Sophie Livingstone is the Chief Executive of City Year London
Advice for candidates from Tom Purton. For more information on Travers Smith click here.
Advice for candidates from Thomas Riegel. For more information on L’Oréal click here.
01 Start early! First year is great to start thinking about careers. Second year is good. Final year is a bit late.
02 Use your networks, so talk to people at your university or on your course who have done various internships or who are going for job interviews. It’s always interesting to hear other people’s experiences.
03 Make use of your university careers service. Your careers service is likely to hold recruitment brochures from a lot of firms, as well as lists of firms in different industries.
04 Go to stuff. If you hear about open days, presentations, or insight events in firms, go along.
05 At these events, ask questions – this is your chance to find out what different working environments are really like, so be brave and ask the people there about whatever’s on your mind.
06 Make sure you do more at university than just study (and party). It’s a good idea to take on some positions of responsibility in societies, clubs and teams.
07 Similarly, make sure to get some work experience in the holidays, particularly the summer holidays. If you can get a paid internship, great. If not, there is nothing wrong with doing a couple of weeks’ unpaid work experience in a local firm – it’s worth writing to businesses local to you and offering to work for free.
08 Beware of anyone trying to charge you for ‘CV advice’. There are lots of sharks out there who prey on students. Your careers service, your friends and Rare will look at your CV. For free. Don’t pay anyone to do it.
09 Numeracy and verbal reasoning tests require lots of practice, even if you have an excellent academic record. Practicing the night before will not be sufficient.
10 If you’re required to do these tests, do them yourself! Almost all organisations will re-test in person at interview stage.
... and one extra bonus tip:
11 Have fun! Interviews especially can be absolutely exhilarating. If you’ve done your research and are congruent about why you want to work for the firm in question, have got plenty of extra-curricular activities that you can talk about, and are genuinely suited to the job you’re going for, you may well have a blast. The chances of your getting on with your interviewer are pretty high – we know lots of stories of people who have ended up working closely with, and becoming friends with, the person who interviewed them for a graduate programme. So don’t be too surprised if you end up finding this whole process surprisingly enjoyable.
