The University is hosting an Employer Forum, open to all final year students from the University and to any student living in the Wearside area who has graduated from any university in the last 3 years.

To book a place at the Employer Forum call the Careers and Employability Service on 0191 515 2920 or visit us in person on the 3rd floor of the Murray Library.

We have employers attending the Forum from the IT/Computer Science, Radio/Media, Legal and Engineering industries.

The Employer Forum is your chance to meet with local employers as they share their experiences of graduate recruitment and provide advice regarding the current graduate job market.  The forum will provide you with information on:

1) Commercial, occupational and self awareness employers expect from graduates within the current North East job market

2) The current challenges facing graduates entering employment in the North East

3) Actual employers discussing their experiences of graduate recruitment from their organisations and the North East Labour market

4) The application process and to make suggestions of how to be a stronger candidate in a competitive graduate marketplace.

5) Graduate opportunities, experiences and vacancies which may help you find that dream job!

The forum will also be open for a Question and Answer session.

The graduate job market has never been more competitive.  So if you’re looking for advice and guidance from real employers about the true challenges that face graduates and how to overcome them book a place and come along!

Step 1 .. Seize the opportunity when someone like Banks comes to visit. Ex-editor, broadcaster, columnist, he is someone who is listened to in the news industry.

Step 2 .. Don’t just listen, share what’s being said. Report. Josh tweeted a few times from the cinema, then wrote a blog post about it when he got home.

Step 3 .. He tweets about his blog post, getting his work out there, and it’s picked up by journalism website Fleet Street Blues. After all, how to make newspapers work online is a subject of much debate at the moment.

Step 4 .. It then gets picked up by leading media commentator Roy Greenslade, on the Guardian website.

There’s no big secret to this, just good media habits. It means Josh gets invited to places like this, the Guardian Student Media Awards.

About me: Discovered journalism through student politics and talked my way into Mirror Group graduate training scheme after writing series of articles on Northern Ireland during the “Troubles”. There were only 12 trainees in each year and my group included Nick Davies (Guardian writer and author of Flat Earth News), Tom Utley (Daily Mail uberlibertarian columnist), Matthew Symonds (co-founder of the Independent) and Pratima Sarwate (chief sub, Daily Mirror).  Andrew Morton and Alistair Campbell were other ex-MGN trainees. Pressure to succeed was enormous.  My one claim to fame as a trainee was getting an exclusive interview with the Sex Pistols. Fluked a job as a sub-editor on the Daily Record, Glasgow, and then became a political spin doctor in Scotland before another stroke of luck took me to Newcastle and, within a year, the editorship of the Sunday Sun. Seven years later I was working in the City with all the bonus-fuelled fat cats and enjoying the dark side of corporate PR. Joined Sunderland in 2000 as Head of Journalism & PR.

My Media Week: Dip into any paper or magazine that happens to be lying around, but only papers delivered are Sun and Guardian – contrast helps give an almost balanced view of journalism and life! Like everyone in the media, I’m struggling to stay on top of the constant information flow from Twitter, RSS feeds, favourite blogs, YouTube, etc.

Best Piece of Advice I’ve Been Given: Anyone who knows me will know that my great weakness – and, I hope, strength – is that I have never followed any advice in my entire career. Like all true journalists, I believe in the hack as maverick.

My Proudest Piece of Journalism: Editing the Sunday Sun for seven years and putting on circulation while more than doubling the cover price – not many editors can say that. But, in reality, the thing that always gave me most joy was “turning over” a powerful, establishment figure who thought they were too powerful or rich to be taken on. Absolutely loved it!

Research: The interface between journalism and PR and the changing balance of power between the practitioners of the two professions.

In the real world: Crazy. Living with my partner and her two children while trying to act as father to my own two at more of a distance.  Love most sports and used to be season ticketholder at Newcastle.

Twitter: @ChrisRushton

Office hours:

About me: On and off I’ve been at Sunderland for over 20 years, and spent the last 11 of those teaching shorthand. I also work for most of the local papers, helping their trainees to increase their shorthand speed and preparing them for preliminary and advanced shorthand exams. I did Law for my degree and before teaching shorthand I taught Business Studies at the local college.

Media Week: I read the Sunderland Echo on Jobs night and Property night, and Hello magazine!!

In the Real World: I love to travel, and take photos. I drive about 30,000 miles a year, sightseeing, as well as on teaching jobs. My husband says I’ve got Tarmac in my veins where other people have blood. I’m a Midsomer Murders and Miss Marple fan, and often visit the locations. In what would be some students’ worst nightmare, I actually live next door to my former shorthand teacher.

Proudest teaching moments: Every time I get an email from a student saying “I couldn’t have done it without you”.

Best piece of teaching advice: When I left to go into teaching my boss (who now gives advice to the Prime Minister on teaching matters) told me to remember that there’s no such thing as a group – just a collection of individuals, all with different needs.

Why shorthand matters: It’s a rare skill and a challenge, apart from the fact that most editors still regard it as essential for anyone reporting a story. The editor of the Daily Telegraph, addressing a meeting of shorthand teachers, said that reporters without 100 wpm shorthand will only ever get to cover “Golden Wedding” stories.

Are you a University of Sunderland student? Do you have a blog? If you answered yes to both of these, InJournalism.co.uk wants you.

InJournalism, soon to undergo a name-change and wholesale revamp, is looking to publish your blogposts and link out to your blog – think Huffington Post style -driving lots of valuable traffic to your own personal webspace.

Any featured blogs would also be listed on the InJournalism which features on every page of the site – so you’re never far from a new audience.

If you like the idea of this, leave a comment below or email journalism student and Degrees North Editor, Josh Halliday, at bd78gr@student.sunderland.ac.uk and he’ll get the ball rolling for you.

Happy blogging!

We understand that this may cause some disruption to classes but we have tried to minimise this as much as possible. Hopefully you have already seen your programme leader or personal tutor for information and counselling. If not, please see them as soon as possible _before_ the module fair.

And of course check out the different module descriptions on the catalogue.

Results of this research will be provided to all parts of the University so it can decide what changes are needed. In their words: “Your views are important to us, so please complete this questionnaire which should take about 15 minutes. As a thank you for your time you can enter our prize draw to win one of these great prizes:

2 prizes of a Flip Video Camcorder
4 prizes of £25 in High Street Vouchers

Your individual responses will remain anonymous and all information will be treated in the strictest confidence and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.”

Head to the survey now and win something.

You can come to all of the conference, or just duck in for the bits you can in between classes. The line up is below (times are approximate).

1pm Julia Kennedy, University College Falmouth
WeTube, TheyTube: Mapping Imagined Communities and the ‘Maddie Phenomenon’ in User Generated Content

2pm Rob Jewitt, University of Sunderland
Panic in the streets of Mumbai: Twitter, mobile phones and participatory action

2.30pm Helen Kennedy, UWE Bristol
‘Brace Yourself!’ – the unbearable lightness of Wii-being

3.30pm BREAK

4pm Neil Perryman, University of Sunderland
Doctor Who and the Convergence of Media

4.30pm John Paul Green, University of Sunderland
The ‘Relative’ Dimensions: Representing the Family Within and Without Doctor Who

5pm Niall Richardson, University of Sussex
How do I Look?  Gay male body image in online communities

And come and join us for drinks at 6pm, as the Centre for Research in Media & Cultural Studies celebrates its superb Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), where the centre here at Sunderland was rated joint 11th in the UK for research.

Ali will be giving a reading from the book and signing copies. If that is not enough of an attraction, there will be wine and nibbles! The event will last about an hour. Everyone is welcome.

There is opportunity to work alongside BBC staff to create content for BBC’s local websites and radio stations, which will be something outstanding for their CV’s and future career plans. They are keen for people to know that the BBC’s doors are wide-open for their applications and ensure that as many people as possible have access to this information. So how do you get involved?

The BBC is accepting applications – the deadline is Thursday 30th April 2009, and there are posts available around the country, so it’s not only London-based. Information on specific reporter application forms follow for the Music and Sports reporter posts:

Music and Sports

You can find out more information at the following pages, and also examples of last year’s placements. This looks like another great opportunity to get involved with – don’t hang around.