”, “What tasks will they be able to do?”.
To help you prepare, ask your curriculum teams the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of the placement structure, what students learn before placements, and how it all aligns with industry needs.
When you know the details, you can confidently communicate the business benefits to potential employers, turning curiosity into commitment.
For a matrix of killer questions to ask curriculum staff, download this free Questions to ask curriculum resource.
Free CPD to help you secure high-quality industry placements…
There isn’t an out of the box model to securing industry placements. It is challenging and time consuming, but creative and extremely rewarding too… ultimately, it is your efforts that help students into their chosen industry for the very first time!
If you work in an employer engagement role and want to get ideas, inspiration, advice and links to far more free resources (plus connections with peers), sign up for the DfE’s free CPD Programme this term, delivered by SDN:
Employer Engagement CPD programme
“The programme was the best training I have ever completed in my current role. Lots of great ideas and I loved the fact the slides were sent afterwards so you didn’t have to take notes and miss what was being said.”
Book now to secure your place.
Plus, why not join over 1,000 like-minded people and follow the T Level Employer Engagement Forum on LinkedIn.