Part-Time Work: What are the benefits of working and studying?

Recent graduates Lucia Olmos and Alexandra Toma tell us about their experience working as Careers Engagement Assistants, here at the King’s Career and Employability team.

Having a part-time job while studying has a myriad of benefits. It can help you earn some extra money; you gain work experience (much coveted by employers), and it gives you the opportunity to develop essential skills that will help you when you join the workforce full-time – Lucia Olmos (MSc Digital Marketing)

What does it mean to be a Careers Engagement Assistant?

CEA Alexandra Toma

I joined King’s Careers and Employability last September as a Careers Engagement Assistant (CEA), becoming a member of the marketing team. As a CEA, you oversee many different activities such as supporting events, managing social media, design work by creating posters and flyers among others. However, one of your main responsibilities will be supporting one faculty. In my case I was responsible for the Law Faculty, which entailed creating and uploading the weekly Newsletter with events and job opportunities for students, managing the social media account and being in touch with different law societies to promote their events.

All of this was a great opportunity to learn more about marketing and given that I was studying my MSc in Digital Marketing, it also allowed me to make connections between my classes and applying it on the job. Additionally, being part of the King’s Careers and Employability team gives you so many perks! You are the first to know all about the different career events that will happen throughout the year, learning about the different resources that are available to students and being able to talk to the career consultants. Some of the resources I discovered and found extremely useful were the different career appointments, the electronic resources such as the Career Kit, Lynda, and the mentoring scheme, plus learning all about the different King’s Awards that you can do while completing your studies.

Even though all this already sounds pretty amazing, the cherry on the cake is the team you get to work with. I have to say that everyone working at the C&E department is like a big family, they are all very caring and make you feel welcome from day one (plus they occasionally have bake-offs so plenty of desserts). You will get to know really amazing people that will encourage you to keep on growing and learning.

Overall working while studying is an amazing opportunity, especially if it is at your own college which means that you don’t need to worry about the commute. They understand that you are a student, therefore your work schedule will be flexible around your classes. All of this will help you become more structured, improve team working and communication skills, help you save some extra money, network and build relationships with your co-workers, give you work experience for your CV and it will give you a sense of independence! Need more convincing? All these skills will help you in the future and are easily transferable to another position.

“You just need to remember to have a healthy balance between work, study and social life.” – Lucia

How has being a CEA enhanced my skills?

When you first hear “Careers Engagement Assistant”, you are probably not quite sure what to expect from the job. But I can tell you from my personal experience that you will gain a lot of useful skills in different areas. You will be part of the marketing team, which would be around 5-6 people, and of course the wider King’s Careers & Employability team – Alexandra Toma (Bachelor of Science Business Management)

Personally, I was responsible for the Faculty of Mathematical & Natural Sciences (MNS) and King’s Business School (KBS), which means that I had the chance to expand my network within the university and to interact with students and staff from these faculties. Other responsibilities included graphic design work, social media posting, blog writing and, one of my personal favorites: fun brainstorming meetings with the team to come up with new ideas for our marketing strategy. The team is very supportive of your development, so you will have the chance to work around the skills you want to develop the most. You will work directly with some very inspiring people, who will not only teach you more about the right way to think about careers but will also support you through your personal development. Sometimes, you can adapt some of the tasks you have to do according to your preferences and interests: say for example you are passionate about blog writing and story-telling – then you can pick up more of that.

Personally, I am interested in data analysis/ data-driven decision making and I was fortunate enough to be given more work around analysing the social media insights and writing reports based on that. Towards the end of my time at King’s Careers, I even had the opportunity to present some of our findings at one of the whole team meetings together with my manager Ellie.

Supporting at events is another part of the job that I thoroughly enjoyed. You get to really understand the work that goes on ‘behind the scenes’ and it brings you closer to your other team-mates. Also, you get the chance to meet employers and to learn about what they are looking for in a potential employee.

So if you are looking for an amazing part-time opportunity to enrich your experience whilst studying, apply to become a CEA! You will definitely learn many skills and I can guarantee that you will really enjoy it!