Referencing the Award
When you are drafting your job application it’s all about providing the most compelling evidence that you have the qualities required for that role.. You may believe you have the experience and skills you need, but so do many other graduates. So how do you really hammer home that you are the best choice for the job? One way is to reference the Warwick Award within your application and your CV or resume.
Purpose of the award, why the award was given, what does the award recognise?
The Warwick Award recognises the employability skills that a student has developed during their time at Warwick by engaging in a wide range of in-course and extra-curricular activities.
Students who have achieved a level of the Warwick Award will have focused on developing their experience and confidence in 12 core employability skills that employers have identified as valuable when they recruit early-stage graduate talent. These skills are: Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Self-Awareness, Communication, Teamwork, Information Literacy, Sustainability, Ethical Values, Digital Literacy, Intercultural Awareness, Organisational Awareness, and Professionalism.
The Award recognises the considerable investment made by a student in their own professional development whilst at university. The Warwick Award requires a minimum of 100 hours of skills development engagement, rising to a minimum of 300 hours for undergraduates who have achieved the gold award level during their time at Warwick.
How to include the Warwick Award in your CV or resume
You can include your Warwick Award in either the ‘experience’ or ‘education’ section of your CV. You should include the following details about the award to assist the reader:
Name of the award, the awarding body, and the year awarded.
Your award name will be one of the following and your awarding body is the University of Warwick.
- Warwick Award (Gold) – minimum 300 hours of activity for undergraduate students.
- Warwick Award (Silver) – minimum 150 hours of activity for undergraduate students.
- Warwick Award (Postgraduate) – minimum 100 hours of activity for master’s students.
- Warwick Award (Exchange) – minimum 100 hours of activity for incoming exchange students.
- Warwick Award (Apprentice) - minimum 100 hours of activity for apprentices and includes recognition for the skills developed in the workplace setting.
- Warwick Award (Foundation) - minimum 100 hours of activity. This level is aimed at all Foundation students.
It’s important to mention the number of hours of activity as this helps to convey the commitment that completing the award required.
It's useful to briefly explain what you did to achieve the Warwick Award. E.g.: ‘Awarded for volunteering, being a Departmental Student Representative, serving on the institutional teaching & learning review panels, and completing four extra online training courses’ or similar.
You may wish to go into more detail about some of these aspects if they provide particularly strong evidence that you have demonstrated a skill which an employer is looking for.
You can access a wide range of resources to support you in writing a CV through our careers service. You can also book an Application Review Appointment to help you write about your award in your CV.
Job interviews
Your job interviews are another opportunity to sell yourself and an effective way to do this is through talking about your Warwick Award accomplishments. Select the most relevant skills development activities that you participated in and connect them to the specified job requirements to demonstrate your suitability for the role.
To help with this, remember that stories are powerful. Prepare a set of interesting stories about how you improved your employability skills during your Warwick Award participation explaining how your expertise and confidence has improved over the last few years and give specific examples drawing on the activities you engaged in. It is a good opportunity to demonstrate that you can grasp new ideas and concepts and put them to practical use.
You can find more information around how to prepare for interviews and create these stories via our Careers Service.
If you’d like to practise answering questions or talk with a member of the Careers Team about interviews, you can also book a mock interview through the Careers Service's Guidance appointments. WBS students can access similar support via CareersPlus.
Who can I contact for more information?
Please email skills@warwick.ac.uk with any questions and we will get back to you.
