Working with students
Collaborating with our students can be highly beneficial for your business. Through work placements or one-off projects, our students can assist you where there are resource challenges or specific business problems. And in doing so, you are assisting in the development of our students’ knowledge and professional skills.
There are a number of ways you and your business can work with our students:
- Student placements
- Student projects
- Consultancy
- Mentoring
- Working with postgraduates
- Advertising a job vacancy
- Teaching
- Get in touch
Student placements
We offer undergraduate students the opportunity to apply for a 9-12 month, full-time, paid work placement between their second and final year of study. We work closely with employers who wish to offer our students work placements and the University Careers Centre also provide outstanding support to students through the placement acquisition process. But ultimately each student must identify and compete for their own placement.
This process gives our students valuable job seeking skills, and ensures they find a placement that meets their interests and results in only the most committed and enthusiastic students taking the placement year. During the placement our students study a module; known as Training in the Workplace, enabling them to reflect on development of their work goals, values and the skills gained whilst on placement.
Students will be supported on this module by a placement tutor throughout the year and the tutor visits the student and line manager in the workplace if your organisation is based in the UK.
Student projects
Some programmes also allow students to complete in-company projects as the foundation for academic dissertations. These usually take place during the summer, based on a project suggested by the sponsoring organisation. Typical projects centre on accounting, finance, advertising, marketing, corporate communications, PR, human resource management, international business, management, organisational psychology and economics.
Read our case study of how our Business school students can benefit local SMEs
Consultancy
An integral part of the Leeds MBA is the opportunity to put knowledge and skills into practice with opportunities to work with a range of organisations. You can see recent examples where our MBA students have helped businesses as part of the Leeds MBA Consulting Challenge.
Mentoring
There are a number of opportunities for industry professionals to work as mentors at the Business School. In your role as a mentor you can help build a student’s confidence, support their career path, share your experiences and listen.
- The Nurturing Talent Mentor Scheme connects professionals within industry to undergraduate students with the aim of enhancing their employability, developing key skills and building their professional network. We have a number of partners on board including M&S, EY, PwC, Santander and Unilever. By sharing your knowledge, experience and expertise, you can help your mentee achieve their personal goals. You can mentor face-to-face, by email, phone or video call and you only need to commit to a minimum of an hour a month with your mentee, for at least a year.
- Through our Enterprise ambassador scheme, successful small business founders and owners contribute their time to support teaching and mentor students. Our programme has been highlighted by the Small Business Charter as being exemplary because of the level of funding and time that our ambassadors donate to our students. This group of 25 entrepreneurs also benefit from working with the Business School through taking on student placements and projects, where they can work with some of the brightest new graduate talent in the region.
- Our Leaders in Residence are a network of over 90 experienced business professionals, who volunteer their time to share expertise and insights with management students at Leeds University Business School.
Working with postgraduates
We have a large cohort of students studying at masters level. Most of them are from outside the UK and many of them have professional working experience. We are continually looking for opportunities to connect them with local and international businesses for mutual benefit.
Advertising a job vacancy
Reach thousands of students and graduates with the University Careers Centre free advertising service.
Teaching
We actively seek to work with the local and national business community to contribute to our learning and teaching practices. We strongly believe practitioner knowledge can enrich the curriculum and by integrating practical examples students are able to develop a broader set of skills, contributing to their overall employability. We welcome contributions to our taught programmes across all level study levels.
Contact us
If you would like to explore any of these opportunities to work with students, please contact: lubsopportunity@leeds.ac.uk