Work Experience Awards open for nominations

The hunt is on to identify businesses and organisations across the country which provide the very best work placement schemes for students with the launch of the National Council for Work Experience (NCWE) 2007/8 Awards.

Since they were developed in 2003, the NCWE Award scheme has encouraged and rewarded organisations that have put thought, time and effort into helping students develop employability skills. Spanning ten categories the awards are open to organisations of all sizes, from all industries and recognise their provision of short or long term, part time or full time placements.

As the number of award entrants grows each year, the NCWE has reviewed the previous yearsí entries and introduced two new categories to reflect the evolving nature of work experience placements across the country.

Formal work experience schemes are on the rise amongst UK employers, and this yearís awards will specifically recognise for the first time those employers who have achieved an excellent work experience model after launching a scheme in the last two years.

The awards will also recognise the best work experience provider for international students studying in the UK as a response to the growing number of multinational organisations in the UK with a demand for top graduate talent.

NCWE Manager Heather Collier commented on the new award categories:

ìAs the UK attracts more international students to its universities each year, the supply of talented international students is on the rise and we look forward to recognising those organisations leading the pack in attracting these students and providing them with the experience and skills for success in the labour market.î

Paul Deal of the BBC Radio Newsroom, which won the overall award for excellence at last yearís award ceremony, commented:

Our achievement has brought lots of benefits. For a start my colleagues in the newsroom felt a real sense of pride that our scheme had been judged the best in Britain. Senior executives in the BBC expressed their delight and I was asked to encourage the spread of best practice throughout BBC News.

As a result I met editors working in TV, radio and interactive and passed on tips on how they could develop their schemes.

The award brought some very positive publicity our way and the success has encouraged us to try even harder to give students a really memorable time when they come to the BBC.

We've noticed a definite upturn in people applying for our placements. So entering the competition and coming out on top has been a really positive experience for the BBC.

The NCWE Awards were developed to set high standards for others to follow by offering fulfilling work placements that help students develop their employability skills. NCWE Award winners see the benefit of this formal recognition as their award demonstrates to students, placement officers and other employers that the company has been publicly recognised for its dedication to providing students highly beneficial, well organised and challenging work experience opportunities.

This year the NCWE awards are sponsored by Centrica, PricewaterhouseCoopers, GlaxoSmithKline and the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR)

All entries this year will be in electronic in order to anonymise them as part of the judging process and to ensure that they are all are in a standard format. To enter your organisation please complete the online form at www.work-experience.org/awards.

The closing date for entries is 14th December 2007. A maximum of eight companies per category will be short-listed and a member of the NCWE will visit each company new to the process. The awards ceremony will be held in March 2008 at a venue in Central London.