Recruit new talent

Here at the University of Leicester, we have fantastic students graduating each year who are seeking graduate employment and are ready to apply for opportunities. 

We can support your recruitment to attract student talent from the University of Leicester through advertising your vacancies directly with us. We offer a range of advertising options to suit you: 

• Vacancy advertising on Target Connect 
• Social media promotion
• Advertising opportunities within our fortnightly careers bulletins 
• Departmental promotion
• On-campus brand awareness opportunities

We also offer a number of events and activities specifically designed to help you connect and engage with final year talent at the University of Leicester.

Speak with us

Contact the team at employer.services@leicester.ac.uk to discuss further about recruiting our graduates and how we can help.

Unitemps - hiring a student for part-time work

Unitemps, part of the Careers and Employability Service facilitates the recruitment of University of Leicester students into part-time temporary roles with companies in the Leicester and Leicestershire area.

A part-time temporary role is an ideal opportunity to employ a student who can bring creativity and innovation to your business whilst giving the student the opportunity to develop transferable skills and knowledge in a practical working environment. We have a worldwide reputation for top quality teaching and research and have a diverse population of talented students looking to gain professional work experience.

What are the benefits for you?

• Add value to your organisation by inspiring new students to enter your field and promoting your brand
• Invest in early career development. Provide students with valuable employment experience to develop transferable skills and knowledge.
• Increase your diversity. Our students come from all over the world, providing an international outlook, language skills, and knowledge of overseas markets.
• Bring fresh ideas and enthusiasm. Our students are highly committed and enthusiastic, and keen to develop themselves.
• Develop a talent pipeline. Post assignment, consider recruiting the students onto a Placement or Year in Industry, already equipped with experience working for you.
• Giving back to the community. Providing our students with a sense of local community and encouraging them to stay within Leicestershire post-graduation and boost the local economy.
• Administrative support. We conduct all employability compliance checks on your behalf including Right to Work checks and references. We also payroll the students and invoice you monthly.

What kind of work can a student do?

Our students can offer you varied skills within roles ranging from administration, customer service, events, marketing and social media to working in lab-based and research environments. We would be happy to discuss with you any work opportunities you have available to determine whether this might be an appropriate role for a student. It is important to bear in mind that they may have little or no prior work experience, but will be equipped with support from the Careers and Employability Service and the wider University to enable them to successfully transition into the workplace.

How many hours a week can a student work?

To avoid having a detrimental impact on their studies the University of Leicester regulations limit the working hours of students as follows:

Undergraduate students

• During term time no more than 20 hours a week
• During vacation time – no restrictions on working hours

Postgraduate students

• No more than 20 hours per week year round*

*PGT students are not eligible for advertised university holidays unless specified by the terms of their course and confirmed by their Certificate of Employability

Find further information about University term dates.

What we ask of you

Working in your organisation can be a hugely rewarding and enriching experience for a student. It offers them a chance to gain professional skills, get hands-on experience, and opens up new career possibilities. With that in mind, during their time with you, we ask that you provide them with the appropriate tools required to complete their role and can offer a supportive working environment.   

What should I pay a student?

The Careers and Employability Service is happy to advertise all genuine jobs or work experience opportunities that are fully compliant with UK employment legislation including National Minimum Wage and National and National Living Wage. The legislation is an important piece of legislation aimed at providing employees with decent minimum standards and fairness in the workplace. It applies to nearly all workers and sets hourly rates below which pay must not be allowed to fall. 

What next?

If you are interested in hiring a temporary student worker, please contact us at employer.services@leicester.ac.uk. We will be delighted to talk to you about our students and how we can support your recruitment needs.

Employing a University of Leicester student on a placement can provide your organisation with extra resource, fresh ideas and enthusiasm. Our students are highly employable and can deliver tangible benefits from day one.

We have two streams of placements at Leicester: a Year in Industry for Undergraduates, and an Industrial Placement for Postgraduates.

Year in Industry – for undergraduates

A year in industry is a 9-12 month paid position undertaken between the second and third year of a degree, normally starting in July or August. The opportunity provides students with real world experience related to their degree.

Our Year in Industry students come from a range of subjects including:

• All courses in the College of Science and Engineering;
• All courses in the School of Business;
• Biosciences (including Natural Sciences);
• Psychology.

Industrial Placement – for postgraduate students

An Industrial Placement is aimed at postgraduate students in technical subjects who are looking for a 3, 6, 9 or 12 month work placement after the taught section of their Masters.  Placement start dates vary between February and July depending on the cohort. Our postgraduates come from backgrounds in Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, and Geography.

Why take on a University of Leicester student on placement?

• Add value to your organisation by having a student take on challenging responsibilities and fixed term projects.
• Increase your diversity. Our students come from all over the world, providing an international outlook, language skills, and knowledge of overseas markets.
• Develop a talent pipeline. View a year in industry as a year-long interview and consider recruiting the students once they complete their degree, equipped with a year’s experience working for you.
• Bring good value for money. Placement students don’t expect graduate level salaries, although they do need to receive a realistic offer. An average placement salary is usually £16,000-21,000 a year, and for that you get a motivated student used to thinking at degree level.
• Bring fresh ideas and enthusiasm. Our placement students are highly committed and enthusiastic, and keen to develop themselves. From revamping marketing and sales strategies to developing innovative technology, their energy has helped hundreds of employers to solve their business problems in new and creative ways.

What we ask of you

Working in your organisation can be a hugely rewarding and enriching experience for a student. It offers them a chance to gain professional skills, get hands-on experience, and opens up new career possibilities.

With that in mind, during their time with you, we ask that our placement students can have:

• Access to a mentor and regular discussions with their line manager (or a named contact).
• Opportunities to undertake specific projects.
• Opportunities for training and development to boost their understanding in required areas.
• Time for feedback and reflection to consolidate their workplace learning.

What next?

If you are interested in our students, or just want to discuss placements in general, please contact us at employer.services@leicester.ac.uk. We will be delighted to talk to you about our students and how we can support your recruitment needs.

If you are an SME based in Leicester or Leicestershire, you may be eligible to access funding for a student or graduate intern. Our internships are designed to bring new perspectives and creative solutions to long and short term business challenges. We can help you to recruit a student or graduate on a short-term basis in the form of internship grants. 

Benefits of recruiting an intern from the University of Leicester

• Students are highly employable, motivated and ambitious and can deliver tangible results to your business quickly
• Add value to your organisation by taking on challenging responsibilities and fixed-term projects.
• Support your team in a peak period.
• Bring fresh perspectives and new ideas.
• Add to your talent pipeline -an internship can serve as an extended interview and reduces the overall risk of recruitment.

Support for your business

The University will provide you with a dedicated member of staff to support you through the entire internship process.

• Support and advice on creating the internship opportunity.
• Advertisement and promotion of the opportunity.
• Tracking and monitoring of applications.
• Organising the payment of the funding where applicable. 

Micro-internship programme

Our micro-internship programme connects you with your own University of Leicester intern(s), who will volunteer up to 40 hours of their time to a designated project over a four week period. You receive a project deliverable that adds value to your business and benefit from the enthusiasm, creativity, fresh ideas and transferable skills of our students. The programme runs three times a year (autumn, spring and summer) and is open to all undergraduate final year students, to support and prepare them for entering the workplace.

For more information, please download our brochure (PDF, 862kb), or contact us at employer.services@leicester.ac.uk.

• Spring 2024 dates: 25 March - 19 April 
• Summer 2024 dates: 1 July - 26 July 

Citizens of Change internships

We are Citizens of Change.

The University of Leicester is Top 30 university. We’re diverse in our makeup but united in our ambition to pursue knowledge that has the power to transform.

The University of Leicester has launched a fully-funded summer internship programme, designed to boost graduate employment in the regional economy. The programme aims to provide as many students as possible with a significant work experience opportunity, ensuring that students who typically do not access internships have the chance to do so.

This scheme, Citizens of Change Internships, will take place over Summer 2024 and will be targeted at undergraduate students.

Businesses involved in the programme can see benefits such as:

• No salary cost to the business as the student’s salary is fully covered throughout the internship programme.
• Allows you to access student talent from the University of Leicester across a wide range of degree disciplines
• Add real value to your organisation with an intern working on a project of your choice

If you are an organisation interested in participating, please send your expression of interest to employer.services@leicester.ac.uk. Deadlines will be on a rolling basis, so please do submit your interest at your earliest opportunity.

Employer eligibility criteria

Organisations must satisfy the following criteria in order to be eligible for the Citizens of Change Scheme (CoC):

1. Registered and operating in the Leicester/Leicestershire/East Midlands area
2. Able to provide an internship project that positively contributes community impact or engagement
3. Agree to provide a video testimonial to the University of Leicester following successful completion of the internship

Learn more about the Citizens of Change internship

How to get in touch

If you would like to learn more about the full range of internship funding options available, please contact employer.services@leicester.ac.uk to discuss how the University can support your recruitment needs.