Turn your skills into real work experience.
Build experience. Work on real problems. Create evidence employers can see. Learning a skill is only part of becoming job-ready - the Residency gives you structured, practical work experience where you apply what you have learned.
$350 one-time $1,000 Save $650 · 65% — instalments of $175 + $175
You need experience to get the role, and the role to get experience.
You may have completed a course, earned certifications, built practice projects and developed real skills. But employers often ask a different question: where have you actually used them? The Residency is designed to help you bridge that gap.
From application to evidence, in six steps.
Apply & join a cohort
Tell us your discipline and goals. You are placed in a residency cohort with a real project brief to work on.
Professional onboarding
Start like a new engagement: tools, team, ways of working, communication expectations and clear goals.
Get your project brief
Receive a structured business problem with clear deliverables and outcomes to work toward.
Do the work in a team
Collaborate in a project team, use professional tools and hit weekly deliverables.
Weekly 1:1 mentor review
Each week you present your work, get the ideal-workplace approach and implement the feedback in the next sprint.
Present to a panel & build evidence
Present your final work to a panel of mentors and reviewers, and leave with a portfolio, case study and interview-ready stories.
Get job-ready while you build experience.
Alongside the Residency, our 8-week Job Market Readiness programme rebuilds your CV, LinkedIn and portfolio, sharpens your interviews and runs a tracked job search - so you finish with the experience and the campaign.
You will be expected to do the work.
This is not a programme where you watch lessons. You experience elements of how professional teams actually operate - moving you from “I learned this” to “I have applied this.”
Onboarded like a professional. Briefed on a real problem.
Professional onboarding
Start the programme as you would a new professional engagement: orientation, team introductions, ways of working, communication expectations, documentation, tools and platform access, and clear project goals.
Business project brief
You receive a structured business problem, project or challenge to work on - a real brief in your own discipline, with clear deliverables and outcomes to work toward.
The Residency runs across every UstackSchool career path - whatever your discipline, you take on a real brief and deliver real work in it.
Professional work rarely happens alone.
Where appropriate, you work within a multidisciplinary project team and learn how your role interacts with other functions and how decisions move across a team.
Discovery to final presentation.
Onboarding & Project Discovery
Understand the organisation, project, problem, users and expected outcomes.
Research & Requirements
Investigate the problem, gather information and clarify requirements.
Planning & Prioritisation
Define the approach, responsibilities, priorities and project plan.
Execution
Begin producing the core project deliverables.
Collaboration & Iteration
Review progress, receive feedback and improve the work.
Delivery
Complete major project outputs and prepare them for review.
Validation & Improvement
Test assumptions, review quality and refine deliverables.
Panel Presentation & Reflection
Present your completed work-experience project to a panel of mentors and reviewers, receive feedback and document what you learned.
Produce a real project you can present to a hiring manager.
Ready-to-use templates
You start from professional templates - PRDs, roadmaps, research plans, project plans and reports - so your work meets a real workplace standard, not a classroom one.
A real-world project or product
You work on a realistic project or product you can actually present and demo - not a throwaway exercise. It becomes the centrepiece of your portfolio.
Interview-ready capability
Your project gives you real, specific stories to answer hiring managers with - what the problem was, how you approached it, and what you delivered.
Evidence, not just a certificate.
Instead of “I know Product Management”, you can say: “I worked within a project team to investigate a business problem, prioritise requirements, develop product artefacts and present our recommendations.” Depending on your pathway and project, you may build:
Practise the professional behaviours employers expect.
You are not expected to navigate it alone.
Programme Manager
Coordinates the overall experience and ensures participants understand expectations.
Project Lead
Provides direction for the project and reviews progress.
Industry Mentors
Share professional guidance and practical feedback.
Career Support
Helps you translate the experience into stronger CV, LinkedIn, portfolio and interview positioning.
Peer Team
The opportunity to collaborate with others completing the experience.
Work experience includes accountability.
Participants may be assessed across attendance, communication, professionalism, collaboration, quality of work, problem solving, ownership, delivery against deadlines, presentation and application of role-specific skills - with feedback on what you did well, where to improve, and the behaviours to keep developing.
A recommendation is earned, not given.
If you meet the delivery criteria set for your project, you can earn a recommendation from UstackSchool. We only recommend people who meet the bar - which is exactly what makes a UstackSchool recommendation worth something to a hiring manager.
- A recommendation is available only when you meet the project's delivery criteria
- We recommend people who clear the bar - not everyone who attends
- That standard is what keeps the recommendation credible and worth giving
Your Residency runs on proof.
The Residency is not attendance - at each milestone you produce evidence that builds into your Evidence Record. That record is what earns your recommendation and proves you are job-market ready. See exactly what proof is required from you, in what format, and how it is graded.
See what’s required - Proof of Readiness →- Project deliverables - completed work, URL / repo
- Portfolio piece - public link + screenshot
- Panel presentation - your final demo to reviewers
- Mentor scorecard - your readiness assessment
- Testimonial - short written or video reflection
Built for the people stuck between learning and work.
If you can do the skills but keep hitting the “where have you used them?” wall, the Residency is built for you - whichever of these sounds like your situation.
🔁 Career Switcher
You are moving into a new profession with no domain experience, and need evidence you can perform in your target role.
🎯 First-time Job Seeker
You are straight out of self-study or a degree and need real, professional work to point to.
↩️ Returning to Work
You are coming back after a career break and want recent, credible experience on your CV.
🚀 Bootcamp Graduate
You have completed training but need practical experience beyond classroom assignments.
📜 Certified Professional
You have certifications, but employers keep asking where you have actually used the skills.
🌍 International Professional
You want experience of how professional teams operate in a global working environment.
🎓 Recent Graduate
You have qualifications but limited professional experience to put on your CV.
📈 Early-Career Professional
You have some experience but want stronger projects and more compelling evidence for your next move.
This may not be for you if you:
- Only want another certificate
- Do not have time to complete project work
- Are unwilling to collaborate with a team
- Cannot commit to deadlines
- Do not want to receive feedback
- Expect participation alone to guarantee anything
This is designed to be a professional experience, not passive training.
A weekly 1:1 with the mentor watching your work.
You are not left to figure it out alone. Every week you present your approach and deliverables to an experienced practitioner mentor. They show you the ideal workplace approach, where to sharpen, and exactly what to implement next - the feedback loop that turns activity into professional judgement.
- A weekly 1:1 review of the work you actually produced
- The ideal approach a real team would take, and where yours differs
- Clear, specific feedback to implement the following week
- Guidance from mentors who do the job today
The difference is doing the work.
| Traditional training | Work Experience Residency |
|---|---|
| Learn concepts | Apply concepts |
| Complete lessons | Complete project deliverables |
| Follow tutorials | Solve problems |
| Individual exercises | Team collaboration |
| Instructor-led learning | Project-led experience |
| Assess knowledge | Assess application |
| Receive a certificate | Build evidence of experience |
| Learn what professionals do | Practise doing the work |
Learn → Practise → Experience → Compete.
The Residency sits at the critical point between learning and employment.
Learn
Build the required knowledge and skills.
Practise
Apply them through exercises and portfolio projects.
Experience
Operate within a structured professional environment.
Compete
Use your skills, experience and evidence to compete for opportunities.
Access emerging talent through structured projects.
We work with startups, SMEs, charities and established organisations to create structured project opportunities - business challenges, product problems, research questions, data challenges, process improvement and technology projects. Projects are structured and supported by UstackSchool.
Become an industry partner →Honest answers.
Is this an internship?
It is a structured work-experience and project-based learning programme. Individual projects may differ in structure, and participation should not be represented as employment unless an actual employment relationship exists.
Will I work with a real company?
Some cohorts may include projects contributed by industry partners; others may use professionally designed simulations or internal projects. The project type is identified before or during onboarding.
Can I put the experience on my CV?
You can accurately describe the programme, project and the work you personally completed. We help you communicate it clearly without misrepresenting it as employment.
Will I receive a certificate?
Participants who meet the completion requirements receive a certificate of completion.
Is the programme remote?
Yes - it can be completed remotely, making it accessible across different locations.
How much time should I commit?
Expect regular project work, team collaboration, meetings and independent work throughout the programme. The exact weekly commitment is communicated for each cohort.
Join the Work Experience Residency.
Shown in USD; if you are in Nigeria you will see local pricing automatically. Early-bird now, standard rate after the deadline.
Learn it. Apply it. Prove it.
Build the experience, projects, professional behaviours and career stories that demonstrate your ability to do the work.