Recently, I was given the opportunity to
attend a ‘Skills for Success - Surviving Assessment Centres’
session delivered by PwC. PricewaterhouseCoopers also referred to as PwC, is
one of the world’s largest multinational professional services firms. They are
famously known as one of the ‘Big Four’ auditing giants along with Ernst and
Young, Deloitte and KPMG. Their grad schemes, training programmes, internships
and placements tend to attract a large volume of students, not only from the
business and finance fields but also engineering, history and psychology to
name a few.
As a second year engineering student, not
having any prior knowledge about finance and business, I was a little skeptical
about whether I would understand any of the material they were going to
discuss. I was right! In the beginning it was all gibberish to me, but I slowly
caught on. The representatives from the firm began by introducing us to what
the firm was all about. This introduction led onto understanding the meaning
and importance of ‘Commercial Awareness’ in today’s world, after which they
handed out sheets of paper with a guessing game on it. The paper had provided
us with a statistic of Coca Cola’s global revenue of $48 billion, followed by
four blank spaces to guess if Wal-Mart, Switzerland, Apple Inc. or the National
Health Services (NHS) had higher global revenue than them. The aim of the
activity was to see how globally aware we were. Turns out, most of our guesses
were incorrect which was quite dismal, however it was an eye opener for most of
us.
After the first activity, the representatives
spoke about their transition from University into starting at PwC, which was
truly inspiring. They talked us through and gave us key points for application
and interview processes. They also shared experiences from their own
interviews, which gave us an insight into what it was actually like and made
things look slightly more achievable!
Finally, they ended with a 40 minute
activity, which involved reading about the current affairs of two companies;
Lloyds TSB and Starbucks. Afterwards we had to draw out a business proposal to
improve the current situation if one were CEO of that firm for a day. With
constant guidance and ideas from the speakers, every group scanned through the
given documents and came up with a rough business plan at the end of the time.
These, were discussed, critiqued and applauded by the rest and the speakers
seemed very impressed.
I can confidently say that I walked out of
that room smarter and more knowledgeable than I was when I had walked in. This
session introduced me to the basics of business in the UK and also gave me a
chance to meet people from different disciplines all trying to work their
business brain. With tips for CV writing and preparing for interviews, to the
do’s and don’ts of university life, it was highly informative. I strongly
recommend Skills for Success sessions; they tend to change your outlook on
things, which might change your future forever.
Umang (Student Ambassador – Faculty
of Engineering)
Contemplating Careers
assessment centres
interviews
job applications
skills
Going to an assessment centre? You may need to work your business brain!
Careers Service
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