De Montfort University graduate Shireen Hussain has been offered a job by the company she had originally joined for a four week internship as part of the innovative DMU Graduate Champions scheme.
Compass Group UK & Ireland, the UK’s largest contract catering and support services business, was so impressed by Shireen’s hard work at the company’s Birmingham offices that it has now taken her on full time in its learning and development department.
Shireen cannot praise DMU Graduate Champions and Compass Group UK & Ireland enough for setting up the internship and helping her to land the job.
The 24-year-old, who graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Business Information Systems, said: “I am so delighted to have been offered a job. DMU Graduate Champions is a fantastic scheme. It is a real unique selling point for the university and everyone needs to know about it."
DMU Graduate Champions offers recent graduates from the university the chance to take up paid, month-long intensive work placements with leading UK businesses in order to enhance their CV and help them stand out from the crowd in a furiously competitive jobs market.
So far, more than 260 internships have been offered at more than 200 companies across England. Read more about how our DMU Graduate Champions benefited from their internships.
Shireen added: "You have four weeks to work for a company, put everything you have learned into practice and you could get a job at the end of it, which is just brilliant.
“And even if you don’t get a job, the experience you gain will look so good on your CV and stand you in good stead for the future.
“Graduate Champions put me into a job that was directly related to my degree and Compass Group has been so good.
“My boss Gary Nice has been a great help and he deserves a lot of credit for recognising what I can do and helping me to develop.”
Mr Nice, Early Careers Manager at Compass Group UK & Ireland, said: “Getting experience in a real working environment is massively important. It is a very competitive market out there.
“Shireen has been a welcome addition to the team and brought some great skills with her so we have now offered her a position and we are glad to have her here.”
A second DMU Graduate Champion, Idir Lakrimi, has also found a job as a management accountant for the NHS in Oxford.
Idir took up placements with Leicestershire County Cricket Club, during the pilot Graduate Champions scheme in November last year, as well as spending this month with Leicester charity FreeVa
He said: “DMU Graduate Champions has helped enhance my CV without a doubt. It is such a worthwhile scheme. I would recommend it to anyone.”
The current round of Graduate Champions, who have just completed their month-long internships, gained vital experience in all aspects of working life, from helping a local parish council to working for a national firm of architects.
The scheme gives graduates the chance to apply the skills they acquire at DMU in degrees such as animation, history, law, accounting and finance, business and management, architecture and government and politics to work as marketing executives, animators, business project leaders, graphic designers, computer scientists, web designers and welfare rights advocates.
These internships bring sought-after opportunities to gain valuable insight into graduate-level work that is relevant to their chosen degree and the career path they wish to follow.
Businesses also benefit as they have free access to some of the brightest and best graduates in the UK today meaning they are given the opportunity to benefit from an intensive injection of graduate-level expertise and innovation.
Posted on Friday 7 February 2014