By Jenny Hammond, Careers and Employability Adviser

How is your CV looking? We realise that things have been challenging during the pandemic and it hasn’t necessarily been easy to get experience.  If you feel there’s more white space than you would ideally like, take the opportunity now to change this!

Take a look at the following options to help fill that white space on your CV:

1. Complete an online internship. Online platforms such as Forage and the Bright Network host some great remote internships that can usually be completed within five or six hours and anyone can sign up for.
2. Try applying speculatively to employers for some work experience or work shadowing. Many organisations are much more open to this approach again.
3. Fancy doing a free or low cost course? Online platforms such as Futurelearn, Coursera, Udemy or Google Digital Garage offer a wide variety of courses, many of which can be completed at your own pace. List these under the headings ‘courses’ or ‘training’.
4. Keep an eye out for internships and graduate opportunities from LJMU’s Graduate Futures.
5. Stay informed about your chosen industry by reading news updates, following relevant organisations on social media, listening to podcasts, and subscribing to relevant newsletters. Add this to the ‘additional information’ section.
6. Reach out to people in industries you’re interested in and see if you can set up a remote (or in person) chat or ‘informational interview’ to find out more about their role and sector. Add this to the ‘additional information’ section.
7. Look out for networking events in your sector or join groups full of people with similar interests to you. Look at our events page, on professional organisations’ websites, and on sites such as Eventbrite.com and Meetup.com.
8. Get involved with volunteering. Look for opportunities on websites such as Do It and the JMSU volunteering page.
9. Think about learning a new language and add this to the ‘interests’ or extra-curricular activities’ section. There are loads of great apps around, many of which are free such as DuoLingo.
10. Take up a new hobby and add this to the ‘interests’ or ‘additional information’ section.

Get in touch with us if you would like to talk more about this!