The Blog

5 Things You Should Do This Summer

students_festival_v2Even if your job-hunting endeavours seem to be floating towards a messy looking creek and you’ve mislaid your paddle, you can’t spend 100% of your spare time fretting and fussing. Obviously, 90% probably wouldn’t hurt, but it’s certainly worthwhile, even essential, to give yourself some opportunity to re-charge and/or take some time to try something new. You’re young, enjoy yourself! Below are a selection of cheerful diversions for the Summer months – beats Facebook, right? Read the rest of this entry »

Play.com Vouchers Giveaway

play_com_logoIt’s competition time again. This time we’re giving one lucky student the chance to win a £50 Play.com gift voucher! It’s a generious prize and it’s a timely giveaway too,  as means you can stock up on your favourite games, music, DVDs, or perhaps a JLS concert ticket in prepartion for some serious summer fun. We’ve been big fans of Play.com since it’s initial inception in 1998, as it offered a competitive way to buy CDs and DVDs without the worry of paying for annooying delivery costs. Since then it’s grown to be one of the largest online retailers in the UK.

Competition Details – “Retweet the Competition on Twitter”

Unless you’ve had your head buried in sand for the past year or so you probably know what a “retweet” is. But just in case…

What is a retweet (often expressed as RT on Twitter)? A retweet is when you share someone else’s tweet with your followers.

Here’s how to enter the competition:

1. Follow @frlstudents on Twitter

2. Retweet this competition by Clicking This Link (note you must click this link)

Now, there’s one unfortunate caveat. The competition is only open to FreelanceStudents members that are UK residents, due to shipping costs for international rates. Additionally, by entering the competition we reserve the right to publish the name, university, and town of the winners on FreelanceStudents.co.uk. Note we will never publish your full name.

Competition ends at 5pm Friday 4th June 2010.

The Top Social Networking Sites for Students

share_button_v1Ah, nostalgia. I remember tipping up to University back in 2005 – all fresh faced, badly dressed, and certainly by no means web savvy. Ofcourse, back then you didn’t need to be; the most complex thing I needed to know how to do was upload my latest preening, doe-eyed Myspace profile picture. Yup, back in those days there was no Twitter, LinkedIn was in its infancy, and (whisper it), Facebook had yet to achieve world domination. It barely seems possible. Anyway, fast forward to the ‘Tennies’ and the world seems a very different place. Social networking is now an unavoidable reality of modern life, so you’d better be prepared to use it to your advantage. The below is a brief outline of what the biggies can do for you. Read the rest of this entry »

FreelanceStudents wins Natwest special prize at the Smarta 100 awards

smartaBack in February of this year, FreelanceStudents was voted as one of the most promising small businesses by Smarta – a popular free online business resource for small business owners. The panel of judges included Deborah Meaden and other leading entrepreneurs such as Bebo founder Michael Birch.

To celebrate the Smarta 100, a winners’ reception was recently held on 20th May where FreelanceStudents, to our complete surprise, picked up one of four awards – ‘The Natwest special award’!

Being chosen as a Smarta 100 company was fantastic, especially as the list was evaluated by respected and experienced business people. However, to go on and win one of four prizes at the winners’ reception is unbelievable. We’re truly humbled and this has given us the motivation to continue to improve and grow the site!

See the full article here: http://www.smarta.com/blog/2010/5/the-smarta-100-awards-special-prizes-%28and-special-times%29

Web Watch – A Mashup of Useful Websites #1

student_geek_on_computerWelcome to Web Watch edition number one! We’ll be running a regular short article where we scour the goliath that is the Internet for interesting, quirky and useful links for your entertainment and enlightenment. Read the rest of this entry »

9 Tips for Job Interview Success

nervous_student_job_interviewInterviews – loved by some and hated by many – are a necessary part of securing a job. The problem however, is that most cower at the thought of sitting down to talk about themselves with a stranger/could be boss. “What if they don’t like me? What if I make a fool of myself?” Stop it. Rather than panic and think up hypothetical, negative and awkward situations, take a step back. Breathe in; breathe out, for as long as you follow these tips to interview success, everything will be okay. Read the rest of this entry »

Graduate Job Websites – The Lowdown

future_direction_graduates_1Ok, so your third year is flying by in a hazy mix of late-night library visits and last-chance debauchery. But what happens next? Some of you will know exactly where your career is heading – the law degree, the sponsored bar exams, the graduate traineeship in central London. However, the majority of students will be less certain about what their next step is than they would be about the chances of Spurs nabbing fourth spot in the Premiership. Bumbling blindly into the world of online job-hunting can lead down some fairly dubious cul-de-sacs, so here I’ve recommended some ideas of places to get started, and where to go for specific types of work – based on my own painful experiences. The things I do for you… Read the rest of this entry »

Web Browsers Part 2 – Flock: The Social Media Web Browser

flock_imageLast time out, I gave a brief overview of the main players in the world of internet browsing, with some generalised pros and cons for the objective user. This time it gets personal. Here I recommend the browser that works best for me, Flock, and explain why. Using my own extensive experience of using Flock, I’ll also be giving some hints and tips as to how it can help you as you begin to think about job hunting. Of course, there’s no foolproof way of judging the best browser – aside from individual user needs, some work better on older/newer computers, for example – so feel free to wade into the debate yourselves below. Read the rest of this entry »

NEWS: Working smarter with students

freelancestudents_news_imageWhilst we lay on the sofa yesterday on a lazy Easter weekend we stumbled across an article in the Sunday Times – “Get smart with a student”. The sub header read as “Universities can be a valuable source of ideas – and intelligent free labour”. This clearly caught our attention.

To summarise, the article talks about how students and small businesses working together can bring “…benefits to both sides”. We couldn’t agree more and the article is timely. Since launching, our membership has grown to over a 1000 and we’ve successfully connected students with small businesses from across the UK.

At FreelanceStudents we practice what we preach. We have students and recent graduates working here on a flexible basis and helping us drive the business forward, and they have not only proved to be “valuable” and “intelligent”, but also an absolute pleasure to work with.

The full Sunday Times article can be found here: Get smart with a student

Office Etiquette Do’s & Don’ts Part 2

office_dos_v01In Office Etiquette Do’s & Don’ts Part 1, I outlined things NOT to do whilst working in an office. Part 2 will be the opposite i.e. tips and tricks TO DO in the office to ensure a memorable stay and a job well done! As promised in part 1 *clears throat and continues reluctantly*…I’ll be sharing what exactly it was I did that you shouldn’t. Read the rest of this entry »

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