FAQ's

Any Queen Mary student!

If you don’t have a Students' Union role, you can still attend the Skills Sessions – and if you get a role at the Students' Union after registering for the Skills Award, you can let us know by emailing us.

If you’ve already completed the Skills Award, you can register to attend the new sessions we haven’t held before.

• Committee Members for a society, sports club or Raise & Give
• Heads of Media and Section Heads for Student Media
• Part-time Representatives, Officers, and Course Representatives
• Students’ Union Crew and Help Squad
• Community Volunteers (including one-off volunteers, volunteering groups and Community Foundation leaders)
• Members of Student Council and BLSA Board Members
• Student Trustee
• Student Staff employed by the Students’ Union (if you’re getting paid by the Students’ Union, you fall into this category)
• Sustainability Champions
• Student athletes on Talented Athlete Programme

To get the Skills Award, as well as having a role of responsibility in the Students' Union, you will need to attend at least one Skills Session plus a Reflection Session. If you attend three sessions plus a reflection session, you will receive the Gold Skills Award.

The sessions vary from 1 hour long to a whole day. Some of the sessions are held online. All the in-person sessions take place on the Mile End campus in the Students’ Union Hub. You will be sent the specific room in the confirmation email after signing up for the session. Neither the in-person nor online sessions are recorded.

If you can no longer make it to a session you’ve signed up for, you can cancel your place on the ‘Training’ page. If you miss the cancellation period (until 48 hours before the session) please email to let us know. Extenuating circumstances such as illness won’t result in a penalty. If you have no valid extenuating circumstance to explain your absence, you will receive a strike. Two strikes mean you will no longer be allowed to sign up for sessions.

You can email us with your ideas for what Skills Sessions we should run in the next semester and we will take your suggestions into account!

You will get a certificate for completing the Skills Award, and the Gold Skills Award will be recognised on your HEAR transcript from the university. You will also get certificates for each Skills Session you attend that you can add to your LinkedIn profile.

If you complete the Gold Skills Award, you will have participated in a minimum of 5 hours of Skills and Reflection Sessions. You must also have an Students' Union role, which will take up at least 5 hours of your time doing what your specific role entails. At the end of semester B, we will send everyone an Evidence Submission Survey to have a self-report record of what you’ve participated in.

This only applies to students with Students' Union roles that have compulsory training, such as society committee training or student staff training. If your Students' Union role has compulsory training, you will need to complete it to receive the Skills Award.

Create a volunteering profile on the volunteering page and add the volunteering opportunity you’re interested in or already took part in. Once you add volunteering to your registration form or email us, we will be able to verify your hours without any further action for you to take.

LinkedIn Learning sessions must be at least 1 hour in duration to count as a Skills Session and go towards the Skills Award. The sessions must relate to developing your employability skills.

You can link it to your personal LinkedIn account and display your progress with which sessions you've completed. Go to linkedInlearning.qmul.ac.uk and use your QM login to activate your account.

To log your completed Linkedin Learning session, you must email evidence of your certificate of completion to su-employability@qmul.ac.uk and then include the session as part of the evidence submission form which you will be required to complete at the end of Semester B.

Click the button below for more information including a list of suggested Linkedin Learning courses. If any of your questions haven’t been answered, you can email us at su-employability@qmul.ac.uk.