Employer engagement opportunities

Raise your profile to attract our enthusiastic and diverse students
Employer Engagement OpportunitiesAttract the brightest talent - supporting you to access our students and graduates

Employer engagement opportunities

Raise your profile to attract our enthusiastic and diverse students
Contact one of the team today to discuss how we can support your recruitment needs or how we can help raise the profile of your organisation on campus:Telephone: +44 1752 587729

Email: employers.careers@plymouth.ac.uk
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We look forward to hearing from you!

A warm welcome from the Employer Engagement Team

Connecting employers with our talented students and graduates
Our dedicated Employer Engagement Team work in partnership with employers, offering a tailored service depending on your business requirements and objectives. 
Explore this page for an overview of our activities and we look forward to talking these through with you in more detail. With a wealth of experience between us you are in safe hands.

Advertising vacancies
is our online platform where you can advertise opportunities free of charge to all 鶹ýӳ students and registered graduates.
The types of vacancies you can advertise include:
  • placements/year in industry
  • graduate jobs/schemes. 
  • part-time/casual roles
  • short-term internships
Voluntary roles with registered charities should be emailed to volunteer@su.plymouth.ac.uk.
Please see our vacancy terms and conditions for more details.
Many students and graduates seek roles with employers whose values align with their own. To capitalise on this, ensure your vacancy mentions your values, ED&I policy and make it clear if applications are welcomed from international students.
to add, preview, update and delete your vacancies as required. When registering, select to receive emails to get our Employer Newsletter showcasing events and opportunities for you to engage with.

Careers fairs and themed weeks

Careers fairs

Exhibiting at a careers fair is a great way for businesses to raise their profile and promote opportunities directly to our students. Situated in our spacious Rolle Marquee, our careers fairs provide the ideal arena for you to meet and talk to students from varying courses who are actively seeking work opportunities. 
Visit our dedicated careers fairs webpage for more information and how to book to exhibit.

Themed recruitment weeks

Our themed weeks consist of our Part-time Jobs and Work Experience Week and our Summer Opportunities Week. Both weeks include a programme of activities to help students boost their employability skills.
View our dedicated themed recruitment weeks webpage for more information and how to book to exhibit.

Sponsorship

Sponsoring one of our careers activities is a great way to raise your profile, putting your brand front and centre. We can identify which activity would best align to your objectives and talk through the benefits and costs of sponsorship.
Employers and careers fair

Internships and placements
Whether you’re looking to host a micro-internship project, offer a short-term internship or recruit a placement student, we can help you connect with talented students, ready to make an impact. Our students bring fresh ideas, current knowledge and valuable skills to organisations of all sizes, while our dedicated team provides support throughout the process.  
Explore the different opportunities available and find the option that best meets your organisation’s needs on our employer engagement opportunities: Internships and placements page.

Presentations and drop-ins

Presentations

Employer presentations are an opportunity for organisations to come onto campus or host a virtual presentation, to engage with a targeted group of students. Organisations find these a useful way to promote their organisation’s values, career opportunities and culture, as well as providing top tips for their application and interview process.   
Price to exhibit is based on company size: 
  • Charity, Not-for-Profit organisations (including.gov.uk) and Micros (1-10 employees): FREE
  • SMEs (11-250 employees) and Professional Bodies: £75+VAT [£90]
  • Large companies (+250 employees) and Recruitment Agencies: £100+VAT [£120]

Drop-in sessions

For those who wish to talk to students from a wide range of courses and stages and/or are looking to recruit a number of positions, our drop-in sessions are a good option. Your stand would be located inside the Charles Seale Hayne Library entrance foyer, and adjacent to the Student and Career Hubs. This location positions you perfectly to engage with our students as they move in and out of the building.
We suggest booking a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday in October, November, February or March, but we can accommodate alternative dates if required. The stand will be yours from 11am–2pm.
To get the most out of this activity you need to be proactive in engaging with the students as they pass by. We provide you with a table and 2 chairs, and there is space for you to bring your banner and promotional materials – interactive stands are always popular and draw students attention! 
This event is free of charge.

Booking information

For more information, or to book these activities, please email us and we will send you the booking form.
Employer drop-in stand

Supporting skills development

Career Conversations: Round table networking

As a professional in your sector, your career journey and job role will be of interest to our students just embarking on their journeys. During our Career Conversations sessions, we invite professionals to come to campus to talk to our students informally in a round table setting. Professionals rotate between tables to ensure every student gets to hear and learn about each career journey and job role. During the session, students will get to practice networking, discover career paths perhaps not previously considered and increase their confidence.
Students find this informal networking session less daunting than traditional networking and can more freely ask questions.
“I liked being able to have specific conversations about topics rather than general topics… a lot more informative and helpful.”
“Loved the small groups, was able to ask more personal questions to provide better answers. Really helped me understand what I need to get where I want to go.”
If you would like to find out more and discuss possible topics of interest, then we would welcome a phone call to chat this through in more detail.

Skills weeks

Would you like to run a workshop or host a presentation during one of our themed skills weeks? The theme for 26/27 is “Professional Identity”, helping our students to gain a wealth of skills around this topic. This year our skills weeks will run:
Monday 16 – Friday 20 November 2026 | Rolle 605
Monday 12 – Friday 16 April 2027 | Rolle Marquee

Skills sessions

If you would like to deliver a skills-based session, we welcome ideas that complement our existing offer or provide sector-specific insights to enhance students’ knowledge and expertise.
Recent labour market research highlights demand for support in areas such as confidence, communication, commercial awareness, self-motivation and resilience (, 2024).
If you have an idea for a particular skill development session you would like to offer to run, please get in touch.

Bespoke events

We are happy to accommodate bespoke events and activities. Get in touch with us and we will work with you to find the best space on campus for your unique activity and promote your presence.

Networking

We run two networking evenings annually – open to our employer network and university staff as well as our placement students, micro-interns and mentees. These networking events are a great way to connect with professionals, and meet students developing their networking skills, in a supportive environment. 
Join us for our ‘Not-So-Scary networking event’ taking place on Thursday 19 November 2026, 5:30pm – 7:30pm and Wednesday 5 May 2027, 5:30pm – 7:30pm. 

Booking information

For more information or to get involved with supporting our students through these skills development activities, please get in touch – employers.careers@plymouth.ac.uk.

Careers Mentoring Programme
The Mentoring Programme is an employability related programme, which has two specific objectives: raising aspirations and improving employability. Mentoring provides a fantastic opportunity to share relevant career sector and employability focussed advice and guidance.
But why become a mentor? 
  • to give back to the next generation 
  • to provide advice and guidance 
  • to share knowledge and support others 
  • to maintain and develop networking links 
  • to gain new perspectives and fresh ideas
  • to develop your own CPD.
All we ask is that you can offer 4 sessions across a 6-month period. 
On completion of the programme, you will receive a Career mentoring programme digital badge, showcasing your commitment to your personal and career development. Learn more about the benefits of digital badging.
All our programmes include optional training, events, a digital handbook and support throughout. For more information, please see our become a mentor on the Careers Mentoring Programme page.
For more information, please email: mentoring.careers@plymouth.ac.uk.
To attract the best applicants, you need to make your organisation the one of choice by showcasing your core values. When asked, students highly rate diversity, flexible/hybrid working and sustainability.
The Employer Engagement Team have brought together resources to help inform you.

Engaging with other University services
As well as working with the Careers Service, your organisation could benefit from connecting and collaborating with the wider University. There are numerous ways to benefit from our resources and expertise including accessing equipment and facilities, connecting with our research and engaging in professional development.
Examples include:
A wide range of business services can be explored via Innovation.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)
Be an organisation of choice!
The University recognises that by valuing each other’s varied contributions we can all achieve more. That is why we support a diverse community through our equality plan, which identifies the work we’re already doing to support under-represented groups of students, whilst setting new challenges and goals for the future.
For the Employer Engagement Team, there is a strong link with many organisations we work with, who have a current focus on EDI and are embracing a range of ways to increase their social diversity. For some organisations, they will already be very comfortable with EDI. For others, this may be a subject they are less familiar with or are at the early stages of embedding within the organisation’s culture and strategy.
Regardless of where you are with your EDI journey, we are here to help! We have developed a useful Good Practice Guide, beneficial to all of our organisations. As well as providing an overview of EDI and the benefits it can bring to an organisation, there are also some top tips and easy steps for embedding EDI within your organisation.

Recruiting international students
It's easier than you think
鶹ýӳ is proud to have a diverse and growing international student population and this  brings many benefits to our vibrant and inclusive University campus. 
Upon finishing their studies, many of our international graduates look to continue their career in the UK and will be proactively looking for employment opportunities.
Recruiting an international graduate is much easier with the new Graduate Visa not requiring the employer to be a sponsor, as well as a simplified Skilled Worker Visa option.
Employer recruitment guide: To help demystify the process of recruiting an international graduate, here are two excellent resources available to you (for free), compiled by the International Student Employability Group.
  1. (an infographic resource detailing the information on the ‘Graduate route’, the ‘Skilled Worker route’ and ‘Benefits to Business’.
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SME business support
We recognise that SMEs may face different time, resource and budget challenges compared to larger organisations, when it comes to recruitment. Our team is here to listen and advise you where we can, and although all the activities listed elsewhere on this webpage are open to all types and sizes of business, we have several initiatives in place to make our activities and services more accessible:
  • pricing based on organisation size/type
  • free vacancy promotion on our online portal
  • opportunities to be a part of our online panel events, helping raise your organisation’s profile to our students
  • advice on salary for placements and graduate roles.
Stay in the loop
Consider signing up to receive emails from these local business groups to hear about funding opportunities, training and more:
Register on and agree to emails to receive our Employer E-newsletter periodically through the year highlighting activities and opportunities available to you.
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  • Local Chamber of Commerce groups are also worth considering joining.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Employer Engagement Team