Employers want carers – and here’s why

Posted on 22 March 2022 • Career planning, Career Readiness stages, CVs and applications, Discover, Graduate opportunities, Jobs, internships and work experience

Are you an OU student and combining your studies with being a carer? If so, perhaps you’re starting to discover career options that fit in with your caring responsibilities, or exploring pathways to specific career goals. You may even be ready to start applying for opportunities. Start discovering where OU study might take you with these 15-minute webinars Managing your Career alongside Caring, which include advice on what skills you can offer as a carer and information on being successful in your job search and your rights as a carer in employment.

A good starting point for finding employers who are supportive and accommodating of carers’ needs is Employers for Carers. It’s an organisation that helps employers be more inclusive to carers through policies, practice, including flexible ways of working, and signposting for support. More and more employers recognise the benefit of employing carers.

Carers are often hardworking and very resilient. They are keen to make a positive contribution in the work they do and have proved themselves to be very adaptable by being able to juggle work or study with caring responsibilities.

 
Juliet Andrew Orji, Client Services Manager for Employers for Carers

Browse Employers for Carers’ employer member list to find organisations that offer opportunities that might help you achieve your goals. You’ll also see employers identified by Employers for Carers’ benchmarking scheme as ‘Carer Confident’.

If you’re not sure whether you’re at the ‘Discover’, ‘Explore’, ‘Achieve’ or ‘Progress’ stage of career readiness, take your Career Readiness Pulse to self-diagnose and tailor resources and activities to your own goals and improve your career confidence. If you’re at the ‘Achieve’ stage and starting to apply for jobs, look at our online resources on CVs, applications and interviews which include advice, examples and access to an online CV builder, CV reviewing and improving tool CV360, and Interview360, which uses Artificial Intelligence to practice online video interviews based on your CV.