Anyone thinking about applying for the Year in Business programme at Royal Holloway may want to
have a look at the videos below to help them with their decision.
Emma Baker from Careers talks about the advantages of doing a Year in Business in terms of gaining vital work experience, enhancing employability prospects and improving your chances of getting a higher level degree.Emma also talks about the support the Careers Service offers Year in Business students who are looking for placement.
Katharine Radford is the Year in Business Programme Officer responsible for the day to day running of the programme. In this video she introduces the programme at Royal Holloway and what students can expect in terms of the programme objectives & outcomes.
If anyone thinking about applying for the Year in Business programme wants more information they should look at the Royal Holloway, School of Management website, where there is a helpful section on frequently asked questions. There are also a number of case studies of students who are out on placement.https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/management/yearinbusiness/home.aspx
If you have any questions please contact the Year in Business School of Management placement team
At the recent Placement and Internship evening organised by Julie King/ Helen Bacci from the School of Management several Royal Holloway students talked about their experience of Workshadowing/ Internships and Placements. The evening was concluded with an enlightening talk from Will Conder at Affiliate Window about placements from an employer's perspective.
Helena Wilkin, a Royal Holloway 2015 Graduate talked about her one week work experience of Shadowing a Female Leader at PWC at the end of her 2nd year at University. The placement was in Audit and she shadowed all aspects of work.Interestingly the process to secure a place on the Shadowing scheme was almost like applying for a graduate role, with online application, psychometric testing, telephone interview and assessment centre. However at the end of the week and after a final interview, Helena was offered a full time role to be commenced when she graduated - what a good way to go into the final year!
Natasha Virani, a current Royal Holloway Management student talked about her internship as an Account Services intern at the end of her first year at DDB Canada. Natasha gained some great experience in business in her home country and used videos and photos to demonstrate her involvement in a number of projects with Mik Canada and Subaru.
Tarun Hariharan, a final year Royal Holloway Year in Business student impressed the audience with his talk about his placement year with Nomura Structured Finance in Mumbai and the responsibility he was given. During part of his placement year he covered the maternity leave of an Associate at Nomura
or watch Tarun's video about the tips that he offers Year in Business students:
Some of the main tips for students making applications for internships/ placements included:
Do your research : short list jobs and companies that you are interested in and consider what you actually want to do.
Be prepared when going into interviews: use STAR examples; prepare questions to ask; do your research about the company; dress appropriately; practice tests online; share examples of previous work experience.
Make use of Royal Holloway resources to help you: the Careers service offer practice interviews; CV checking; online psychometric practice tests; regular programme of training events including assessment centres.
Build your network ; use Linkedin.
Social media - always remember your digital footprint and think before you post : the companies you apply for may see things you don't want them to.
& don't forget to support each other through the process...
The evening concluded with a highly informative and entertaining talk by Will Conder. Many people may not have heard of Affiliate Window, but they will have heard of many of the companies Affiliate work with. These include : Vodafone, Tesco, John Lewis, Boots, Expedia, Hitlon, PCWorld, Sports Direct, Asos, O2, BT, Dorothy Perkins, Post Office, Boden, lastminute.com and so many more. Affiliate Window offer support to find clients an online marketing strategy that works for them and the chance to monetise their websites. It also sounded like a young and dynamic company in which to do a placement year.
Louis Alecu is studying BSc Management with International Business (Year in Business) at Royal Holloway. As part of his 4 year degree he is working for a year at Vauxhall in Luton as a European Supply Chain Analyst (Materials Management).
In this video he gives advice to other Year in Business students and talks about his placement position at Vauxhall.
Bradley Tate is studying for the 4 year BSc Management (Year in Business) degree at Royal Holloway College. He is currently completing his placement year at GE Healthcare as a Commercial Operations placement student.
You can hear more about Bradley's placement and the guidance he offers current Year in Business students in this video:
If you want to listen to more Royal Holloway students talking about their placement experiences have a look at the YIB video profiles at the top of the blog : see link here http://yibprofile.blogspot.co.uk/
This is a guest blog from Maria Stopnikova. Maria is an International student studying at Royal Holloway School of Management. As part of her 4 year BSc Management with Marketing (Year in Business) she has just started her 3rd year out on placement with Lucidity London.
Lucidity London is a marketing consultancy providing advice, planning, research, web design, brand identify and print services to businesses. Maria is reporting to the Managing Director and actively involved in implementing creative solutions for a number of client accounts. She is working with creative teams, digital agencies and print suppliers.
Maria talks about a numberof the marketing projects she has been involved in and demonstrates some of the promotional material she has helped produce.
Here are Maria's answers to the questions we posed:
How did you find
the application process?
It was quite hard for me
to coordinate all my studies and work application process, although the overall
process I found enjoyable. Because I live outside the campus for two years so
far, I mainly spent time on campus for seminars and lectures and my own
readings in the library. The rest of day I used to spend on my own research and
everything else to meet the standards of YIB program.
What
recommendations would you make to those Year in Business students starting in
their 1st year at Royal Holloway and their 2nd year?
To those students who
just starting their 1st year at Royal Holloway I would recommend
first of all to concentrate on their studies. From my own perspective (as
international student), I was driven by my own goals of getting the most from
lectures and seminars, as well as my own learnings. I believe that while you
just begin getting into your responsibilities as a student, you may find
yourself under the risk of overestimating campus activities, Student Union
communities etc. Unless you have a 100% productive time management (which you
may find hard to achieve), my recommendation for you would be first look at
your studies and what you really understand by being a successful student!
At your second year in
Royal Holloway you already have a clear picture of what to expect from your
studies and how much time you would spend to get everything done. For those who
wish to complete a Year in Business program, the second year is very much
crucial in terms of both your studies and work application. One of the helpful
sessions provided by RHUL I would say is CV writing process where you can find
how to make a good CV relevant in conditions of UK rules and restrictions.
However, it’s you only who can make your application process successful. So
besides your studies, please do your own business world research. If you wish
to get a worthy work experience, try to start thinking of it at least one year
before and don’t be driven only by other people’s opinion – this may be not
applicable for you!
What is your job
title and what projects will you be working on?
My job title in Lucidity
London is Junior Analyst and I work on several projects in different
industries: luxury food industry (caviar), music industry etc. Some of the
projects will require travelling in few months’ time. In particular, I have just made a visit to Germany to find out more about how the caviar farm operation works.
Overall, those projects which I’m engaged in are very different and interesting
to work at.
How have your
first few months been on your placement?
That’s technically been
the first month of my placement so far. I had a great induction week which was
full of new activities such as administration work, getting in touch with new
people, understanding upcoming projects and ideas. Besides I’m constantly
learning something new along with amazing practical experience, so this year is
going to help me with my final year at RHUL as well!
What has been
the best thing so far about your placement?
One of the best things
about my placement is that my work requires academic knowledge and digital
skills that perfectly meet my field of studies. Besides, working on few
projects require meeting senior people, much travel, as well as great
opportunity of being creative and open-minded – amazing experience (I hope you
would agree)!
What else
would you like to say about the Year in Business programme at Royal Holloway?
I’d say just try to put all your effort into this year
and find it pleasant and contributive to your future career!
We were very pleased to welcome a number of local companies , both large and small, to our mini placement fair held in the foyer of the Management building at Royal Holloway college on November 10th . Many of the companies also brought current placement students with them who were able to converse with the Royal Holloway Year in Business students about their experiences.
Dr Catherine Harbor talking to Charlene Dawkins and Tarun Hariharan
We were also delighted to have present Charlene Dawkins, a Royal Holloway Student Funding Advisor, and Tarun Hariharan, a previous Royal Holloway
placement student (Nomura, Structured Finance services, Mumbai)
Caroline Drummond and her team from GEspoke to students about the large number of placements available across a range of their businesses which include GE Healthcare based in Amersham. One of our current Royal Holloway Year in Business students, Bradley Tate, is currently working on placement here as a placement student within Commercial Operations.
There are a range of different GE placement positions currently being
advertised on Jobonline and the Royal Holloway business students were
particularly advised to consider at the Commercial Operations Management
position.
Anyone considering applying should look at the GE utube channel which includes many helpful videos youtube.com/user/ge
Golfbreaks is a local SME based in Windsor and will be offering 18 placement positions in 2016/17 across Sales, Marketing, Finance and Customer Service. They are particularly looking for students who are committed, enthusiastic team players with a real desire to "make a difference". http://www.golfbreaks.com/careers
Jenny Bannister and her team talked about the friendly and enjoyable working environment at the Windsor officeand the opportunities for highly performing placement students to return for a permanent position at graduation.
Eser Rizaoglu, the Recruitment Executive at Affiliate Window talked to students about the placement positions available at this London based company.
Affiliate Window are a global marketing company who work with a large number of well known companies including Vodafone, BT, John Lewis, M&S, Boots, PC World, American Express, Expedia, Hilton Group and many more.
If you want to read more about what previous placement students have said about Affiliate window follow the link here:
We were very pleased that Prospect Soft were represented by 2 current placement students who enthusiastically talked to YIB students about the benefits they have experienced working at a SME and emphasised the levels of responsibility they have been given. There is more information about ProspectSoft and the benefits of SMEs in my recent blog article http://yearinbusiness.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/have-you-considered-applying-for-sme.html
Enterprise Rent a Car joined us from their European Head Office based in Egham to talk about their placement opportunities at both Head Office and branches nationwide. We currently have a Royal Holloway Year in Business student, Muhatashim Butt, working as a Revenue placement student at Enterprise Head office. Alyson Dickman talked to students about the 18 different departments at Enterprise ranging from a large functioning Finance/ Business Management team to a busy HR department. https://careers.enterprise.co.uk/?utm_campaign=graduates_2018&utm_medium=blog&utm_source=royal_holloway_university
