Student Feedback 2017: We Answer Your Questions

Some of you participated in our recent Careers Survey and we had some amazing responses - thanks to everyone who filled it in (you can still fill it in here if you didn't get the chance before, but unfortunately the prize draw has finished).

Among your responses were loads of great ideas and suggestions. We already have some of the features you mentioned, so we thought we'd share them with you here in this email (there's a longer list on our website).

"I would like if there was more information on specific specialised careers"

Take a look at our How to become articles. We cover well-known roles but also more unusual ones like neurologist, chef, marine biologist, zookeeper and even chocolatier.

"I think it would be really useful to have a live chat for people to virtually attend seminars with heads of companies and so on"

A lot of you mentioned this.

Although we don't have a live chat at the moment, you can post questions to companies in our forum, and you can read instructions on how to use it here. You can also post questions to employers from Career Zones and company profiles.

We are planning to pair up schools and employers for in special forums on particular areas of work throughout 2018.

"I am not currently following you on social media but this is only because I am not sure of your usernames; if this was made more public perhaps, I would hit the follow button for sure!"

You can find us on social media - including Instagram - by clicking these links. Then hit the follow links:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

"I couldn't figure out how to search for specific jobs in the Career Zones"

To search for jobs by Career Zones (that means by industry or area of work):

1. Go to the Jobs & Courses pagein the top menu.
2. Look for the filters to the right of the green Jobs & Courses bar (between the top menu and the emloyer logos).
3. Hover over Career Zone.
4. Click on the Career Zone you want to filter by (you have to view these one at a time).
5. You'll see jobs listed in this Career Zone.

"Be careful with colours that contrast i.e. green and red as people with protanpia colourblindness (like me) can get a headache"

Thanks for this comment, it's important for us to know this. We want to make Success at School accessible to everyone. When we next look at the design of the site, we'll make this a priority.

"Put the GCSE and A-level subjects under their own tab so they are easier to access"

To find content by subject, please hover over Advice in the main menu, then select Subjects. When you've reached the Subjects page, you can add more filters if you want to - in the green bar labelled Subjects at the top, hover over word Sub-Category to add another filter.

"Your website could include more advice on looking for work experience"

Quite a few of you asked for more advice on how to find work experience in different areas of work. We will add more articles on work experience during 2018.

"Have a page designed for degree apprenticeships"

We have a few advice pages about degree apprenticeships for you to look at:

• Detailed guide
• Infographic

"Could you maybe add somebody to who could help people in discussing what career paths they want to take because me and lots of my friends find it hard to speak to people face to face"

This is a great point. A lot of people are still building their confidence and we'd recommend our forum as a great place to post questions to employers and industry experts. See here for advice on how to use it.

We don't have any careers advisors online at the moment but we will bear in mind that this is something students would like to see.

"I'd like to see more about revision techniques"

You can check out our advice on revision techniques, tools and methods in the Exams section under the Advice menu.

"I would like to see more on how to apply for jobs and how to structure a CV"

Here are some articles which might help:

• CV template
• How to write a CV
• How to get your first job
• A list of applying for jobs articles

"Something about careers in makeup industry"

These articles might help:

• Career Zone: Fashion & Beauty
• 60 Second Interview: Fashion & Beauty Teacher
• 60 Second Interview: Beauty Therapist
• Everything you need to know about beauty therapy apprenticeships

"Add more information about work life to give students a clear insight to what they would probably have to do later on in their career life"

Please take a look at our working life advice section (see Advice in the top menu, then click Working Life from the list), which will hopefully help with this.

"You could add more information on careers advice for students who don't know what they want to do in the future"

You could start here:

• Video: What job should I do?
• What job should I do? (Detailed article)

"You could produce an article on the dangers of social medias such as twitter and how posting things online can affect what your employers think of you"

Check out this article on using social media to help your career.

"It would be great if you could add more information regarding UCAS on your website"

Here are three articles which might help for starters:

• 5 top tips on applying to uni through UCAS
• What are UCAS points and how do I get them?
• Applying to uni through UCAS Clearing

"Being an A-level student can be very stressful and sometimes things like depression can be triggered by the huge amount of stress the students are facing. I think it would be great if a separate section was added onto the website that enabled such students to talk about their feelings with other like-minded students."

This is a great suggestion, many of us suffer from mental health problems due to the pressures of modern life. We will think about how we can introduce something like this in the future.

In the meantime, have a look at these articles from the site:

• How to deal with stress at school and work
• How to cope on exam results day: Anxiety, stress, planning

"Maybe make it a little more clearer for SEN students"

Thanks for this suggestion, we will certainly make our website more accessible next time we update the design.

We wanted to share this article for students with dyslexia:

• 7 great apps to help dyslexic learners

We will aim to add more resources for students with other special educational needs (SEN) this year.

"More about ... railways jobs"

We recently added a number of articles about careers in railways for Rail Week 2017. You can see the articles here.

"It would be nice if you had a separate subsection under universities for Oxbridge"

We have a couple of articles on Oxbridge applications:

• Oxbridge applications: We ask a current student for advice
• Don't wait to be told to apply to Oxbridge, start asking questions now

This newsletter might be useful too:

• Make your Oxbridge application super savvy

We will aim to add more articles in the coming year. We don't have plans to introduce a subsection at the moment, but we will add it to the list and think about it if it's something more students and teachers want to see.

"Make it personalised"

A lot of you asked us to make the site more personalised:

• You can add some degree of personalisation by signing up for an account (click Register at the top right, then click Student and continue from there).
• When you're signed up, you can add favourite articles, employers and jobs by clicking the little star at the top right of the page.
• You can also add grades and skills to your Career Profile.
• We will add more personalisation in the future so the site's more useful for you.
• We'll try to personalise our newsletter more over the next year, so you get fewer apprenticeship emails if you're going to uni and vice versa.

"Have mini quizzes to really challenge what we know and then provide the answers so as to help broaden our views!"

Brill idea! We'll definitely add that to the list, but won't be able to add it overnight as it'll take a bit of work.

"Sometimes, I would like it to have more advice about universities. E.g. I want to go into law as my career however I want profiles from solicitors or barristers and see what they studied at for A-Level and at university."

Good point. We have recently added more advice articles about applying to uni in our University section, and will try to find more interviews with students to share with you in our 60 Second Interviews section.

What you can do now

• We had lots of suggestions and ideas for new articles on Success at School, including more work experience advice and more information about university. If there are specific article topics you'd like to see, please email your ideas to editor@successatschool.org.
• If you want to see a more personalised Success at School, click Register at the top right of the page to set up a free account. That way, you can save articles, and record skills, grades and work experience placements.
• Off to uni, or at uni now? One thing you asked for is more info about uni. If you're off to uni, get in touch so we can organise an interview (like this) about what it's like to study your subject when you get there. If you're at uni now, we'd love to hear from you. Just email editor@successatschool.org.