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
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