✨Tips and Tricks On How To Crack Company Events

This week we want to look at firm events like Insight day, Open day and company days like PwC Day to discuss why candidates must be well prepared to attend these, and what you should do. Whether you are an aspiring investment banking student or interested in advisory roles, if you are invited to attend these much coveted insight days, we can give you tips and tricks to turn this visit into a successful opportunity to impress your future team and even secure a position for yourself! These events are a great opportunity for you to showcase yourself, understand more about the company, culture, jobs and application process. Meanwhile the company is looking for candidates with strong teamwork skills, effective communication, proactive attitude and business knowledge. Remember the buzzwords for you are networking, networking, and networking. The focus remains on your soft skills, rather than extensive technical knowledge. Here are some tips that you can use to stay ahead of the game and outshine other candidates: ✅Background Research: You must be prepared with information about the firm, their key business offerings, new projects, like mergers and acquisitions or anything else that interests you and you can use to talk about. This will also provide an insight into the kind of business games you can expect on that day. Of course, look at the potential roles that the company has to offer so you can prepare your own introduction tailor- made to those roles (your pitch should be no more than 90 seconds long). Prepare a few questions in advance that you would like to ask. ✅Dress for the job you want: Unless specifically stated otherwise, dress in formals. You can never go wrong with a crisp white blouse or shirt, teamed with dark trousers or a formal skirt (check our article on dressing formally for interviews and company days here- hyperlink). A smart blazer with polished formal shoes, with a pen to complete the look. Do check any guidelines made available for the event if you are in doubt. ✅Show Initiative and Teamwork: Grab the opportunity to show your proactive attitude early on, even before the group tasks are assigned. Engage with the other participants to build rapport- and smartly gauge your competition. Smile to appear relaxed and confident. Try to be the first one to contribute ideas, and encourage the others. You will be observed and evaluated at each stage and such behaviour will reflect well on your collaboration and teamwork. ✅Networking is everything: Initiate a firm handshake, smile, introduce yourself, and try to find common areas of interest to break the ice, like sports, arts, and avoid contentious topics like religion, politics. Take this opportunity to sell yourself to the senior representatives with your 90 second pitch aka your elevator pitch (who you are, area of interest, key skills relevant to your target role). Politely request to be able to contact them for advice in the future. Emails, business cards, and LinkedIn connections are a great start. Do ask questions and suggestions, maintain eye contact and nod to communicate your attention. You can take the chance to show business knowledge, facts and figures but don’t start a conversation about the markets out of the blue! While we expect you to be yourself, remember to project an image of someone they would like to work alongside. Show interest in the work of these senior representatives, understand what their typical day and commitments would look like, and follow up on any advice they give you. 🙇‍♀️🙇Let us know what you think of this article and give us as thumbs up if you found this useful!