In an increasingly competitive jobs market, real-life experience is critical to students.

The University recognises this and offering more and more opportunities for students to experience the world of work while completing their studies.

Placement student at Deloitte

Within Birmingham Business School we are utilising links with industry, successful alumni and partners in the Midlands region, to give students the best possible experiences.

Launched last year, the Professional Development module is offered to final year undergraduate students who don’t have the opportunity to undertake a work-placement as part of their degree. They are able to arrange their own experience or alternatively work with the University’s dedicated placements team to find a position.

Students spend at least 40 hours within the workplace and complete a journal and work-based project during their placement which goes directly towards their final degree mark. Previous placement providers have included Santander, Business Growth Fund and Birmingham City Council. Feedback has been excellent so far, with both students and placement providers enjoying the experience.

Henrik Court, Director of Events at Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce worked with student Laura Ellsmore. He said:

Laura spent 40 hours working with us on an analytical project looking at a number of aspects related to events. The results of Laura’s work were used to confirm what had previously been just intuitive beliefs and also revealed some new findings that have since been considered in our work. Laura was a pleasure to work with and it proved to be a mutually beneficial experience.

How can you get involved?

Would you be interested in finding out more? We are already working with our alumni to offer placements for our students and would love to work with more in the future.

We are also looking for organisations which can offer marketing consultancy projects for our postgraduate marketing courses.