Throughout your life you’ll be incessantly asked about your career; “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”, and so on, and so on. The interrogation starts at a young age and follows (and in some cases haunts) you until you’re old enough to retire. A lucky few already know the path they’ll follow and their career goals are clearly defined, however, the vast majority of us simply have no idea.
Additionally, in our experience, there’s usually a deluge of bog standard advice and meaningless information that can be found on the internet, at your careers service, or from your well-meaning, but slightly outdated, parents. There’s clearly a need for more personal and real information and we believe we have just that.
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22nd November 2009 | No Comments »
A few weeks ago we stumbled across a new-ish social media website called Bragster.com. Not another one, I hear you cry. Yep, but this isn’t just about endless twittering or photo-prying, this is much more fun. Described as “Jackass meets Facebook” Bragster is all about dares, where users challenge each other to do absurd stunts, film themselves, and then “brag” about it.
Bragster is a London-based venture that was founded by Bertrand Bodson and Wim Vernaeve. The idea came about to the duo when Wim was working at Morgan Stanley and he got dared by a colleague to go bald before an important client meeting. It never happened, apparently, but Bragster was born.
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02nd November 2009 | No Comments »
When I was at university, there simply were no useful Web tools (except email). We did things the hard way; we backed up work on wholly unreliable CDs, we walked to libraries and thumbed through reams of dust coated books to do our research, and we wrote in stone. Ok, we didn’t do the stone bit, but most tasks were fairly laborious. Not any longer.
The advance of the Web has meant that there are now various free excellent Web applications that can help you get organised, easily maintain back-ups, collaborate with friends, and conduct research. We’ve put together a list of 8 of the best free Web tools available for students. Read the rest of this entry »
13th October 2009 | No Comments »
If you’ve been keeping an eye on our website, you may have noticed that we’ve introduced a new Forums area! This is the first of a number of initiatives we have coming out of our creative lab in order to make FreelanceStudents an engaging and useful website for the student community. So, go right ahead and discuss jobs, student life, freelancing, and, in fact, anything that comes to mind! Don’t be shy.
Before participating we recommend that you read our “Forum rules” and also the “Forum FAQs”. After you’ve digested those serious matters, why not introduce yourself in the “First time?” forum.
We’ve created 11 discussion areas:
FreelanceStudents
First Time? – Is this your first visit to the forums? Start a new thread and introduce yourself.
Terms of Use – Forum rules. Please read these carefully!
FS Official Announcements – A thread for official announcements regarding FS.
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07th October 2009 | No Comments »
Almost every student needs to earn a little extra money whilst at university to prop up their “beer” fund. In the past, some have busked, many have gambled, and a brave few have endured medical trials (er… thanks, but looking like the elephant man is so last century!). Not ideal options. However, if you’ve got a hobby, or a talent, then there are ways of making extra cash online.
Making money from a hobby online has become an increasingly attractive option for many students, as you can work from home, you can pursue your interest in your own time, and there’s little or no investment. In fact, all that is needed is access to the internet. And, if you’re seriously skilled, then you could make a regular income.
Here are our six suggestions for making money from your hobby. Read the rest of this entry »
24th September 2009 | 2 Comments »
A quick search in Google for “graduate jobs” produces a list of 28,200,200 results. The Internet is a jungle. Where do you start? Usually the non-scientific process of whittling down the many options presented by Google involves avoiding any link that looks remotely freaky.
Examples of web addresses that often, and sometimes illogically, set off the panic button include addresses with dashes (e.g. www.weird-address.com), web addresses that end in “.net”, or when you do finally muster up courage to click on a UFL (Unidentified Freaky Link), the dreaded all-black website of death will get you hitting that back button like your life depended on it.
There is hope. We’ve compiled a list of our top 5 graduate recruitment job websites (i.e. fulltime graduate roles) for you to safely explore. Be sure to bookmark these websites and keep an eye on those deadlines!
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16th September 2009 | 8 Comments »
So, it’s that special time of year again when some of you are about to embark on – to apply an overused cliché – the best years of your life.
In a centuries-old tradition, you will be expected to do little more than drink and be merry. Some of you will be so caught up in your new hedonistic lifestyle that you may forget what you’re even supposed to be studying.
Freshers’ Week is an exciting time with endless opportunities to meet new people and try new things. But for some it will be daunting – the thought of being homesick and pants-messing nerves will outweigh the prospect of having fun.
As someone who’s survived the experience, take the following nuggets of knowledge along with you: Read the rest of this entry »
07th September 2009 | 2 Comments »
The good people from Wiley (the publisher) have been generous enough to give away free copies of their recently released book, “Get the Job You Want, Even When No One’s Hiring” by Ford R. Meyers, to 10 lucky FreelanceStudents members.
We came across “Get the Job You Want…” when one of our readers mentioned that our recent article – How to Cope with Job Rejection – reminded them of the book. So, naturally, we had to see who was cribbing our work (ok, so the book was clearly out before our article!).
On reading the first few pages, we were slightly dumbfounded by the comparison, as the book seemed to be too… American. However, we pressed on, and gradually we began to understand. This book is awash with heart-warming and motivating advice for those struggling to find work during these economic times, and if you are able to overlook the American undertones then this book could just help you find the job you want!
Competition Details
The competition is open to students only. In order to be in with a chance of winning a copy, all you have to do is register as a member of FreelanceStudents between the 8th September and 2nd October of this year. Easy, huh?
Now, there’s one unfortunate caveat. The competition is only open to UK residents, due to shipping costs for international rates.
07th September 2009 | No Comments »
Imagine there being an online service that provided you with free, legal access to any song that you wanted to hear. Now, imagine that you could compile your favourite tracks into your own album or playlist, and that this playlist could easily be shared with your friends; no more burning CDs. Such a service already exists, it’s called Spotify, and it could change the face of music.
I only got into Spotify a few months ago. A couple of people had mentioned it to me before this, but I was fairly hesitant about getting involved. It was only when a friend over at MTV championed it that I began to take notice. I think my initial hesitancy was more to do with being overburdened with new this and that from the Internet. But now, I love it, and I think you will too, if you give it a try.
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01st September 2009 | 2 Comments »
We’ve recently set-up a FreelanceStudents twitter account! Twitter obviously needs no introduction, and love it or loathe it, it’s hot property right now with many popular celebrities tweeting. We’re not going into an article about Twitter here, as this is just a quick announcement. However, we will, in the future, write articles on how students can benefit from utilising Twitter.
By using Twitter we hope to better connect with our readership and users, and foster a community amongst freelancing students. We will also be looking to tap into the minds of our readers and seek their advice and opinions; we would like to think we know it all, but honestly, we don’t.
Finally, we’re no pros at this Twitter game and admittedly some of the bird-style lingo has us confused, but we’re willing to learn. So, if you got any advice for us, or your fellow students, on how to roll in the Twitterhood (does that work?), then please leave us a comment or two below… we would appreciate it! You can find us on Twitter as @frlstudents. Feel free to share your twitter contact details too.
28th August 2009 | No Comments »
