King’s Careers & Employability runs different kinds of appointments for students and graduates. Let’s talk about what an application advice appointment is like and how you can maximise your experience when meeting with an application advisor.
Helping you build success
Maybe you already know a little about our currently virtual careers services. Our KEATS pages are your first point of information, support and guidance about careers that you have access to anytime, anywhere. Next, we encourage you to look into events and workshops to support you around your career journey.
If you feel that you would like further, one-to-one guidance in addition to using our other services, we have bookable appointments via King’s CareerConnect. There are several kinds of appointments that you can select and book to, depending on your current situation. Today, let’s talk about the application advice appointment. The following blog paragraphs have been written by our Application Adviser, Toslima Khatun.
What is an Application Advice Appointment and how can it benefit students?
Application advice appointments are 20-minute-long one-on-one meetings that are geared towards applying to specific roles or giving you the tools needed to start to write successful applications. It gives students a second pair of eyes to look at their covering letters and CVs. But this depends on the level that students are at – so do not worry if you are a complete beginner! We also help students with templates on how to start, the essentials, and how to begin if needed. Either way, if it’s advice on how to curate an application, CV or covering letter – we have you covered.
What can the students expect the experience to be like?
The appointment is very you-centric. So, it can be as slow or as fast as you need in that 20 minutes that you have booked. Some students really need to have a discussion on what they are applying to and their worries, others are very aware of where they want to be and what they need to do and just require a little assistance. We can facilitate both ends of the spectrum and the middle-ground too.
We will ask you at the beginning of the appointment what you need and how we can help. If you send us your application documents to our careers inbox (careers@kcl.ac.uk) beforehand, we can look at these together during the meeting. If you forget, we’ll figure something out and help you get the application documents shared within the meeting!
Then what happens is we will work together to try to make sure that you get all of the help you need (or refer you to someone else if we hit an obstacle or you require a second appointment). Usually, a second appointment is only required for students who had both a CV and covering letter and one or the other took too much time to do within 20 minutes. But there is no limit to the number of application advice appointments you can book in a term, so don’t be shy if you do need the help!
What is the best way to make the most of the appointment?
Communicate with your Application Adviser, be clear about what you need at the beginning of the 20 minutes. Also, do try and send your documents with a job specification to us before the appointment starts through the careers email address. This just means you can then not waste any time waiting on emails in your appointments. Sending us the job specification, if you are applying to a specific post, is integral for the appointment because it allows us to really help you match your application to what the employer is looking for and that way it puts you on the right track to exactly what they want to see. It makes the most of your time and always takes the guessing out of applying.
If you are applying to a post outside of the UK, make sure to tell us. This is just because the labour markets and how they recruit is different in each country. As a default, a lot of our information is UK-centric because of where we are! If you tell us we can then take out the information you need in your respective labour market.
Applying for jobs, internships or graduate schemes? You can really benefit from an application advice appointment. During the Autumn term, there are virtual appointments available on King’s CareerConnect every day between Monday and Friday and you can book an appointment for up to 48h in advance. It is wortht noting that we are very busy during this time of year. If at first you don’t find a free time for an appointment, you might need to re-visit the booking platform a few times more during the day and refresh in case there are cancellations.
Our other blogs on the Appointments series:
How to make the most of a Careers Guidance Appointment?