Supporting student employees (development)

We've pulled together everything shared below into a Word document, so that you can copy-paste-send to your student.

In this, we advocate for them choosing what they feel is most appropriate, and have highlighted IN RED the areas where we offer your assistance- change and adapt this as you see fit.

To help them prepare effectively and grow in this aspect of their role, consider asking them what about public speaking they struggle with and see if you can't source opportunities for them to practice this in an environment they are comfortable in.

• Attend a speaking event, take notes on what they thought the presenter did/didn't do well- share back
• Mock presentations/run through (see detail in word doc)
• Small group discussions
• Supported speaking opportunities

Consider starting small, maybe getting them to design an elevator pitch for the project- this doubles as an activity to get more familiar with the project, and used to talking about it.

It might be useful to get them to check out Warwick Institute of Engagement, who offer training and support to enable staff and students to get involved in public engagement. There are a lot of overlap in public engagement and public speaking skills, and helpfully they have a section on

A useful place to start with your students may be on getting them to design a

Some top tips to share with your students:

• Know Your Material: Be well prepared. Understand your topic thoroughly so you can speak confidently and adapt if needed.

• Practice Regularly: Rehearse out loud, in front of a mirror, or record yourself. Practice helps build confidence and smooth delivery.

• Engage Your Audience: Make eye contact, ask questions, and use relatable examples to maintain attention and connection.

• Work on Your Body Language: Use gestures, stand confidently, and avoid distracting movements. Your posture speaks as much as your words.

• Manage Anxiety: Use breathing techniques, visualisation, and positive self-talk to reduce nerves before speaking.

• Start Strong, End Stronger: Craft a clear, impactful opening and a memorable conclusion to leave a lasting impression.

• Seek Feedback and Reflect: Ask for constructive criticism and watch recordings of your speeches to identify areas for improvement.

We've pulled together everything shared below into a Word document, so that you can copy-paste-send to your student.

In this, we advocate for them choosing what they feel is most appropriate, and have highlighted IN RED the areas where we offer your assistance- change and adapt this as you see fit. This template requires a lot more input from yourself, as it requires knowledge only you have around your stakeholders:

To help them prepare effectively and grow in this aspect of their role, consider:

• Discuss with them what stakeholders you hold in your project- you can also arrange introductory meetings with them, so your student can see how you interact with them
• Addressing any hierarchies/structures in place that they may need to know about
• Get them to shadow you in a meeting or a committee where you usually employ a level of stakeholder engagement- it may be useful to discuss this with them afterwards, and get any reflections from them.
• Share guidance on tone of voice in emails and meetings
• Discuss the role professionalism plays, and what that might look like in different settings- in team meetings, in the department, in the university, when engaging with others/out in the public

These may be more useful for yourself, to help consider how you would like to introduce this to your students.

We recommend addressing heriacies, policies and streuctures as part of their induction project context meeting:

We also talk through a potential activitiy around positionality, which we briefly talk through in our

Or try looking for online courses/sharing any you yourself have found useful. Staff and students get access to LinkedIn Learning, and there is an interesting playlist on

It might be useful to get them to check out Warwick Institute of Engagement, who offer training and support to enable staff and students to get involved in public engagement. They have a small section on professionalism

We've pulled together everything shared below into a Word document, so that you can copy-paste-send to your student.

In this, we advocate for them choosing what they feel is most appropriate, and have highlighted IN RED the areas where we offer your assistance- change and adapt this as you see fit.

To help them prepare effectively and grow in this aspect of their role, consider:

• Taking them along to networks that you yourself are a part of, especially ones that may benefit them in their role

• Encouraging them to source and find networks of their own
• Getting them to reflect on groups or areas they may already be networking, where they may not have realised it and talk through it with yourself
• Share the universities staff networking groups, and discuss any they might think are relevant to the project

Links mentioned above:

Some support offered at the univeristy around networking:

Networking tends to be synonymous with building and maintaining relationships. When talked about, it is often linked with career development and professional success. Whilst networking can be an intimidating concept, it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing process.

See it as:

• Building a set of connections that help you learn and progress
• Finding people who are interested in similar things, to help you build a support community.

Ultimately, that is the purpose of networking, although it can often feel disingenuous or false to some people who attend events designed specifically for networking.

Try approaching it as:

• A way to chat to some friendly faces

• A chance to get to know the context/environment that you’re in

It takes time to build up the skills to feel comfortable, much less confident, when going into ‘networking’ spaces- take your time!

There is also a few blog on top tips for students:

We've pulled together everything shared below into a Word document, so that you can copy-paste-send to your student.

In this, we advocate for them choosing what they feel is most appropriate, and have highlighted IN RED the areas where we offer your assistance- change and adapt this as you see fit.

To help them prepare effectively and grow in this aspect of their role, consider:

• Sharing how you undertake personal development, and track it

• Talk through what normally happens at the university (such as the personal development review) and how to get the most out of conversations like that
• Set them a task or activity to complete that expands on some of the skills shared here (see transferrable skills section)
• Share the Excel (see the resources tab) and get them to reflect on:
  • What achievements have they had so far
  • What skills do they have, need as part of this project or may want to explore to get to their next career milestone
  • What goals can they set to achieve these
  • How they might encounter barriers (SWOT analysis) and overcome them

Even if you aren't able to do all of these, consider sharing the personal development excel and encouraging them to consider using it/making something for themselves to help them track their achievements in their role so they can share these in future interviews.

Personal development excel tracker- the first tab contains 'how to' guidance for subsequent tabs:

Check out LinkedIn articles that you think are an accurate representation of personal development in your areas, there is a 'where to start' blog that might be a good starting place:

If you feel it is appropriate, you could share the University's PDR page, and their how to guide:

Personal development is incredibly personal, and specific to the individual- what it looks and feels like will depend on you.

Some top tips:

• Take it slow, and don't feel like there is a 'right' or 'wrong' way to do this
• Don't worry about other people, comparison only works when you're comparing to your past self
• Be honest, and not aspirational- don't only put down what you think sounds good, consider what 'good' looks like for you- what are you aiming for
• Don't overload the plan- too many goals can dilute focus. Prioritise a few key areas rather than trying to tackle everything at once.

We've pulled together everything shared below into a Word document, so that you can copy-paste-send to your student.

In this, we advocate for them choosing what they feel is most appropriate, and have highlighted IN RED the areas where we offer your assistance- change and adapt this as you see fit.

To help them prepare effectively and grow in this aspect of their role, consider:

• Sharing the skills matrix activity from the People team (see resources bellow) and encouraging them to follow the task

• Talking through the skills matrix activity with them, or what skills you think:
  • Student already have (and why you hired them as part of the role)
  • Skills you think they will naturally develop/work on as part of this role
  • Future skills that would be beneficial for them if they were to pursue this role/type of work further
• Encourage a reflective log, or a way of them tracking their progress (see personal development tracking) against the skills they have used as part of the project

Transferrable skills activity. The first button will take you to the instructions, the second will take you to the skills list, split into 4 different areas- creative, people, information, and things.

Chat GPT and other AI tools may be able to help generate skills lists that students want to reflect on!

We've pulled together everything shared below into a Word document, so that you can copy-paste-send to your student.

In this, we advocate for them choosing what they feel is most appropriate, and have highlighted IN RED the areas where we offer your assistance- change and adapt this as you see fit.

To help them prepare effectively and grow in this aspect of their role, consider:

• Sharing the tests in the resources section-encourage them to complete them

• Offer them some time to discuss their findings, and share any reflections/observations from the tests. Some questions could be:

  • Did the outcome surprise them? If it did/didn't- why?

  • As a result, is there anything they would like to try and implement in their work?

  • Are there skills/strengths they would like to work on, and how might they be able to do that within the remit of this project

  • If there are skills/strengths that lie outside of this work, encourage them to think about other opportunities they may want to pursue to develop them!

• Print a list of values/strengths, and talk through the ones you feel your students particularly embody.

Tests available for free/if they sign up with an email:

There is a list of values here that they may want to work through, and pull out the ones that speak to them:

The LMD team have personal value cards, that you may be able to borrow and work through. They are also available on Amazon:

Strengths are things that we are both good at and energise us, values are principles that are important to you.

You can use these to help you:

• Understand where you thrive
• Consider the environments and team/department/organisation/industry cultures that align with you or that you may want to work in
• Understand what kind of work or role you may want to go into

We've pulled together everything shared below into a Word document, so that you can copy-paste-send to your student.

In this, we advocate for them choosing what they feel is most appropriate, and have highlighted IN RED the areas where we offer your assistance- change and adapt this as you see fit.

To help them prepare effectively and grow in this aspect of their role, consider:

• Sharing with them key roles that you think they would benefit from shadowing

  • Consider how they could shadow those contacts, for how long, and what areas would be most beneficial for students to view
  • Consider asking those key roles directly if they would be willing to host your student for a paritcularlly relevant day/meeting/event

• Encourage them to reach out to people in the industry/similar roles to act as a mentor

• If previous students have held the role, ask them if they would consider acting as a mentor for your current student
• Sharing the mentoring resources below, and encouraging them to pursue coaching/mentoring

Email templates students may benefit from:

Many companies encourage their employees to do outreach work in the community, some companies even offer 1-2 days a year for an employee to do this. Consider encouraging your students to approach individuals via email or LinkedIn to ask if they would be willing to mentor them.

There are also other ways for them to source opportunities:

The leadership and management team have shared a Mentee Handbook:

We've pulled together everything shared below into a Word document, so that you can copy-paste-send to your student.

In this, we advocate for them choosing what they feel is most appropriate, and have highlighted IN RED the areas where we offer your assistance- change and adapt this as you see fit.

To help them prepare effectively and grow in this aspect of their role, consider:

• Inviting them to present at a 'low stakes' event or meeting, where they can practice presenting
  • Maybe at a weekly team meeting with other fellow students, talking about accomplishments
• Share your methods of building a presentation and presenting, and include anything that may help them better understand how things 'land' in your context
• Share the resources (section below) and encourage them to engage with them
• Offer up a 'mock' run-through of a presentation, so you can help them tailor the content and style

Also similar to public speaking- consider starting small, maybe getting them to design an elevator pitch for the project- this doubles as an activity to get more familiar with the project, and used to talking about it.

It might be useful to get them to check out Warwick Institute of Engagement, who offer training and support to enable staff and students to get involved in public engagement. There are a lot of overlap in public engagement and presentation skills.

Some of their online resources include:

Some tips to share with your students:

• Know Your Audience: Tailor your content, tone, and visuals to the needs and expectations of your listeners.
• Structure Your Content Clearly: Use a clear beginning (introduction), middle (key points), and end (summary or call to action). Stick to 3–5 main ideas for clarity.
• Use Visuals Wisely: Keep slides simple and clean. Use bullet points, images, and charts sparingly. Avoid overloading slides with text or animations.
• Practice, Don’t Memorise: Rehearse your flow and timing, but speak naturally rather than reciting a script.
• Engage with Your Audience: Ask questions, tell stories, and make eye contact to keep attention and create a connection. Not recommended for presentations during interviews.
• Manage Your Time: Respect time limits and make sure your key points are delivered early in case you run short.
• Handle Questions Confidently: Prepare for possible questions and be honest if you don’t know something, offer to follow up.
• Use Confident Body Language: Stand tall, use hand gestures for emphasis, and avoid fidgeting.
• Start and End Strong: Open with something memorable (fact, story, or question) and end with a strong takeaway.
• Use Feedback to Improve: Ask for feedback afterwards and review recordings if possible to refine your skills.

We've pulled together everything shared below into a Word document, so that you can copy-paste-send to your student.

In this, we advocate for them choosing what they feel is most appropriate, and have highlighted IN RED the areas where we offer your assistance- change and adapt this as you see fit.

To help them prepare effectively and grow in this aspect of their role, consider:

Encouraging students to engage with LinkedIn by:

• Make a profile (or update one if they have one already)
• Upload their achievements and a summary of their role
  • Encourage them to use things like their job description or share the job role listing from unitemps with them to draw inspiration from
• Write a post (and tag you in it)

Or alternatively, you could set them some reflective work to discuss with you:

• Get them to follow a professional in your area and have them reflect on what their posts are like- what is good about their profile or posts, do they use a specific style, is there anything they could use in their own posts
• Invite them to key groups you are a part of linked to the work they will be undertaking
• Read a few posts or top news stories and reflect on how and what they learnt from it

The leadership and management development team have created a set of guidance on LinkedIn:

The Student Opportunity team at the university occassionally offer 'Using LinkedIn Effectively for your Career' sessions, and they can check the latest events to see if one is happening in this term:

Some tips to share with your students:

• Try to create a complete profile- use a clear photo, a strong headline and a summary that highlights things like goals, skills and your passions
• Connect- start by connecting with classmates, professionals you know (always add a personalised note explaining why you want to connect)
• Follow companies and influencers- this can help you stay up to date on industries you're interested in (think about relevant companies, thought leaders and alumni groups)
• Engage where you can- like, comment and share posts that interest you, this will help the algorithm pick up and recommend more relevant posts or topics to you
• Share your own achievements and content- LinkedIn is a good place to keep track of your achievements and your qualifications, and some use it as a 'living CV'. It can a useful place to keep a log of things for you to remember or bring up in interviews!

• Use the job description to highlight key words and skills, and identify questions that relate to these.
• Think of common questions that may be asked. E.g. “What attracted you to this role?”.
• Web search the company to identify their values, ethos and culture, a question may arise related to this.
• Search common interview questions or difficult interview questions on Glassdoor or other search engines, and practice your responses to those you feel may come up.
• Can you think of any questions that may arise from your CV or Cover Letter? For example, explaining a break from employment or a change in sector?
• Research different types of interview questions, such as: background, motivational, strengths-based, commercial/sector awareness, salary expectations, and standard end-of-interview questions.

• Identify the type of interview to be prepared and manage your expectations. Is it In person? If it is a video interview is it live or pre-recorded?
• Use your list of predicted questions and type up or write your answers, review and edit these
• Use the STAR framework to write competency answers: Situation, Task, Action and Result. These are commonly about teamwork, communication, conflict/challenge, problem solving, and project management.
  • Situation: Breifly outline the general situation leading up to the action
  • Task: Explain what the specific task or action was
  • Action: A step-by step explanation of what you did (showing the skill involved)
  • Result: Outline the outcome and impact of your action
• STAR Tips: spend 70% of your time on the action section, clearly explaining what YOU did, don’t fall into the trap of saying ‘We’ all the time.
• When you’re asked to tell the interviewers about yourself, this is a good opportunity for them to get to know you, and for you to introduce your relevant experience. Use the rule of three to introduce your education, experience and why you’re interested in the role.
  • Education may include: Your course, motivation/interest in the course, where you studied, key skills or modules relevant to the role (2-3), may wish to discuss your final year project/ thesis.
  • Work should be in chronological order, oldest first. You should place more emphasis on the relevant and may wish to not mention old roles that are not the most relevant. Highlight around 3 skills developed from experiences and explain reasons between transitions.
  • Interest in the role can include what attracted you to the role, why you feel you will enjoy the role and be a good fit, and maybe what your future goals are (if they’re in the same company/role).
• Prepare some questions you may want to ask the interviewer(s) for when you’re asked, “Do you have any questions for me/us?”. Common questions include:
  • What does a typical day/week in the role look like?
  • “What are the key priorities or challenges in this role over the next 6 months?
  • What does success look like in this role?
  • Can you tell me more about the structure of the team and how it fits into the wider organisational structure?

• Practice, practice, practice: Have mock interviews with a careers advisor, friend or family member. Practice independently by recording yourself or in a mirror. Try using online free interview simulators.
• There is no need to commit to responses word-for-word, but the more you practice the more you’ll remember, identify ways to improve, and feel confident in the real thing.

Some tips to share with your students:

• In Shaun Achor’s Ted Talk he notes: “Only 25% of job successes are predicted by IQ, 75% of job successes are predicted by your optimism levels, your social support and your ability to see stress as a challenge instead of as a threat”
• Be optimistic and positive throughout the process, it is ok to be nervous but learned optimism will help during preparation and the real thing!

• Arrive early 10-15 minutes in person or 5-10 minutes online.

• Take a notebook in with you, with short bullet points on the questions you identified, may come up with a (short) version of your SMART responses. This should not be used to read from, but to refresh your memory while waiting for your interview and to glance at if needed during.

• Dress smartly, even if your interview is online

• Don’t forget the importance of body language! Smile when you greet your interviewers, sit or stand tall, make eye contact, and angle your body toward them.

• If you need a minute to think about an answer, ask the interviewer to repeat the question, have a drink of water or ask to come back to the question at the end.

• Does your interview require a presentation? Think about how you can develop your presentation skills.