Week 6: Being Organised - Bringing it all Together

Hi Everyone,

I’m an ICAEW Campus Ambassador currently studying English and Drama at the University of Kent. I’m doing a series of weekly blogs for 6 weeks about the skills I learned studying Business Administration and Mandarin at the University of California Berkeley’s Haas Business School. These blogs cover what skills employees look for and how you can foster these in yourself to ensure you get the graduate job you want.

In this blog I will talk about how my experiences in my year abroad helped me improve my personal organisation skills, the importance of effective organisation to ensure you are successful in applying for graduate jobs and its benefits in your on-going career. 

As students we are constantly busy, and with late nights and early mornings it makes staying organised one of the hardest things to achieve. For many of us, our first year at university means we are suddenly becoming completely independent for the first time. But organisation is an essential skill to securing a graduate job. You need to demonstrate to employers that you are able to keep up an active social life in societies and clubs, positions of leadership, work experience and obviously exams. It’s safe to say that during my year abroad, juggling learning a language, classes, sport, societies, non-profit work and launching a tech start-up, was a challenging learning experience.

With so much to do I would arrive at the campus at 9 in the morning and leave at 10 at night. At that rate, I started to get behind.

A fantastic book, ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen R. Covey taught me to re-evaluate my position. I considered my priorities and dropped some activities to get me back on track. The basic principles were simple. One, you identify your different roles, for example student, society president, bar employee etc. Two, you identify your goals associated with these roles, such as achieving a 2.1, getting 30 new members, earning £40 a week. Finally, you work out on a weekly basis what you need to do, to eventually achieve those aims, such as writing a draft essay, organising a stand at a society fair, applying for a new promotion. These kinds of techniques are a real help when our lives our so busy.

Employers need to see that you can hold multiple roles at once, so this kind of personal organisation is really essential to getting the job you desire. Moreover, having this skill is beneficial for your entire career where you will most likely have to multitask with multiple deadlines to meet.

I hope these 6 blogs have been useful and if you have any comments or questions at all please go ahead and I’ll help you any way I can.

Good luck with your applications and your future careers!



If you’ve been inspired by reading this blog, it may surprise you that all of these skills are used in a graduate career as an ICAEW Chartered Accountant.

Discover how you can become an ICAEW Chartered Accountant at http://www.icaew.com/careers

See when the ICAEW Student Recruitment Team (UK) will be on your campus this autumn and message them at http://www.facebook.com/icaewcareers

Week 5: Being a Leader

Hi Everyone,

I’m an ICAEW Campus Ambassador currently studying English and Drama at the University of Kent. I’m doing a series of weekly blogs for 6 weeks about the skills I learned studying Business Administration and Mandarin at the University of California Berkeley’s Haas Business School. These blogs cover what skills employees look for and how you can foster these in yourself to ensure you get the graduate job you want.

In this blog I will talk about how my experiences in my year abroad improved my leadership and management skills in the workplace and how you can demonstrate them when applying for your graduate role.

Graduate employers always stress one thing when searching for employees - the need for graduates to distinguish themselves. A great way to do this is show evidence of leadership. These can be leadership positions in university sports teams and societies or positions of responsibility at work. Hopefully, by sharing my leadership experiences during my year abroad, you can get an idea of your unique leadership qualities and experiences so that you can sell them to potential employers. 

One of my most enjoyable leadership roles was Delta Chi Fraternity Public Relations Chair where I lead promotional activities and managed the social media of the fraternity. Especially interesting was the creation of a new image that we marketed. I did however learn the hard way about the importance of staying on top of things. When being a leader it is important to keep on pushing and trying new ideas.

Perhaps the most beneficial leadership lesson I learnt was while launching a tech start up with two other co-founders: It is essential to have a strong vision of what you want to achieve from the start and get people around you who are able to make that vision possible. For instance one of my co-founders was a computer scientist, so was easily able to create a prototype, whereas I would have been hopeless.

Working for a non-profit at, or near, your university is another useful way of improving your leadership skills. My work at the non-profit events company Innovative Entertainment, as an events manager, was a huge step in learning how to manage people. What made the experience of working within a non-profit so unique was that people were motivated by their enthusiasm in creating huge student events and parties, rather than being motivated by money. This meant that fostering a communal spirit between all the employees was integral.

Perhaps the most challenging (and often comical) parts of being an events manager was dealing with drunken misbehaving students at our largest venues in San Francisco and resolving conflicts between staff members and the customers. Being partly accountable for thousands of pounds worth of equipment and 2000 students was an interesting experience. The most enjoyable part of my work was negotiating a deal with another venue in San Francisco when I personally organised and managed the annual date night event at my fraternity.

Most importantly, however I learnt that to be a leader in anything, you have to love what you’re doing, as it gives you the drive to make it a success.

I hope these experiences have shed some light on the kind of leadership activities that you can undertake in order to increase your employability. As ever, if you have any comments or questions at all please go ahead and I’ll help any way I can.

Next week I will be finishing by sharing with you how to combine all the elements of the past five blogs to ensure you get the graduate job you want. So make sure you join me next week!



If you’ve been inspired by reading this blog, it may surprise you that all of these skills are used in a graduate career as an ICAEW Chartered Accountant.

Discover how you can become an ICAEW Chartered Accountant at http://www.icaew.com/careers

See when the ICAEW Student Recruitment Team (UK) will be on your campus this autumn and message them at http://www.facebook.com/icaewcareers

Week 4: Get your C.V at the Top of the Pile, Learning a 2nd Language

Hi Everyone,

I’m an ICAEW Campus Ambassador currently studying English and Drama at the University of Kent. I’m doing a series of weekly blogs for 6 weeks about the skills I learned studying Business Administration and Mandarin at the University of California Berkeley’s Haas Business School. These blogs cover what skills employees look for and how you can foster these in yourself to ensure you get the graduate job you want.

In this blog I will talk about the career advantages of learning a second language. I wanted to mention the importance of this skill for both your application to great jobs and your future career path.

Last week we talked about presenting. Although being able to present effectively in your own language is impressive enough, having the ability to present in another one, will put you head and shoulders above the competition. One of the greatest challenges of my year abroad was presenting weekly in Mandarin Chinese as part of the assessment for my Mandarin language course. If you’re looking to go the extra mile to enhance your employability it is definitely worth considering. 

If you have never seriously studied another language, don’t worry. You don’t need to change university courses to impress graduate employers. But perhaps doing an additional language module at your university or even self-study is worth taking into consideration; enough to show employers that you are serious about learning the language. Before undertaking my year abroad, I undertook a short additional course in Mandarin at the University of Kent, and then within my year abroad at Berkeley I undertook two intensive classes for the whole year. Finally, I am planning on doing another short course at the University of Kent this year.

As globalization continues, it is becoming increasingly important for companies to understand and embrace emerging markets and foreign economies. As a result, bi-lingual employees are in demand. If you can understand another language in terms of business, you can help a company make use of emerging markets, aid in overseas business negotiations, remain competitive on the global stage, understand foreign consumers and much more. As a result, it may prove a very exciting career path, where you have opportunities for worldwide travel.

It is worth being selective about what language you choose. The widely spoken languages such as Spanish are always useful. But it is the native languages of countries that are emerging as global business leaders, including more unique languages such as Arabic and Mandarin, which are increasingly in demand. However, The Economist suggests that French may be the most useful: ‘if you want another truly global language, there are surprisingly few candidates, and for me French is unquestionably top of the list’.

In reality, a grasp of any major language is a plus. If you can show that in a few years of employment you will have developed fluency you will be seen as a real long term asset to any company.

As ever, if you have any comments or questions at all please go ahead and I’ll help any way I can. Good luck!

Next week I will be discussing how you can enhance your leadership skills and seriously impress employers as a result. So make sure you join me next week!




Check out the links below if you want more advise about what language would be best for you:

The Economist - http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/robert-lane-greene/which-best-language-learn

Most widely spoken languages - http://listverse.com/2008/06/26/top-10-most-spoken-languages-in-the-world/

If you’ve been inspired by reading this blog, it may surprise you that all of these skills are used in a graduate career as an ICAEW Chartered Accountant.

Discover how you can become an ICAEW Chartered Accountant at http://www.icaew.com/careers

See when the ICAEW Student Recruitment Team (UK) will be on your campus this autumn and message them at http://www.facebook.com/icaewcareers

Week 3: Negotiate and Persuade your way to your Graduate Career

Hi Everyone,

I’m an ICAEW Campus Ambassador currently studying English and Drama at the University of Kent. I’m doing a series of weekly blogs for 6 weeks about the skills I learned studying Business Administration and Mandarin at the University of California Berkeley’s Haas Business School. These blogs cover what skills employees look for and how you can foster these in yourself to ensure you get the graduate job you want.

In this blog I will talk about some well-practiced, solid techniques used by business professionals in order to negotiate and persuade. I want to talk about these skills as they’ll hopefully help you in your application for a graduate position and also in your future business environment. You may be expected to conduct short presentations; perhaps delivering information which you know will not necessarily be well received by the audience, so it’s good to be prepared.

It's Performing Not Presenting

In one of my classes at Berkeley, Dekker Communications, who offer training programs to prepare anyone to speak with influence mentored us for a day. They shared with us some of their key presentation principles which are regularly taught to top company executives in the US.

Their top tips were:

1) Keep it Simple – instead of having reams of boring text on a PowerPoint, replace words with images, multimedia and importantly your own enthusiasm. The audience should be looking at you, not reading a book behind you.

2) It’s not what you say, but how you say it – it’s well known that the majority of communication is done first visually, through body language and then vocally through voice tones. When presenting you should focus on posture, keeping good eye contact, varying your vocal tone and speed and most importantly, putting emotion into your speech.

3) Speak from the heart – people make designs based on emotions and then justify it with rationality. This is why you should evoke the audience’s emotions by telling personal and unique examples or stories from your life when you can in your presentation.

Within your career, you will undoubtedly have to deliver information which people won’t like, for example, radical proposed changes to a client’s company. How do you deal with these instances when the audience objects?

Kurt Beyer, teacher of my entrepreneurship class, CEO and advisor for start-ups, suggests the ‘Yes, and’ principle. ‘When you present’, he says ‘it’s important to stay flexible and take the audiences point of view’. So if an audience member suggests something rivalling your opinion, don’t simply ignore it. Accept it, say ‘Yes’, then ‘and’, going on to suggest your opinion.

This came in use when being grilled by a panel of angel investors during a presentation. We were pitching our idea of a new quick and simple keypad app for smartphones and tablets. One member questioned me on the relevance of the idea, suggesting that ‘Apple’s Siri software is slowly replacing the need for a keypad entirely’. I said ‘Yes’, I agreed that growing improvements in Siri’s voice recognition means that you just have to speak and your text will appear. Then I added, ‘and we will become the go to app when speaking is not possible, like in a meeting, class or busy train. Not only does this technique establish a good relationship but also allows new ideas to be considered that would have been ignored before.

As ever, if you have any comments or questions at all, please go ahead and I’ll help you any way I can.

Next week I will be sharing with you something that will put you head and shoulders above the competition. So make sure you join me next week!



If you’re still hungry for more tips on presenting, here’s a list of my favorite online resources:

Present Like Steve Jobs - http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/223513

Creating a Presentation -http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/10/create_presentations_an_audien.html

Harvard Business Review - http://hbr.org/video/2235534261001/why-you-need-a-state-of-the-company-address

Deker Communications -http://www.speakernetnews.com/tsem/handouts/Decker_HomeRun.pdf

If you’ve been inspired by reading this blog, it may surprise you that all of these skills are used in a graduate career as an ICAEW Chartered Accountant.

Discover how you can become an ICAEW Chartered Accountant at http://www.icaew.com/careers

See when the ICAEW Student Recruitment Team (UK) will be on your campus this autumn and message them at http://www.facebook.com/icaewcareers

Week 2: Presenting: Passing Assessment Centres with Flying Colours

Hi Everyone,

I’m an ICAEW Campus Ambassador currently studying English and Drama at the University of Kent. I’m doing a series of weekly blogs for 6 weeks about the skills I learned studying Business Administration and Mandarin at the University of California Berkeley’s Haas Business School. These blogs cover what skills employees look for and how you can foster these in yourself to ensure you get the graduate job you want.

In this blog, I will talk about how my experiences in my year abroad improved my presentation skills and the importance of presentation skills when applying for graduate jobs, especially during graduate employer assessment centres.

With big competition for sought-after graduate jobs, assessment centres have now become an important part of the recruitment process. And as part of this, so have presentations. For many of us, myself included, the words ‘assessed presentation’ can bring a pang of terror! So hopefully the next two blogs will provide useful suggestions on how to improve your presentation skills.

You may be asked to present on a specific topic at short-notice at the assessment centre, but more likely you will have been asked in advanced, so there’s plenty of time to practise. And as ever, practise makes perfect, and taking the opportunity to present as much as possible is the best way to improve your skills. Often, you can find these opportunities in your classes. For instance, one of the best classes I did in California was ‘Entrepreneurship’, where we launched a mobile tech product and ultimately presented the idea and company to a panel of investors. On top of this, I was involved in two assessed ‘Real Estate’ presentations where knowing the figures off the top of my head was essential. These were stressful; but throwing yourself in the deep end like this, is often the best way to improve. 

At the same time, real improvement only comes when you do something regularly. So the challenge of doing weekly presentations in my ‘Leadership’ class developed a tolerance to failure. The teacher made it very clear that we shouldn't worry about messing up, which many of us regularly did, me included. What was important was that we were getting up and doing it with about 10 minutes preparation. As a result, the whole class developed a very supportive atmosphere and we all saw tremendous improvements in our presentation skills, mainly because we were losing our fear and speaking spontaneously. Put simply, you have to practice and do so regularly.

So make sure you get practising any way you can!

As ever, if you have any comments or questions at all please go ahead and I’ll be sure to get help any way I can.

Next week I will be sharing with you some well-practiced, solid techniques used by business professionals in order to negotiate and persuade, so you can create the perfect pitch. So be sure to join me next week!





For more information about assessment centres visit the ICAEW website at:

http://careers.icaew.com/school-students-leavers/Student-support/Careers-advisers

If you’ve been inspired by reading this blog, it may surprise you that all of these skills are used in a graduate career as an ICAEW Chartered Accountant.

Discover how you can become an ICAEW Chartered Accountant at http://www.icaew.com/careers

See when the ICAEW Student Recruitment Team (UK) will be on your campus this autumn and message them at http://www.facebook.com/icaewcareers

Week 1: Building your Professional Communication Skills and Teamwork in Preparation for your Graduate Career

Hi Everyone, 

I’m an ICAEW Campus Ambassador currently studying English and Drama at the University of Kent. I’m doing a series of weekly blogs for 6 weeks about the skills I learned studying Business Administration and Mandarin at the University of California Berkeley’s Haas Business School. These blogs cover what skills employees look for and how you can foster these in yourself to help you get the graduate job you want.

UC Berkeley Campus

In my blog this week, I’m talking about how my personal experiences during my year aboard helped me improve my skills as a team player; a quality highly prized by graduate employers across all professions. I also want to talk about how my experiences improved my communication skills and the importance of having these skills in the workplace.

Increasingly, employers from all professions are looking for evidence of your extracurricular activities that show communication skills and team work. Employers want to see that you have a ‘life outside of work’. A great way of doing this is to get involved in sports teams or societies at your university. On your CV and in interviews you can then highlight how you built the essential skills of teamwork and communication that employers are looking for.

For example on my year abroad, I got involved as an actor for three different plays that were being directed by students at the university. These kinds of activities not only show you have an active life outside studying, but offer an opportunity to improve teamwork.

When working in a small group, communication skills become very important. Especially when performing in Macbeth on an almost pitch black stage! We had to really listen to the director, take on board their constructive criticism and be ready to put forward our own ideas as well. It was also important to build genuine friendly relationships with the cast members with whom I so closely worked with.

One important lesson that I learned is never to criticise your fellow actors, even if you’re trying to help. Statements like ‘I would have done it like this…’ don’t go down well. In the workplace it is important to understand that everyone has their own way of doing things. It is the boss’s place to nudge people in the right direction. I learned that it is very important be positive and supportive, especially when people are about to perform in front of hundreds of people! If you’re going to give advice to fellow employees, it should be given in a helpful and positive light.

I will take forward the respect of everyone’s differences, as that’s what makes a good team so diverse.

One of the most desired core competencies that the world’s largest professional services firm PwC looks for is being able to communicate with impact and empathy. So if you want to build your professional communication skills and teamwork in preparation for your graduate career, here’s your excuse to take a break from revision. Get involved in your universities extra-curricular activities and make sure to tell your dream employer about it!

If you have any comments or questions at all please go ahead and I’ll be sure to get help any way I can.

In my next two blogs, I will be giving tips on one of the most important, but also one of the most potentially terrifying skills of all: presenting. So be sure to join me next week!





If you want to check PwC’s other recommended Core Competencies then take a look at their online employability booklet for graduates:

http://www.pwc.co.uk/careers/webadmin/documents/student/2013/employability.pdf

If you’ve been inspired by reading this blog, it may surprise you that all of these skills are used in a graduate career as an ICAEW Chartered Accountant.

Discover how you can become an ICAEW Chartered Accountant at http://www.icaew.com/careers

See when the ICAEW Student Recruitment Team (UK) will be on your campus this autumn and message them at https://www.facebook.com/icaewcareers