“Enjoy your University years, they’re the best years of your life!”. Similar phrases have been said to me by almost every adult I’ve encountered in the last 4 years accompanied by a nostalgic smile- and it’s completely terrifying. This is as good as it gets?

 I woke up at 10.30am, went to a 2-hour lecture about the South African Apartheid, ate cheese on toast for lunch and then wrote a pathetic 200 words of my essay- before spending the evening drinking wine and shouting at The Apprentice with my housemates. It may not always feel like I’m living the dream, but my life at University is pretty fantastic. My time is my own, I can study the modules I’m interested in, I can choose to have late nights and lie ins- I don’t answer to anyone.

The working world is different. Even if you work for an organisation that embraces flexi-time, working from home, dress down Friday policies- it is still nothing like Uni. The transition can come as a shock and ultimately make your first few months in the ‘real world’ feel a bit miserable. So, here are my three top habits to embrace in University life to make that transition not quite so harsh!

• Collaboration

In my degree, the vast majority of the work I do is completely individual- I don’t have to articulate my ideas to anyone else, I don’t have to take any other views into account, I can work completely to my own schedule. On my placement year, everything I did was collaborative. Seek out modules at Uni which include collaboration through group projects and presentations- it may be frustrating at times but it is waaaay better to learn how to deal with that now. Added bonus: employers are v likely to ask about times you have had to demonstrate teamwork, work collaboratively, or managed a tricky situation in a group- so it’s handy for building up the examples you have to hand for these questions.

• Time management

There’s no easy way to say this, but…mastering adulting involves getting up early Monday-Friday for approx 48 weeks of the year, every year from your twenties, until retirement. It’s a sad fact, and better you get used to it now. If you can’t bear to sort out your sleeping pattern at Uni, at least try and improve your sleep schedule for a few weeks before starting a graduate job.

I would also have a go at making University life feel a bit more like a 9-5, by giving yourself Saturday and Sunday off completely and making Monday-Friday busier. See if you can minimise working in the evenings too. Has this made you more productive, less stressed or the opposite?

• Communication

When I lived in University halls, I could go entire days without talking to a single person above the age of 19. You live in a weird bubble and become more and more similar to the people around you in the way you communicate. When I started volunteering, it forced me to make small talk with and eventually be friends with people of all ages, and this was a really underrated skill when it came to transitioning to the workplace where I was surrounded by proper adults. My advice is to seek an opportunity to feel confident talking to people of all ages, it will help you to feel a part of your team quicker.

I hope these 3 tips have been useful! As ever, feel free to message me on LinkedIn. 😊

Katie

Welcome to my first proper blog post!

I wanted to make my first post a round-up of a few top tips for Assessment Centres, as we’re well into AC season now for internships, placement years and graduate jobs. No longer do we have a simple 1 to 1 interview, whole days spent in a company’s office completing various exercises are the norm now, especially for large schemes where many people need to be assessed. In this post, I’m going to cover the most common activities I’ve experienced at Assessment Centres and how to ace them.

General top tips:

• Get the bloody basics right. A piece of advice given to me at the start of my placement year which has never failed me. Before attempting the more complex tasks of the day, don’t forget the simple stuff- turn up a little early, dress smartly, be polite. Which brings me to point 2-
• Be polite to everyone. It’s a relatively common Assessment Centre practise to see if candidates are polite to everyone they meet. You may, for example, be assessed by a group of managers- but be accompanied throughout the day by another employee. The group of managers may well ask that other employee how you were when the managers were out of the room, to see if you were different in front of different groups of people.

Group exercises:

You can almost guarantee there will be an exercise designed to test how you work with others and collaborate. Usually it involves some sort of problem given to you, which you have to solve together. Quite often I’ve experienced with a few minutes left of the task, one of the assessors giving us another piece of information which changes the direction we need to go in- as long as you don’t act panicked, and show you can adapt, it’ll be fine.

• You must contribute, don’t stay silent. If there is an opportunity to bring someone into the conversation who has been a bit shy, take that opportunity.
• Definitely don’t dominate, maybe some companies are looking for those who really take charge but I think it’s much better to assume that the company are looking for someone who can collaborate effectively and lead without dominating.
• I quite like a cheeky “Ooh, I can see we only have 5 minutes left- shall we get start working on our presentation?” showing organisation skills.

Long story short- if you come across as a nice person to work with, you will likely be fine.

Interviews:

I will write a whole post about interviews at some point, but for now, my top tips:

• The GOLDEN RULE of interviews is to always have an absolutely banging answer for “So, why do you want to work for XYZ?”. The only interview question I would ever absolutely guarantee to get asked in one form or another, there is no excuse for giving a bad answer. The tricky bit is getting the balance right between pre-preparing that answer and still coming across as genuine.
• At the end, they will ask “So, do you have any questions for us?”, always always ask a question. Failing to come up with a single question makes you look disinterested.
• Use examples even when they don’t specifically ask for examples. Give them more examples than they could ever want. Examples. Examples. Examples. Obviously everyone is going to say that they are a problem solver, so leave them in no doubt that you actually are a problem solver.

What other activities can happen at assessment centres?

• It’s fairly likely there will be an office tour. Again, be polite to the people showing you around, they may be asked for their opinion. Avoid saying anything which makes it sound like you think you already have the job.
• They may have asked you to prepare a presentation beforehand. No real advice I can give you on this one- except stick rigidly to the time they give you and make sure your slides look professional (use Design Ideas on Powerpoint if you’re not naturally creative).
• Common amongst Finance/Big 4 accountancy firms- the dreaded Maths test. These usually appear pretty hard, but the pass mark is usually lower than you might think. I got a D in AS level Maths and still passed the PwC maths test, for reference.

Phew, that was a long first post. Well done for getting to the end of it! I hope that was vaguely helpful. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn if you would like to chat about any of this!

Katie x

My name is Katie Bilsborough, a 22-year-old University student in Bath, UK. I’m in my final year of University and have secured a job for after I graduate. Getting a graduate job was a looong journey, and on my way I picked up so much knowledge about careers, assessment centres, internships and all of the other hoops that you have to jump through. So I wanted to create a hub for it, which is why I made this blog.

At University I study a very niche course called International Development with Economics, at the University of Bath. I am lucky that it has let me study a huge range of modules, and although I don’t see my future working in International Development, it has given me an appreciation for the world around me.

After a summer internship in banking (will write a blog post about this!) I found myself doing a placement year in Technology which I absolutely loved. I’m now in the very fortunate position of having a job to return to at that company.

Can’t wait to start writing! My first proper blog post will be an “Assessment Centre 101” with all my knowledge of Assessment Centres.

Katie x