Career and Work Experience Log

Who this is for

A record of every placement, shift and shadowing day. Each row holds where you went, what you were called, how long you were there, what you actually did and which skills it showed — with a name to ask for a reference.

School and college students on work experience, university students collecting placements and part-time jobs, career changers logging voluntary work, and anyone who will one day have to fill in a form asking what they did and when.

What this helps you track

• Every placement, job, shift or volunteering day, with its dates
• The employer, the role and the hours, as a future form will ask for them
• What you actually did, in enough detail to talk about in an interview
• The skills each one showed, so a personal statement or CV can be written from the sheet
• Who to ask for a reference, with a way to reach them

How to use it

1. Write your name, your school, college or course, and the period the sheet covers at the top.
2. Add a row for each placement, job or day of experience as it happens — the dates, the employer, the role you had and the hours.
3. Write what you did in plain terms: the tasks, the people you worked with, anything you were trusted to do alone.
4. Name the skills each one showed — the ones an application form will ask about — while the examples are fresh.
5. Record the name and contact details of someone there who would speak for you, and ask them first.
6. When a form or an application asks for your experience, write it from this sheet rather than from memory.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The online version keeps what you enter in your own browser and builds the completed PDF on your device.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

Does it count towards anything?

Only what your school, course or employer says counts. The sheet records what you did and when; whether it satisfies a requirement is for them to say, so check what they set.

What if a placement was only a day?

It still goes in. A single day of shadowing has a date, an employer, something you did and someone who saw you do it — which is all an application asks for.

How should I write the skills column?

As the skill and the example together: what you did that showed it. That is the form an interviewer wants it in, and it is much harder to write a year later.

Should I ask for a reference at the time?

Yes — before you leave, if you can. Ask whether they would be happy to be contacted, and write down how. Chasing a reference from a placement two years ago rarely goes well.