Mind the gap: how to deal with gaps in your employment history

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If you've been in employment for several years you will only be expected to include the highlights of your experience so small gaps may not really be an issue. Also a few months' hiatus between periods of employment can often be concealed through clever formatting - omitting the months and just showing the year. But if it's much longer than a few months you'll probably need to elucidate.

Do you care about the quality of your education?

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Let’s face it, if I asked you the question in the title directly, you’d answer “Yes” immediately. Similarly, if I asked you for an example of high quality education I’m sure you’d be able to give me at least one, even if it took a bit longer to think of it. But, if I then asked you why you’d chosen that example and why that education was ‘high quality’, the answer may not arrive before we’d given up on this conversation all together.

Don’t underestimate the importance of your personality

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So if you are a fun, friendly, caring person, show it; if you love helping others to learn, talk about that; if you are prepared to have a go at anything or are versatile and adaptable, give examples in answer to the 'Tell me about yourself' style questions; if you tend to think differently to others or are good at inspiring creative thinking in other people, describe those situations.

How do you do Scholarship?

Profile picture for user Rebecca Mameli

Scholarly activity is a key part of high quality higher education delivery. It can take many forms, for example research, conference/event attendance and /or delivery of presentations/workshops, consultancy to industry, curriculum development that involves literature searching or work with a Higher Education Institution, and industrial secondments.

Snapchat for your career

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For those who aren't already familiar, Snapchat is a smartphone app that allows users to quickly share 'snaps' containing photos and videos with friends and followers in their network. The USP is that, once opened, the snaps only stay on the recipient's feed for around 10 seconds before vanishing without a trace. However, creating Snapchat stories allows you to create and keep adding to something that will be available for 24 hours.

The Building Factory

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If we were able to bring a medieval carpenter forward in time and present them with a modern construction site, there is very little that would not be recognisable to our medieval friend. What might they see? A large, muddy area with a stack of materials on the ground; a number of people carrying things; people waiting for materials to be moved from one place to another; some machinery for lifting materials. And, if it started raining, most of the work would stop.

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