← Engineering Student Portfolio
Stage 4 of 5
Final year: get ready for the real world
Your degree is nearly done, and the next step is close. This year is about knowing yourself honestly, learning how recruitment works, and building the skills that will carry you through your career, including how to handle rejection.
1. Know yourself
List your strengths and weaknesses
Write an honest list. Use your portfolio: your best entries show your strengths, and your thinnest areas show your weaknesses. Employers will ask about both, and knowing them helps you choose where to apply and what to work on.
It is good to have interests, but the real world may not offer you exactly what you want, straight away. Be open to roles that are close to your interests: many engineers find their place a few years into their career, not on day one.
Portfolio entry: “My three strengths, with evidence for each, and my two biggest areas to develop, with a plan.”
2. Your CV
Get the basics right
By now you should know the rudiments of a good CV: clear, honest, easy to scan, and focused on what you did and what you achieved. Use specific examples from your portfolio, such as projects, placements, lab work and responsibilities. Ask your university careers service to review it, and tailor it to every application.
3. How recruitment works
Expect several hurdles
Getting your first job is often the hardest step. Many employers, especially those with graduate schemes, use several stages before an interview:
Online tests
Multiple-choice tests of numerical, verbal or logical reasoning, often timed.
Situational judgement
Questions on how you would act in workplace situations.
Interviews
Video and in-person interviews, where your examples and your communication matter most.
Assessment centres
Group tasks, presentations and interviews in one day.
Practice helps
Many practice tests are available online, and your careers service may offer more.
Know the company
Research what it does, its projects and its values before every stage.
4. A strategy for applying
Apply with a plan, not in a panic
- Start early. Many graduate schemes open early in the final year and close when they are full.
- Quality over quantity. A few tailored applications usually do better than many copied ones.
- Keep a tracker: company, role, deadline, stage reached and feedback received.
- Use your network. The people you met at talks, fairs and placements can tell you about roles and how to stand out.
5. Rejection and feedback
Rejection is part of the process
Almost everyone is rejected many times before they are offered a role. It is not a judgement of your worth. Allow yourself to be disappointed, then ask: what can I learn from this? Ask for feedback when it is offered, note it in your tracker, and change one thing in your next application. The students who keep improving are the ones who get through.
6. Skills for the rest of your career
Learn how to keep learning
Research
Find what you need online, and judge whether a source can be trusted.
Good papers
Use your library databases and search tools for peer-reviewed research, and read the abstract and conclusions first.
Self-learning
Teach yourself a new tool or topic from scratch. You will do this for the rest of your career.
Communication
Write clearly and present with confidence. It matters as much as technical skill.
Interpersonal skills
Listen, work with people unlike you, and handle disagreement calmly.
Know the industry
Read industry news, and learn the challenges your field faces today.
Your individual project or dissertation is the perfect place to practise all of these. Write portfolio entries at its start, middle and end.
If you are an apprentice, your final assessment (in England, the end-point assessment) is your equivalent: use your portfolio entries as evidence for it.
Before you graduate
Protect your portfolio
Copy everything stored in a university account to a personal one before your access ends. Pick your best entries, tag them A to E, and use them in your applications and interviews.
By the end of final year
Signs you are ready for the next step
Tick the ones that feel true. Your ticks are saved in this browser.
Keep going
Your portfolio is your evidence
Use your best entries in every application and interview.
Get the free template