About the Careers and Employability Services

From the start of your studies and for up to three years after, The Open University (OU) Careers and Employability Services (CES) are here to help you explore your options, plan and work towards your career or personal goals and support you with searching and applying for opportunities.

Services

As a registered OU student or recent graduate you have access to a wide range of online tools, resources, workshops, events, and one-to-one guidance. You'll need to sign in as a student to see some of these services. You can:

• Use the Navigate Your Future activity pathway to help you make sense of where you are in your career journey, set goals and work out your next steps.
• Sign up for employer events and live workshops through OpportunityHub events and access a range of audio and webinar recordings, forums and other resources on our webinars and forums platform.
• Find the latest opportunities exclusive to OU students and follow your favourite employers with OpportunityHub.
• Use the interactive careers tools including CV Builder and and CV360 to create and review your CV, Interview360 to practise your interview techniques and the Labour Market Information tool and Industry Reports to research your chosen sector.
• Book a one-to-one careers consultation with one of our careers professionals, to take place by email, telephone or video call, for further help with any aspects of your career planning or applying for opportunities.

If you have an OU account but have not yet started your studies, or if you completed your study over three years ago, you can still access a wealth of information and advice on many aspects of your career, from initial exploration to searching and applying for opportunities, on the Careers and employability pages in the Help Centre. To find out more about what help is available after you graduate, see Careers support for three years after you study on OpportunityHub.

If you're an overseas student studying full time through one of our partner organisations, you're not eligible to access our careers guidance services. You need to contact your host organisation for information on what careers services are available to you. All other OU students based outside the UK are entitled to the full range of support offered by the Careers and Employability Services.

Tell us about your experience

Tell us about your experience with the OU’s Careers and Employability Services, including any of the services, online tools and resources detailed above, with our 2-minute questionnaire. It’s your chance to have your say and help us to help more OU students.

Other sources of help

For additional careers advice and guidance in the UK nations and Ireland, or for support beyond three years after study, look at the websites below. Keep in mind that the extent of advice and guidance provided varies and there may be charges for some services.

• UK - Prospects
• England - National Careers Service
• Wales - Careers Wales
• Scotland - My World of Work
• Northern Ireland - Careers Services Northern Ireland
• Republic of Ireland - Grad Ireland

For employers

As an employer you can

• advertise vacancies free on our opportunities platform
• find out about our services for employers
• contact us by email for any other queries.

Your privacy

As an OU student or an Alumni who finished study within the last 3 years, CES specifically uses your personal information for the provision of personalised careers and employability support. This is a service which is part of our public task of delivering higher education qualifications.

We use your personal data in the following ways:

• To provide access to OpportunityHub (the CES careers management system) using your OU credentials. Your details will be used to communicate potential events or opportunities according to your student profile, preferences and choice of study. You can manage your preferences from within the system and switch off any communications you no longer wish to receive. See the OpportunityHub Terms and conditions for more information about student privacy.
• To provide access to the careers tools: CV360, CV Builder, Interview360, Aptitude Tests, Industry Reports, Video Hub, Career Readiness Pulse and Career E-Learning Resources, provided by Access UK Limited trading as Abintegro. For terms of use and how to manage your personal data, visit the Privacy & Terms and Personal Data sections in the My Profile area on the Abintegro platform.
• To record any requests from you for careers support via the OU student management system.
• To create and document an action plan as a result of a careers appointment; this remains confidential within Careers and Employability Services.

For more information on how the OU uses your data, and on your rights, please see our privacy notices.

Accredited by the matrix standard

The Open University was one of the first higher education institutions to adopt the national matrix quality standard for the provision of information, advice and guidance services. This ensures our specialist careers advisers are professionally qualified and work to a high standard. First achieved in 2003, our latest re-accreditation was in 2023, with our next due in 2026.