Future career

Students in the UK who want to secure the fastest possible career progress after completing their studies must start working on it as early as two years before graduation. Especially in my field, it is crucial to enroll in one of the summer internships offered by most large corporations. The number of vacancies is very limited, so the competition can be downright murderous, especially with the most popular employers. The most desirable internships are those with the Big Four auditor firms (KPMG, PWC, Deloitte, and Ernst&Young), followed closely by large banks.

Selection process deadlines are before Christmas for most companies, so every economics student with a hint of ambition is completing applications, polishing CVs, writing motivational letters, and solving online mathematics quizzes at this time. I must say that being a student at the University of Birmingham is a huge advantage at this point. UoB enjoys an excellent reputation with large employers in the finance sector and has great ratings on national university charts this year, ranking No. 11 in my field, better than UCL among others. So its graduates are much in demand with employers.

I definitely have no problem looking up employers offering internships – quite contrary, in fact. Every day, I get several e-mails advertising interesting internships and invitations to various meetings with employers. These are sent by my faculty as well as by the University’s career center and student fellowships, to say nothing of the booths that various companies erect on the campus almost every day, where students can pick up information brochures and the companies’ representatives try to convince them to enroll in their internship programs.

Talking directly to a firm’s reps can be frequently quite useful, which is why I took part in a national graduate job fair a week ago, held at the Birmingham NEC this year. Aside from several kilos of brochures and leaflets, I brought home quite a few new suggestions involving companies that offer good internships, as well as many tips and hints for passing a selection procedure successfully, offered directly by large employers’ representatives.

In addition, I am also trying actively to improve my CV: I was chosen for the Enterprise Skills Series 2010 program, which is organized by the University’s career center. It is a series of eight three-hour workshops where a group of approximately twenty selected students learn entrepreneurial skills directly from experts. That way, we gradually learn the basics of corporate law, tax systems, marketing, financial planning, and much more. Not only does participation in such a program look great in your CV – at the end of the program, participants have a chance to obtain a financial grant from the Birmingham town hall to start their own business.

Obviously, there is much more work for me to do on my actual school duties in my second year – the number of papers to hand in alone is almost double last year’s figure. As a result, I have had virtually no leisure time this year, but I am definitely not complaining.