Finding and applying for opportunities Work experience
Work experience opportunities can be advertised or organised informally.
Advertised opportunities
Open University (OU) students can find advertised opportunities on our curated vacancy service. Insight events are also advertised on our career events page. Your Study Home site may have work experience related to your OU subject.
Other platforms with dedicated sections for advertised work experience include:
Opportunities for people with disabilities and health conditions, or from underrepresented groups include:
Virtual work experience opportunities
Forage is an online platform offering free virtual work experience programmes. Employers develop programmes on Forage to simulate their work. You can complete programmes in your own time and at your own pace. Register for free on The Open University’s Forage webpage.
Approaching organisations speculatively
You may be able to gain work experience outside of advertised opportunities. Talk to your employer or network to find informal or unadvertised options. Some employers, especially smaller organisations, may be open to speculative applications. With these types of opportunity, you may not need to compete with other candidates.
The short course Internships and other work experiences covers how to find hidden vacancies and make speculative applications.
If there’s a company you'd like to work with, follow these five steps to speculatively apply for work experience with them:
Research the organisation or role
Get a good understanding of who they are. Consider their objectives, size, ethos, and place within the wider labour market. If you can, learn about their different departments, roles, and functions. Identify where and why you want to work within the organisation.
Clarify your objectives and write your proposal
What type of work experience do you want to do? What do you want to get out of it? Ensure you have a well-thought-out proposal to take to the employer. This should cover how much time and resource it will take and how it might benefit the employer.
Identify what you can bring to the employer
Create a CV and cover letter to accompany your proposal. Be enthusiastic about why you want to work with them and what skills and qualities you can offer as a candidate.
Contact the organisation
Craft a professional letter or email with your proposal and your CV. Look on the organisation’s website or LinkedIn for contact details of their HR or recruitment team. If you can't find any, write to the Managing Director instead. You may want to offer to meet in-person or over the phone.
Secure the role
If the organisation agrees to your proposal, you may be asked to do an interview. You may also be asked to sign a contract or agreement before they can take you on. Open University students can access our internship agreement or ‘convention de stage’ template.
Open University students can receive support throughout this process from our Internships team.
Applying for work experience
Most employers request a CV and cover letter, or application form, when you’re applying for work experience. See our pages on How to write a CV, Cover letters, Understanding application forms