Who are your students, and what sort of work is suitable?

Our students join the programme from all faculties - Arts, Social Sciences, and Science, Engineering and Medicine - so their interests are very broad. Most will be in their penultimate year, or finalists, but there will also be some keen first and second years ready to convince you how they can add value. For very technical or niche skills, there will naturally be a smaller cohort of suitably qualified/experienced students, so it's worth checking if we offer this area of study... but remember that some skills (e.g. coding) are also seen as hobbies and may be 'hidden' in unlikely places! Our most popular occupations are in: Advertising, PR and Marketing, Administration, Information Technology, Engineering and Manufacturing, Education, Publishing, Media and Performing Arts, Creative Arts and Design, Charity and Development Work.

Warwick’s student population includes around 28% Student Visa Holders (International students), who can bring diversity and a global perspective to your business. International students may have visa restrictions that differ from UK students, including limited working hours before 4th July, when the University's Summer Vacation officially begins. It is the student’s responsibility to abide by their visa, and your responsibility as an employer to check you understand any restrictions as part of checking potential employees’ right to work in the UK.

You might offer the chance to undertake a research project, investigate and develop a new process, service, product or market, or address a specific business challenge in any area. The role may also include elements of assisting in larger projects although this should always include specific tasks or roles for the intern. The intern must receive a learning experience that adds value to their CV, and further develops their skills and employability rather than, for example, ad hoc general clerical work across a large team.

You may advertise up to a maximum of two different roles, and any one organisation may be allocated up to two Grants. Each role may only be for one intern. Funding is allocated to a role, not to an organisation, so you could be allocated up to two grants in total, if you recruit to each and are successful in your funding applications.

A good WIP internship:

• Can be worked remotely if required
• Includes a defined set of objectives that require the intern to take ownership over delivery, with appropriate supervision
• Combines specific task and role experience, promoting broader organisation, sector and commercial awareness
• Provides a well-supported and appropriately-managed learning opportunity
• Includes an induction, training, regular reviews, line management support, appropriate workplace and facilities

Creating a WIP-approved vacancy on our myAdvantage system: by Monday 7th March

You may submit two roles. Develop your internship job description by preparing it on our WIP 2022 Internship Vacancy template, which includes WIP-specific text and instructions.

The template exactly matches the online form you’ll complete to create your vacancy on myAdvantage, our jobs portal. You may also want to refer to our guidance on advertising to students, to make your advert stand out. There are hundreds of new vacancies on myAdvantage every week, so we won’t know to include your vacancy unless you use the template's set text around your own.

We'll review your vacancy and send bespoke feedback, including any corrections to fit your vacancy to the programme, and any recommendations for how it can be improved. We recommend you look out for this email so you are ready to agree or discuss any changes - please add placementlearning@warwick.ac.uk to your Trusted Contacts to prevent these important communications going into your Spam folder!

We will be in touch during the vacancy approval process to ensure that the opportunities are attractive and provide a high quality experience for you and our students. Vacancies will be open for application following this short process – you will be alerted by email when it is approved. Vacancies go live to students on 12th March.

Shortlisting and selecting internship candidates: from Monday 28th March

Students will apply directly to your organisation via the application instructions you have provided in the vacancy.  

Once your vacancy closes, you’ll follow your own internal recruitment processes – you may find it useful to refer to Warwick’s Internships, Placements & Work Experience website which provides guidance about shortlisting and selection. You are responsible for checking their proof of Right to Work as with any other recruitment process, but you also need to check that you only take forward a candidate who is:

• a Warwick student
• in possession of a UK bank account for payroll purposes
• an undergraduate (e.g. studying an BA, BSc BABSc) or integrated undergraduate masters (e.g. MBio, MChem, MEng, MMath, MMathPhys, MMathStat, MMORSE, MPhys), as opposed to an MSc, MA, MBA or PhD.
• able to start a WIP internship the week commencing 27 June 2022 (UK & EU Settlement Scheme students) or 04 July 2022 (Student Visa holders)

Please take the time to consider if you are able to offer the internship to your candidate if WIP funding is not allocated to you. If an offer would be conditional on WIP funding, please ensure that you communicate this clearly to applicants at the interview stage.  

If you already have a recruitment feedback process in place, please continue to use your current feedback method to support our students. If you do not, you can refer to our brief application and interview feedback templates. This greatly enhances our students’ learning from the experience, improving their future applications and raising their awareness of market standards.  

Applying for funding: from Monday 4th April

Once your recruitment process has finished, please complete our Recruitment Outcomes form (goes live 4th April) regardless of whether you successfully recruited or not. We use the time stamp on this form to allocate funding on a "first come, first-served" basis, so it's really important to fill this in as soon as your candidate accepts.  

If you successfully recruit a candidate, ensure that the student has accepted your offer to your satisfaction (verbal or written), and prompt them to complete our Student Internship Offer Acceptance (goes live 4th April), so that we have confirmation from both parties. Both forms require you to reference the Vacancy ID visible at the end of the Vacancy’s published name on myAdvantage. 

Once a Recruitment Outcome and matching Student Acceptance form are received, the Internship Development Team will check there is sufficient funding and, if so, allocate a portion of our funding to your internship as a Grant.

We aim to update both you and the student as quickly as we can, but delays are possible due to internal financial processes, so in all instances we will contact you regarding grant allocation within 2 weeks of a receipt of a Recruitment Outcome and corresponding Student Acceptance form. 

Funding decisions will be communicated on receipt of confirmation from both employer and student that an intern has been successfully recruited to the role, funding is limited to around 45 internships, and terms and conditions apply.

After the funding decision

• If you have been allocated funding, your funding decision email will ask you to accept or decline our funding by reply, and to update your candidate accordingly. You will be sent a WIP Agreement, which sets out expectations across all three parties: the intern, your organisation, and the University. It also details the Grant conditions.
• If you have not been allocated funding, you will need to decide whether to go ahead with your internship, supported instead by our team's advice and guidance. Your intern's learning will be supported in exactly the same way via our Learning & Development moodle course, and we will be available by email or Teams call to help you with any queries or challenges. Either way, we will ask you to confirm whether or not to include your internship in communications for the summer, and to update your candidate accordingly. If you choose not to move ahead with the internship, we will ask for your feedback on the experience, and discuss any available options for supporting your organisation in another way.

If you are moving ahead with the internship, either through WIP funding or your own, you will need to click through the Internship phase of the programme website, to find out more about your internship Agreement, onboarding, and the Grant payment process.

WIP process and timeline

Please note that you must be able to commit to all stages and dates specified in the diagram below in order to take part in WIP 2022.