1st year YIB Information Evening

We were delighted to see the 1st year Management Year in Business students for an Information Evening on January 31st  and to welcome YIB presenters from 2nd, 3rd and 4th year. The evening concluded with pizza in typical YIB fashion.

The meeting was introduced by Dr Catherine Harbor who is the Academic Director for the Year in Business programme. Catherine reminded the 1st year students of some of the areas to focus on for the remainder of their 1st year in order to put themselves in the best position for making applications at the beginning of their 2nd year.

1. Students need a 1st year average grade of 60% or above to progress to the 2nd year on the YIB programme.

2. Students must attend 2 YIB training sessions in March (one on Psychometric tests and one on CV preparation)

3. Students need to meet Rae Roberts from Careers between March - September to discuss their placement plans. YIB appointments available on Thursdays and can be booked here: 
https://careersportal.royalholloway.ac.uk/service/home.html 

4. Students need to complete the "Write a CV, Application, Cever Letter" course on the Careers and Employability page on moodle

Katharine Radford (Year in Business Programme Officer) and Rae Roberts (Year in Business Careers' Advisor) talked about the benefits of a Year in Business and the Process for applying.










The benefits include :
> Securing work experience on a CV
> Trying out a Career path
> Potentially securing a job offer/ being fast tracked through the Graduate application process
> Developing increased focus/ time management skills which can mean better Final Year results.

     These benefits are backed up strongly by the recent 2017 High Fliers report:

1.  3/5 of the country’s top graduate employers will be hosting industrial placements 2017/ 18, lasting between 6 – 12 months as part of the University degree and giving students first hand experience of technical, commercial or research roles.

2.  In today’s competitive graduate recruitment market, work experience schemes such as the placement year have become an integral part of recruiting new graduates. Students applying for paid placements are selected through a very similar recruitment process to that used to recruit graduates. This means that once a placement has been successfully completed recruiters are often able to offer work experience students a graduate position a full year before students are due to leave University.
       
 3. Over a third of recruiters who took part in the research repeated their warnings from previous years that graduates who have had no work experience at all are unlikely to be successful during the selection process and have little or no chance of receiving a job offer from their organisations’ graduate programmes.

Rae Roberts quoted a CBI & NUS guide 2011 on "what makes an employable graduate:
Positive additude
Business and Commercial Awareness
Application of IT
Communication
Problem Solving
Self Management
Team Working
Application of Numeracy.

1st year students have an opportunity now to develop such skills through their Management course, Work Experience and getting actively involved in Clubs and Societies.

A number of Year in Business students across each year group shared their experiences and advice with the 1st year:

> Camille Marichy - 2016/17 placement student at Costco - HR
> Nataliya Dzhuromskaya - 2016/17 placement student at IBM - Business placement
> Hippolyte Petit - 2015/16 placement student at The Walt Disney Co; summer intern at Sprinklr
> Alvaro Ferreira (2nd year YIB student with confirmed placement at Ascot Wealth Management ; President of RH Enactus Society) and Joy Timmer (2nd year YIB student and Vice President of RH Enactus Society)

All the student presentations can be found on the Year in Business Moodle page. 

Year in Business workshop for 2nd years on Resilience

Rae Roberts, the Year in Business Careers’ Consultant recently ran a Resilience workshop for 2^nd year Year in Business students here at Royal Holloway in order to support the students in their search for a placement.

This was an interactive workshop with students working in small groups to identify what they wanted to get out of a placement year, what they had learnt from the application process so far, what next steps they could identify and what help they required.

In the workshop it was recognised how tough it can be to secure a placement: typically the process for securing one is similar to the graduate job application process normally undertaken in the final year: once the CV/ Covering letter or Application form has been submitted students can encounter Online tests, Interviews (phone, video or face to face) and Assessment Centres. Students face these at the same time as working towards their 2^nd year Management courses so clearly good time management and planning skills are required. Rae also stressed the importance of getting sleep, having a good diet and exercising to put the student in the best position to manage the process.

Key messages:

Stay persistent.   

1.Previous Royal Holloway YIB student Sarah Hunt who did her placement year at GSK 2015/16 in Executive recruitment said “It’s crucial to stay persistent when applying for jobs as you can easily get discouraged when rejected. However from experience I can tell you it is worth it in the end!"

                                                                                                                                                                 
2.Remember the benefits of securing a Year in Business in terms of gaining valuable work experience and enhancing your Graduate job prospects.

3.Develop a Growth mindset: Rae talked about the resilience required to pick oneself up after a failed placement application and the importance of learning from the process so that a student’s prospects are improved for future applications. Students heard about the difference between those with a growth mindset and those with a fixed mindset.

Rae encouraged students to have a growth mindset:  learning from the process, persevering, challenging, being inspired by others and having the right attitude to face the challenge. http://blog.gradconsult.co.uk/the-surprising-trait-of-a-strong-growth-mindset-2

                                                           

Review your mix of applications and make sure you tailor applications

1. Consider including a mix of Companies with large numbers of positions (check Rate My Placement gude) as well as SMEs and some lesser well known Companies.

 

     2. Monitor the YIB Facebook page for new opportunities and use Linkedin/ Personal contacts to establish new leads.

     
    

      3. Find your personal link to demonstrate why you want to apply for a Company (eg refer to someone you have met from a Company/ something you have read in an article about the Company) and be passionate/ knowledgeable about the Company and Sector you are applying for.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Seek all the help you can

      1. One to one career consultations available Thursday afternoons 12 – 3pm to help with CVs/application forms, mock interviews , general placement discussions . Book here:
        https://careersportal.royalholloway.ac.uk/home.html

      2. An action packed Career programme/ skills workshops : many Alumni come back to College for such events providing great opportunities for networking and understanding a particular sector; skills workshops such as Assessment centre training/ interview skills help YIBs prepare for the application process

     

         3. Careers and Employability moodle page provides many resources including psychometric test examples/ video interview examples and tips for Assessment centres.

      4. Year in Business Facebook page provides tips, news of events and placement vacancies

  

     5. Advice from Final Royal Holloway YIBs who are currently out on placement or back for their final year.

6. Resources/ articles available to students: 

        
    The Great Grad Job Hunt 
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaLJgr6DrdR3qsb_q2g9iT
    http://targetjobs.co.uk/news/240543-how-to-be-a-resilient-job-hunter 
    http://pgblog.careers.salford.ac.uk/2011/10/why-resilience-is-king-in-getting-a-job-and-building-a-career

Finally Rae reminder students that they have until 31^st July 2017 to secure a placement and many new positions are still being advertised.