Topic: Work Experience
Company name: Bank of England
Scheme partner: National Council for Work Experience (NCWE)

About NCWE
The National Council for Work Experience is part of HECSU, the Higher Education Careers Services Unit. It promotes, supports and develops quality work experience for the benefit of students, organisations and the economy.

About Bank of England
The Bank of England sets interest rates and maintains financial stability. The Bank is based on Threadneedle Street in the City of London.

Total number of employees
Approximately 1600.

Operational countries
UK.

Challenge
Often work experience is marred with images of tea-making and filing, but this is not the case with modern work experience programmes.  Employers today face the challenge of implementing and maintaining a quality programme that benefits both the company and the individual. Structured programmes can enable companies to complete projects, recruit new employees and allow the student invaluable workplace experience.

Project name
Post-graduate Sponsorship Scheme.

Project manager
Rosey Village, graduate development adviser.

Length of scheme
The Bank of England have been offering work experience placements for over 10 years.

Work experience structure
• The postgraduate sponsorship scheme offers a 6-8 week internship at the Bank and provides sponsorship for a Master in Economics and/or finance in the UK.

• Depending on their performance during the internship, individuals may also be offered living expenses for their masters and a permanent graduate job once they have completed their course.

Benefits
• Interns are recruited to complete specific projects which are required by the area they work for. Therefore, each project has tangible business benefits, with the interns’ project work feeding into larger projects and streams of work.

• Internships provide a vital route to graduate recruitment. The internship period allows the Bank six to eight weeks to assess a student’s suitability for future employment.

• The postgraduate sponsorship scheme provides graduates from a diverse range of backgrounds the opportunity to complete a Masters degree and be recruited into a post-graduate position at the Bank.

Results
• The Bank of England has consistently recruited high quality Masters entrants over the past 5+ years on this scheme. 

• The interns also make a significant impact on the work agenda by completing important projects.

• The Bank of England is a finalist in the ‘Public Sector’ category at the 2008 NCWE Awards.

Lessons
• The Bank receives feedback from all of its students so that it can make changes to the internship programme where necessary.

• On previous occasions interns have commented that they found the Information Centre to be a useful resource and so the programme now includes an orientation trip to the Information Centre. This Information Centre is the Bank of England’s in-house library which has hard copy and electronic resources on subjects related to central banking. 

• Next year the internship will include a session on graduate careers opportunities at the Bank, at the beginning of the internship, so that interns have more time to consider the information and discuss or raise questions with HR and their local area.

Future plans
• The Bank is happy with its current internship programme, but will continue to make amendments where applicable, based on the feedback from students.

Key tips

1. Ensure there is ‘real’ work for placement students to do – not only is this more useful for the company, it will generate a greater future interest in employment at the company for the student.

2. Ensure that you make use of the programme as a pipeline for future recruitment. It's a great way to find out how people really are in the job and much more effective than an assessment centre.

3. Provide students with a thorough induction to the company as this will allow them to make a contribution more quickly.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

The National Council for Work Experience is part of HECSU, the Higher Education Careers Services Unit. It promotes, supports and develops quality work experience for the benefit of students, organisations and the economy. Its role includes disseminating information and good practice, encouraging the development of quality standards and encouraging more employers to provide placement opportunities. NCWE run an annual awards scheme to encourage and reward organisations that display good practice in work experience.


National Council for Work Experience and the Quality Mark accreditation scheme:
T: 0161 277 5267
E: workexperience@prospects.ac.uk
www.work-experience.org


ADDRESS:

National Council for Work Experience
Prospects House
Booth Street
Manchester
M13 9EP