Wednesday 20 July 2016

1st class degree and an offer from Nomura Holdings

Tarun Hariharan graduating from Royal Holloway

The first 2 students on Royal Holloway's School of Management Year in Business 4 year degree graduated last week, each having been awarded a first class degree. Congratulations to Tarun Hariharan and Alastair Mensah Brown. Tarun gained a BSc Management (Year in Business) and Alastair a BSc Management and Marketing (Year in Business)

We were delighted to hear in May that Tarun had received a job offer from Nomura Holdings, Inc, where he had spent his placement year. Tarun has now started as an Analyst in the Asia Ex-Japan Senior Relationship Management team, working in the Mumbai office. Tarun wrote to us saying:

"Thank you very much for the support throughout the past four years, without which this would not have been possible. The Year in Business was a clear bonus and astonishingly one of my interview questions was something I wrote an essay on this year."

 Read more about Tarun's placement with Nomura Holdings here:http://yearinbusiness.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/taruns-placement-year-at-nomura.html

Bill Dale  Executive Director and the Head of EMEA Product Management Nomura at the time of Tarun's placement said “It has been a pleasure to work with Tarun; his attitude and application have been really first class throughout. Over his time with my team his qualities have been very valuable to our business.”


Watch Alastair talking about his marketing placement with GE Capital here:http://yibprofile.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/alastair-mensah-brown.html

Anne-Lise Rozies, Marketing Executive at GE Capital International at the time of Alastair's placement said : “All in all, Alastair has successfully delivered large impact marketing work streams and demonstrated a fantastic capacity to work with a large number of stakeholders to achieve a common goal.”  

Saturday 9 July 2016

Sarah Hunt - update about GSK Executive Recruitment role

Sarah Hunt has just finished her placement year with GSK in Executive Recruitment and will return to Royal Holloway in October to complete the final year of her BSc Management with Human Resources (Year in Business). She has received an excellent report from her manager and has written an update about GSK and the role she has done.







GSK is a healthcare company that develops and researches vaccines, pharmaceuticals and consumer healthcare products. The Company operates in three areas: Pharmaceuticals, Vaccines and Consumer Healthcare.

GSK is a brilliant company to work for, I gain a real sense of purpose from knowing that the work I do is changing lives everywhere. They aim to create an inclusive, engaging working environment that encourages employees to contribute and help us achieve strategic business objectives. Working for a company that values its employees and makes such a difference to lives is very motivating to me.

Its consumer brands include Sensodyne, Panadol, Horlicks, Polident, Paradontax, Tums, ENO, NiQuitin/Nicorette, Zovirax and Aquafresh. The Company has its presence in over 150 markets, a network of 84 manufacturing sites in 36 countries and research and development (R&D) centers in the United Kingdom, the United States, Belgium and China.

I am fortunate enough to work for a company with dedicated individuals who share common company values. These values include:

- Patient focus:
We focus on the individual, doing what is right for patients and customers. We are committed to the highest standard of ethical medical practice and governance in our work.

- Integrity:
We are committed to performance with integrity. Doing what is right for our patients and consumers must be at the heart of every decision we make. In doing so, we demonstrate integrity in action, at every level, every day.

- Respect for people:
We support and inspire our colleagues to help them be the best they can be and to achieve great things.

- Transparency:
As our business evolves to meet global challenges, so does our culture – and transparency is integral to this. For us, transparency means being honest about what we do, how we do it and the challenges we face.

The Executive Recruitment team is a global group of in-house recruiters, focused on recruiting
the external, executive talent that GSK needs to deliver its talent and business strategies. The team of headhunters are based around the world, across Singapore, Belgium, the US and UK.




My role includes:

- Supporting Talent Intelligence work: Helping to ensure that our competitive talent
intelligence database is up to date.

- Collating key industry and sector news updates for Recruiters .

- Working with Communications to identify what GSK updates we “push” to potential
candidates.

- Conducting Market and Candidate Research, using tools such as LinkedIn, to identify
potential candidates for specific roles and projects for the Exec Recruiters.

- Coordinating our Measures and Dashboards, which track how we are performing
against our strategy and objectives

 On Sarah's last day at GSK she wrote on her Linkedin page:
Today is my last day at GSK. I have enjoyed my placement year immensely and have been lucky enough to work with some truly great people and got involved in some projects that have allowed me to develop as a person. GSK treats their placement students with real respect and the employees really do go out of their way to make you feel welcome and get you involved in as much as possible. It’s a year I will never forget and a company that truly live their values, anyone looking for a placement- I would highly recommend GSK!

You can read more from Sarah in her earlier blog post:http://yearinbusiness.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/sarah-hunts-gsk-placement.html

Wednesday 6 July 2016

ASET Marketing Conference

For a Year in Business programme officer like myself at Royal Holloway I find the ASET workshops which I attend to be invaluable.

ASET is acharitable organisation formed by a group of Placement professionals in 1982 designed to advance the prevalence, effectiveness and quality of work based and placement learning in Higher Education through the provision of a code of good practice
It's vision is a Higher Education sector in which all students have access to high quality integrated learning opportunities in a workplace, supported by committed, well trained and properly resourced staff in educational institutions.


Senate House London - ASET workshop location

In June I attended a Marketing for Placements conference which covered many areas including the type of activities used to promote placements to our audience and the importance of making clear the benefits of employability.

We discussed why marketing placements has become even more important. For anyone considering a placement year these facts should be of real interest:
  • High Fliers 2016 reiterated in 2016 Graduates “little or no chance” of receiving job offer without prior working experience.
  • Students on sandwich degrees has increased by 1/3 to 153,000 2014/15 (from 113,000 in 2009/10).
  •  Latest DLHE figures showed significant difference in employment rate of students who have completed sandwich degree (82%) vs those who hadn’t (74%).
  • Salaries are 8% higher for graduates who did a sandwich degree vs those not (6 months after leaving: DLHE).
  • Research findings by Higson et al (2011, 2012) based on 600 students (University of Aston) supported previous Ulster study confirming that undertaking a placement degree does improve degree performance. Specifically Higson et al establishes:
o   It is the better students who tend to undertake placements.
o   It is the less academically strong students that benefit most from a placement.
o   It is not a placement, per se, but the quality of the placement that enhances academic performance 
      
F
      For employers considering offering a Royal Holloway student a placement position they may want to consider the following

       Royal Holloway Programme strengths
  • All students gain a broad understanding of all the core Management areas during their first year by studying courses such as Accounting and Finance, Marketing, Organisation studies, Information systems and International Business.
  • School of Management has high level entry grades (ABB) and all Year in Business students have to secure a 2:1 in their 1st year to progress on the programme.
  • The Complete University Guide (CUG) 2017 placed Royal Holloway 4th for its Marketing course. (April 16)

 





     Quotes from previous employers who have managed Royal Holloway students during their placements can be found here: http://yearinbusiness.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Employer%20information