Newcastle Building Society helping North East undergraduates prepare for working life
Published date: 31 January 2012
The North East’s largest building society has relaunched a programme to give undergraduates from two of the region’s universities the chance to get hands-on experience of working in a large commercial organisation.
Six undergraduates from Sunderland and Northumbria Universities have started year-long paid assignments with Newcastle Building Society which will give them the chance to find out what working life might be like for them after graduation.
The students are all in the third year of a variety of different degree courses, including Business with International Management and Advertising Management, and are now undertaking 52-week placements in different parts of the Newcastle’s operations.
The placements are designed to support their degree work through providing workplace experience that relates to their academic studies. A number of the participants in previous programmes have gone on to secure permanent positions with the Newcastle after graduation.
Megan O’Keefe, who is studying Business Studies at Northumbria University and undertaking her placement in the Newcastle’s Personnel team, says: “I decided to do a placement year in order to gain invaluable experience in a real business environment, and Newcastle Building Society seemed like the perfect place to do this as I really wanted to stay in Newcastle.”
“The knowledge that I gain throughout this year I hope will help secure me a successful career once I graduate. I believe that the experiences I have here will give me the edge over other graduates in terms of workplace experience, and also in research that I hope to use when writing my Dissertation in my final year.”
This undergraduate initiative is part of the Society’s aims to support the regional workers of tomorrow and to help them get the best start in their working life.
The students are now undertaking placements in the Society’s IT, Legal Services, Finance, Marketing and Human Resources functions.
Chris Jopling, HR executive at Newcastle Building Society, adds: “Getting hands-on experience of the jobs that they want to do has always been valuable in helping undergraduates get their first jobs after university. But in today’s difficult employment climate, it’s more important than ever for young people to make themselves stand out from the crowd.
“By providing this opportunity, we will hopefully give our placement students a good grounding in how a commercial organisation operates, as well as the chance to find out what they like about particular aspects of their roles and how they could contribute to their employer’s commercial success in a future full-time position.
“As a mutual organisation, it’s in the foundations of our organisation to try to provide a range of extra benefits for people living in the communities in which we operate, and we hope that all our placement students can utilise what they learn in their time with us in their future careers.”
For further information on the Newcastle’s range of products and services, please call 0845 600 4370 or visit www.newcastle.co.uk