Since starting my role in July 2025, I have been working on my campaign to improve the representation of animal students at the careers and placement fair. So far I have:

1. Spoken to Careers regarding the lack of representation
Over the summer I arranged a meeting with the careers department, to discuss the concerns given to me regarding the representation of animal students. It is agreed that there are many options for agriculture related roles, however students looking for roles within other areas such as companion animals and zoos often struggle to find anything within the careers and placement fair. 

After discussing this with the careers team, they have advised that each year they send out invitations to multiple organisations of this nature, and have shown me the excel spreadsheet with the company names and contact details. They advised that unfortunatly many of these companies either dont reply at all, or reply but are unable to make the fair. Reasons given include time constraints, finances, and being short staffed. A lot of the organisations within the category tend to be charities which is likely why they struggle more than other areas such as business, food, and agriculture. 

Due to this, we discussed potential for alternative events or sessions that would allow the animal students to feel more representated. This led me to contacting the animal sciences placement manager. 

2. Contacted placement manager regarding alternatives
Towards the end of summer i contacted the animal sciences placement manager regarding my campaign and that I would like to have a conversation about potential alternatives, and work together to put something into place for this. As part of my initial email, I enquired about putting a meeting in place to discuss this in person, however this was not followed through. Instead I was informed that this is something that the department had been discussing and working on for the last year. I again offered my help on this, from a students point of view, however did not receive a response.

3. Contacted previous placement students to ask their previous placement bosses
Following on from careers mentioning they would often struggle to get any responses regarding the fair, I discussed the idea of contacting some of these organisations myself to gain feedback. It was agreed that the best way to do this would be through my own contacts and previous placement students. 

I sent out the following 3 questions to students I knew had done placements in some of the organisations who hadnt been responding to get an idea of:

1. Are they attending the 2025 careers and placement fair?
2. If no, why not?
3. Is there an alternative option that would work better for them?

Again, getting answers regarding this wasn't easy. However after chasing up some of the students I had contacted, I was able to get some responses which confirmed previous comments of organisations, especially charities, being unable to attend due to being short staffed and finances. 

Next Steps

I aim to contact the animal sciences placement manager again to get an update regarding the “alternatives to the placement fair”. Further to this, I will continue working with the careers team in order to increase the presence of animal related organisations at the careers and placement fair.