At Imperial College Business School, we understand how valuable international experience is for your career, so we give students on our MSc Management programme the opportunity to undertake a week-long Global Immersion elective to Dubai, Hong Kong or New York City.

This elective is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity as students get to experience first-hand the social and cultural dynamics of business in another country. The theme of the trips is the ‘Future of Cities’, so the focus is on visiting leading and innovative companies in these dynamic countries. Students also learn about the culture of the company with activities planned to gain a holistic understanding of the country.

Why is international experience so important?

International experience is a skill highly sought after by employers. Jolande Bot-Vos, Programme Director of MSc Management and MSc International Management said, “If you look at all the companies in the world, no matter how big or small, they have either international suppliers or international customers, as well as international employees. If you want to operate successfully in this environment, you have to be international.”

The trip was also an opportunity for students to network with alumni from the Business School working in the country they visited. This helps to broaden students’ global perspectives and understanding, and is valuable for those students wishing to work in these countries.

It also gave students the chance to further bond with their cohort outside the classroom. Students who went to Dubai and New York City travelled with students from our Finance Master’s programmes for their electives, and had opportunities to network together at cultural and social activities.

Find out more about the three different trips, the incredible companies visits and experiences in each city.

Dubai immersion

Dubai, a country that has experienced exponential growth and rapid development in its recent history is the perfect place for students to explore the ‘Future of Cities’. During the week-long trip, students had a very busy agenda including visits to a multitude of companies in Dubai, as well as on a day trip to Abu Dhabi.

From the company visits, students developed practical knowledge of various management topics including sustainable city development, management of social projects, competitive strategies, financial services and international business.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Abu Dhabi Airports ­– This public company, wholly owned by the Abu Dhabi Government, was created to spearhead the Emirates aviation infrastructure which plays an important role in the country’s Economic Vision 2030.
• Arthur D. Little – An alumnus from the Imperial Full-Time MBA, Nicholas Strange, presented to students at this leading consultancy firm.
• Dubai Design District – This company has been built as part of the Dubai Plan 2021 as a Smart City project to help forage the ideas shaping Dubai’s future as a leading destination of design, art and culture.
• Dubai Expo 2020 – The upcoming Expo in Dubai is the first to be held in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia region.
• Mubadala – A sovereign wealth fund that is supporting the diversification of the UAE by investing in key social infrastructure and creating globally integrated industry sectors in Abu Dhabi.

In addition to the company visits, students visited the Burj Khalifa, the Jumeirah Mosque, the Sheikh Zayed Mosque and the Old Dubai gold and spice souks to enrich their cultural understanding of the region. They also met with Imperial alumni located in Dubai at a networking reception. The trip wrapped up with a desert safari, where students rode camels, had a delicious Arabic feast and basked in the beauty of the Arabian Peninsula.

Hong Kong immersion

For the first time on our Master’s programmes, a group of students travelled to Hong Kong, and Shenzhen for a day trip, to explore the cultural dynamics of business in these commercial hubs.

Hong Kong and Shenzhen are global leaders in the business world, so students were lucky to visit top companies and innovative businesses in some of the sectors the region is renowned for including financial services, technology, shipping and professional services.

Josh Brystowski, one of the MSc Management students who went on the Hong Kong immersion said:

Having the opportunity to fully immerse myself in the Hong Kong culture was truly unique. Learning first-hand about the economy and how business is conducted for half of the day, while exploring the city individually provided a very enriching perspective on this vibrant international hub.

Some of the highlights of the companies visited include:

• ASTRI – Smart City Innovation Centre – Astri was established in 2000 by the Hong Kong SAR Government to enhance the city’s competitiveness in technology-based industries.
• Hutchinson Ports – A visit to a major container terminal operator in one of the world’s busiest ports.
• Huawei –Huawei is a Chinese multinational telecommunication and consumer electronics manufacturer who is the third largest manufacturer of smartphones behind Samsung and Apple.
• PwC – The Hong Kong headquarters of one of the largest professional services firms in the world.
• Standard Chartered – This British multinational banking and financial services firm is a primary listing of the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

There were fantastic opportunities to explore the culture of the region including a Hong Kong City Tour, a tour of Macau Island, sightseeing in Shenzhen and a networking reception with Imperial alumni at the China Club.

Josh Brystowski was also the winner of our photo competition for the Hong Kong immersion for his brilliant picture below. Josh says, “This photo portrays the buzzing Temple Street Night Market, one of Hong Kong’s most iconic and frequently visited landmarks. I squatted between cars on the fourth floor of a quiet car park to capture the colourful lights of the market.”

New York City immersion

The Big Apple, the Concrete Jungle, the City of Dreams. Whatever you call it, there’s no denying that when it comes to cities, New York is a true powerhouse.

Boasting an itinerary as busy at the city is, students spent a week in NYC visiting exciting young companies as well as stronghold industry leaders. Some of the themes they explored on their visits included sustainable economic development, competitive strategies, and challenges on becoming a global leading Smart City.

Annie Chen, MSc Management student, created a vlog of the trip (shown above)

Students visited a number of really exciting companies and organisations, here are some of the highlights:

• Bloomberg – The iconic Bloomberg headquarters at 173 Lexington Avenue, informally known as the Bloomberg Towers.
• 100 Resilient Cities – Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation, this organisation helps cities around the world become resilient to the physical, social and economic challenges of the 21st
• Morgan Stanley –The global headquarters of Morgan Stanley, the renowned multinational investment bank and financial services company.
• NYCx – This initiative is a collaborative effort between the tech industry and the New York City’s mayor’s office. The organisation works to make broadband, smart city technologies, digital services, and the tech industry work for all New Yorkers.
• Pandora – Pandora is a music streaming service and automated music recommendation internet radio that holds a 70% share of the internet market in the US.

As well as their company visits, students had plenty of time to explore the Concrete Jungle by foot and subway throughout the trip. A highlight of the immersion was a private tour of the famous Metropolitan Museum of Art’s spectacular collection of master paintings, sculptures and decorative arts.

The Global Immersion is one elective from our wide elective portfolio available on the MSc Management programme. Note that the immersion locations are subject to change for the September 2019 intake, and this elective is subject to additional costs.

There are also a number of international opportunities in-built into our MSc International Management programme.

MBA Connect is an initiative launched by one of our Full-Time MBA students in 2016 as a way to connect MBA students at the Business School to mentor student startups across Imperial College’s world-leading STEM disciplines.

More MBA students and therefore sector coaches on MBA Connect

This year, MBA Connect have worked to get more students across all of our MBA programmes onto the initiative so they have a larger footprint. This has been essential to propelling the programme forward. With more MBA students on board as coaches, the Imperial students have an even wider pool of industry knowledge and experience that they can tap into for their startup.

This is what sets MBA Connect apart from other initiatives. Students may be able to gain business mentoring through other initiatives at the College, but sector coaching is unique to MBA Connect. Michael gives his experience as an example, having worked in the banking industry for five years, he can give insight and real experience to students who want this kind of knowledge for their startup.

Michael says, “We have huge number of MBA students signed up for MBA Connect, so there are not only one or two coaches that you can choose from. If you meet for the first time and notice that it doesn’t really fit, there are more than 80 others you can choose from to get the right industry knowledge you are after.”

Changing from ‘mentors’ to ‘coaches’

This year, MBA Connect has moved from referring to MBA students as ‘mentors’ to ‘coaches’. This difference is important for the goal of the programme which is to provide more case-based, short-term coaching. Michael said:

We changed the terminology a little bit, we’ve made it clear that MBA Connect is less about mentoring and more about coaching, people working together short-term towards specific goals. There are other mentoring opportunities at Imperial where they bring on people as mentors who have 15-20 years of business experience; and who will then spend the next five plus years working together. We’ve established that MBA Connect is a student-led coaching programme.

While it is a subtle change, this makes a difference that helps define the aim of the programme for both our MBA students and those they are connecting with. To help our MBA coaches, MBA Connect are running sessions with the students to develop their coaching skills.

They brought in lead coach, Lisa Makarova, a PhD student at Imperial College Business School, to host a workshop in conjunction with the Careers team. This presentation and executive workshop was very helpful in training the MBA coaches.

Michael said, “The MBA students all have sector knowledge and great experience in their respective fields, but only a few of them have coaching experience. In the workshop we really teach them how to coach and set the overall environment for MBA Connect.” The students took a lot out of the coaching session and relished the opportunity to come together and meet students from other MBA programmes.

In the coming months they also plan to run a two-hour coding session for MBA Connect coaches jointly with the Entrepreneurship Club. Coding is an important skill that all the students we work with need in order to complete their projects, whether it’s for a website or software. MBA Connect collaborates with the Makers Academy for this coaching session, who are one of the largest training providers in London when it comes to coding.

Entrepreneurship on the Imperial MBA

MBA Connect is just one way we foster entrepreneurship on our MBA programmes. Another key element to develop entrepreneurial skills is the Entrepreneurial Journey elective which is where students develop a startup and pitch to investors at the culmination of the project.

Michael said, “I’m doing the Entrepreneurial Journey right now on the Full-Time MBA. I’m very much looking forward to that. This experience and MBA Connect has really motivated me also to do entrepreneurial projects in the future.

“I think Imperial provides a lot of support for entrepreneurship. It’s not just the Enterprise Lab and Hackspace, but also the Innovation Centre at White City. There’s a lot of support at the university and they also teach practically how to implement the lean startup approach. For me, my experience so far has been really rewarding.”

As champions of diversity and gender parity, we’re lucky to have so many incredible women at Imperial College Business School. International Women’s Day gives us the opportunity to shine a light on some of the women who are current and future changemakers in their industry.

This year’s International Women’s Day theme is #BalanceforBetter. This week we are celebrating the progress we have made thus far, but also acknowledging that balance drives a better working world and is an issue that involves us all. It is a call to action for every one of us to continue to build a gender-balanced world, both from her and him.

All of the women at the Business School have their own story to tell. While we would like to share all of these with you, we have narrowed it down and profiled a few of the remarkable staff and faculty members, students and alumnae at the Business School.

In keeping with this year’s official theme #BalanceforBetter, they each share their top tip to achieve gender parity.

Leila Guerra, Associate Dean of Programmes

Leila directs and oversees Imperial College Business School’s programmes marketing and recruitment, admissions, programme management, EdTech and careers services for over 1400 students. Prior to Imperial, she served as Executive Director for Early Career Programmes at London Business School and as Director of Innovation at IE Business School in Madrid, from which she also holds an Executive MBA.

What barriers have you faced, as a woman, in becoming successful in your field? How did you overcome them?

As with many other women, over the years I’ve faced internal and external barriers that could have become an obstacle or slowed down my professional and personal progression. I have worked in male-dominated industries, where you had to work hard to ensure your voice was heard and respected. I’ve never been a shy one when it came to speaking up or claiming my ground, but made always sure facts, solutions and/or results spoke for me. If the fact that I was a woman was an issue for someone, I would just ignore it and keep doing my work, but also continue being vocal about my successes.

If I look back at the last 20 years, my main frustrations nonetheless came from situations where an entrenched belief of how I “should” behave/react as a professional woman contradicted what I felt was the right way forward for me. My gender seemed to define me, and outweigh my skills, or leadership style. Sometimes this happened with the best intentions meant to address exactly the feared gender discrimination and ensure success. For example I was told “don’t smile so much in meetings”, or “be bold about how you dress or the shoes you wear”, “don’t speak too much about your kids”, etc. Specific traits traditionally linked to women that I was supposed to avoid to be considered peers with my male colleagues and progress in my career. Don’t get me wrong, they are sometimes useful pieces of advice, and of great help for some. But in my case, it created unnecessary pressure, as I was trying to define myself via how I thought others saw me, and not how I actually was.

I overcame this pressure mostly by understanding that companies hired me for who I was, not for who I thought they wanted me to be. I observed women and men around me who had been successful and I admired, and noticed, that their biggest success factor was that they were comfortable with who they were and their leadership style. It took some time, but I made peace with the fact that I didn’t have to do a fundamental identify shift. I still want to enhance, evolve and learn every day, but overall I’m comfortable with my own identity and sense of self as a leader…and yes, I still smile a lot!

What is your top tip to #BalanceforBetter as a woman in business in 2019?

I have five pieces of advice:

1. Be yourself, be authentic and be powerful!
2. We can’t do this on our own. This is not only a women’s fight, we all deserve and should strive for a balanced world.
3. Speak up, no one is better placed to represent your views than yourself. But be kind, you can still express your opinions clearly and boldly in a kind manner.
4. Let’s address those unconscious biases, stereotypes and unseen barriers one by one. We all have them and we can address them.
5. And finally, dream big. Let’s push ourselves and take action.

Sarah Ranchev-Hale, Assistant Director of Careers, Employer Relations

Sarah manages a team of Employer Relations Executives who work hard to connect employers to Business School talent, helping to put our students on the path to their dream career. Prior to her role at Imperial, Sarah worked at Morgan Stanley as the Campus Attraction Manager for the EMEA region where she engaged with top universities to attract first-class student talent to the firm. Sarah has also worked in a number of universities and business schools including London Business School, the University of Westminster and City University.

What barriers have you faced, as a woman, in becoming successful in your field? How did you overcome them?

It’s not industry specific, but likely something that will resonate with many women – lack of self-belief. Not quite believing that you deserve that opportunity, that promotion or that praise, and deselecting yourself from the conversation. I have tried to overcome this by surrounding myself with people in my personal and professional life who prop me up and give me energy, rather than pull me down. They make me believe in myself, push me when I think I’m not good enough and make me believe I can do anything!

What is your top tip to #BalanceforBetter as a woman in business in 2019?

Tell people when they have done a good job – I don’t think we do this enough, it helps build that self-belief that you deserve to be part of the conversation.

The Imperial Women’s Network

The Imperial Women’s Network was established in early 2016 as an alumni network across Imperial College Business School and Imperial College London for those interested in advancing women’s leadership in business. The Network provides a space for peer-to-peer professional and personal networking and support for female alumni and male advocates of diversity who have studied at the College.

We speak to the Imperial Women’s Network founders from the Business School.

What a busy autumn term it has been for Careers at Imperial College Business School! I’m Bosede Ogunleye, Employer Relations Manager at Careers. I have compiled a quick tour of some of the highlights from our MSc Careers events this term.

Career Fairs

We kicked off the year by hosting two Career Fairs; one focused on Finance & Consulting and the other Corporate & Technology firms. With over 1400 of our MSc students in attendance, the fairs provided a unique, early opportunity for students to connect with aspirational employers such as Dyson, Google, Unilever, McKinsey & Co, Accenture, Bloomberg, EY, and Kraft Heinz to name but a few.

One MSc student commented on how useful the fairs were:

I had the opportunity to network and meet alumni who are already working with companies I am interested in. I also could ask questions about the workplace, the culture and skills required to fulfil positions. In the end, I left more motivated with my job applications and encouraged to pursue a career in consulting.

Company visits and recruitment presentations

In addition, this term Careers had the pleasure of hosting some exciting company visits, giving students a real insight into the culture and environment of global organisations.

Back in October, students were invited to the Vodafone HQ in Paddington, to learn about Vodafone Enterprise and their Discover Graduate Programme. This visit gave students the opportunity to build their networks with industry experts and recent graduates.

The term also featured special recruitment presentations from top finance firms such as HSBC Asia, Bloomberg and Morgan Stanley, with over 150 students in attendance!

MSc Careers Week

In October we launched MSc Careers Week, an opportunity dedicated for students to focus on employer visits and presentations without the competing pressure of lectures and seminars!

A visit to the stunning A.T. Kearney offices was a highlight. 25 specially selected students from the Business School enjoyed a day of networking, case study practice and presentations with a range of A.T. Kearney representatives.  

Anastasia Kouvela, UK Director of Analytics at A.T Kearney said, “The Analytics in Strategy Consulting event was a unique opportunity for Imperial students to visit our London office and take a close look into the life of a consultant. It was a vibrant and highly interactive day that included a networking breakfast, a Q&A session with the UK managing partner, solving analytics cases, presenting results and receiving feedback.”

The Careers Week also featured a visit to the spectacular Kraft Heinz offices at the iconic Shard.  Around 40 students were given a real insight into the operation of this global FMCG company. For Kraft Heinz, working with our well prepared and insightful students is always enjoyable.

All this is not even mentioning our panel sessions, ‘Super Saturday’ sector events, workshops, webinars, etc!

This is just a flavour of some of the events delivered by Careers this term. If you are an employer who would like to connect with some of our students, please email ibcareers@imperial.ac.uk to find out more.

As anyone who’s moved to London will no doubt tell you, the search for a place to live in this thriving capital is often a daunting task – with so many locations and options to choose from, especially for applicants joining the Business School from outside the UK, or even outside of London – where do you start?

To help with the search for accommodation, we’ve reached out to some current Imperial College Business School student ambassadors to give some tips and advice on how they found their accommodation and what you can do to find the perfect place that meets your needs.

What else?

These three are just a small handful of the ways Business School students have found their accommodation. Alongside this, Giovanni, one of our MSc Finance students, used a real estate agency to find their flat, based at Earl’s Court. In contrast, Linfeng on our MSc Finance & Accounting programme, found their roommates through WeChat on Social Media.

Other students have also used websites such as Spare Room – a popular website for Londoners and students alike to find flat shares all over London or Open Rent – another great website to find rent properties, with the benefit of 0 Agency fees!

Top Tips:

As our students have pointed out, there are lots of different factors. To make sure you find a good balance between what is important for you when deciding where to live make sure you consider:

• Your budget – living closer often means paying more, can you afford this?
• Distance – the opposite of the above, do you like to walk or are you happy taking public transport – using the Transport for London (TfL) Journey Planner might help this!
• Amenities – is it close to the shops, a gym? Are these important for you?

Happy house hunting!

Disclaimer: Imperial College London does not endorse or support any of the accommodation portals linked to in this blog and they are completely independent of Imperial College London.

You may be wondering how you will acclimatise to the academic standards of an Imperial College Business School programme. Before the programme begins, you must complete a series of online pre-study modules. This will help to ease your transition.

The Hub

You will find all pre-study modules as well as information and documents relating to your programme, (such as timetables, programme materials and past exam papers) on The Hub: the Business School’s virtual learning environment.

The Hub has been purpose-built to give you access to the information you need and keep you connected. You will receive regular communication about important careers events, social events and volunteering opportunities. It’s a great way to stay in the loop with all that’s going on at the Business School!

When you log into The Hub, you’ll see an instructional video, guiding you through the areas of The Hub. 

Before you can access the Hub, you will need to activate your ICT account. Instructions of how to do this will be emailed to you very shortly, if they have not been sent already. We will contact admitted students via email when they are able to access modules on the Hub.

If you have been contacted about Hub access but experience problems with your Hub account, please contact thehub@imperial.ac.uk.

Pre-Study programme modules

We release programme specific modules throughout the summer. You will receive detailed information regarding the module requirements from your relevant Admissions team. Assessment methods vary between programmes and can be a combination of online quizzes, tests and evidence of the completion of modules. We design these modules to give you a basic knowledge of areas which will be covered in the programme.

Top tip: please give yourself plenty of time to complete the modules! 

Your first month at the Business School will be extremely busy, so it is advisable to complete these modules before you commence the programme. Some of the programme modules can take longer than others to study depending on your familiarity with the topics and previous experiences, such as the Accounting Primer, which can take between approximately 15-20 hours to complete. You will find that you benefit more from the experience if you are able to work through the material at a steady pace and give yourself time to become comfortable with the content.

Pre-Study Careers modules

Lisa Umenyiora, Director of the Careers & Professional Development Service at the Business School:

Get career ready! Did you know most of your target employers typically open for applications in August? Get a head start on your career today with our Careers Primer on The Hub. The Careers team have designed a Careers Primer that will help you to be prepared for the Careers opportunities available to you throughout your time at Imperial – over four thousand students have completed the Careers Primer over the last five years and now it’s your chance to join them.

We are celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Careers Primer which has been designed for Imperial College Business School’s students to fulfil career ambitions, produce a class leading CV and covering letter and to give you an edge in interviews and assessment centres.

Updated for the 2020-21 cohort, this key resource is available to admitted students four months before you start on your programme in September. Admitted students can take advantage of priority access to this significant resource, giving you a crucial head start in the early applications round that occurs before the September start. It is strongly recommended that you complete this before you arrive to ensure you are ready for early employer engagement.

The Careers pre-study modules include Foundations for Careers Success, which will help you develop your career strategy, understand how to effectively market yourself and ultimately find a career that is right for you.

You’ll also have the opportunity to undertake a Writing Your CV & Cover Letter module. Once completed, you will gain access to VMock, our CV Enhancement Platform. VMock uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to assess your CV and make suggestions for how it could be improved.

Symplicity

Once you have worked through the Careers Modules, you’ll be able to access Symplicity, our Careers Management System. Symplicity can be used to book one-to-one career appointments, employer events and workshops. You will be able to log in to Symplicity using the same log in credentials you use for the Hub. All the main employers will visit Symplicity to post job advertisements. The Careers team will approve all the jobs posted on Symplicity, so you can trust the opportunities that you see advertised. There’s no limit to when you use Symplicity – you will be able to access information about graduate jobs after your course has finished and beyond!

Top tip: Make sure you fill in your personal profile on Symplicity, as this is key to ensuring your profile appears in searches!

We hope you enjoy this first stage of your study with the Business School. We look forward to welcoming you on onto the programme soon!

With the start of term rapidly approaching you will now be looking to meet all your conditions, including any English language requirements to make sure you are ready for the start of term. As there is often high demand for places on tests such as IELTS over the summer months, it is important that you start preparing as early as possible! If you are not sure what test to take, please make sure you have had a look at the English language requirements page as this provides detailed information about the tests that we accept and the level that we require.

Test scores are valid for 2 years and MUST be valid on the start date of your programme, so if you have previously taken a test, please do check the date before relying on it to meet conditions.

Preparing for your English Language Test

Many of the English language test providers offer free online resources such as practice tests, test tutorials and short courses to help you with your test preparation. Depending on what test you are planning on taking, you should find the following sites useful:

• IELTS: Prepare for IELTS
• TOEFL iBT: Prepare for the Test
• Pearson Test of Academic English (PTE): PTE Academic Preparation
• Duolingo: Prepare to do your best

British Council IELTS and Future Learn open up a *free, 6 week online course Understanding IELTS: Techniques for English Language Tests which offers test preparation guidance from ‘a video tutor and a team of experienced IELTS educators’ as stated on the FutureLearn website. Whilst completion of the course can’t be used to satisfy the Business School’s English language requirement, it should prove useful whilst you prepare to take the test. 

(*using the free trial option!)

Satisfying your offer condition

Admitted students should aim to meet the conditions of their offer by 7 August 2023. If you require a visa, it is advisable to aim to meet your conditions as early as possible to ensure that there is enough time to prepare for a visa application once CASs begin to be issued. As such, when booking your test, please keep in mind that the processing times for results vary between test providers. On their website, IELTS list a 13 day processing time (3-6 days for some online tests), TOEFL iBT lists a processing time of approximately 4-8 days, PTE advise you to contact them if you have not received a result within 5 days and Duolingo results can be available 48 hours after completing the test.

If you have booked a test, good luck! If you have not yet booked a test, please try and do this as soon as possible. Finally, if you have completed a test that satisfies our English language requirement, please have a look at the Next Steps page to see how and where to submit your results. If you think getting a test in on time is going to be a problem, please do let us know as soon as possible as we may be able to recommend an alternative!

We hope to see you on one of our programmes!

Imperial College Business School Careers offers tailored 1:1 support to students to help them achieve their career ambitions.

For students across our MBA programmes, many of them come to the programme wanting to accelerate their careers, pivot into a different role, transition industries, or do a famed “triple jump”, changing positions, industries and location in one career move.

No matter what their ambitions, it is the role of our Career Consultants to help them make their goal a reality, through 1:1 sessions, CV and cover letter help, mock interview practice and more.

Two of our Career Consultants, Mark Daley and Rachel Tonner, discuss how they support students, give an insight into their role and share a couple of student success stories on the MBA.

Mark Daley

Working in career development in education represents my third career and builds upon previous careers managing retail operations for a luxury goods retailer and as an executive search consultant for the Consulting sector.

In the autumn of 2008, the global financial crash changed the executive search landscape, albeit temporarily. The immediate aftermath saw a recruitment freeze for many of my clients and with the prospect of facing months of very limited success, I decided it was time for a change and resigned.

After rapidly and unexpectedly securing five offers from competing firms I felt the need for something different thus rejecting them all. At that time, a headhunter reached out to me with a very specific set of requirements for a Careers role.

Eventually, following a meeting with Imperial College Business School I realised how well aligned I was for the role and how the type of work matched almost all of the elements of work and reward I sought. A head-hunter will always put the interests of the client ahead of the candidate, but I had always had a more consultative approach to clients and candidates, so career development turned out to be the perfect fit for my hard and soft skills as well as my own characteristics.

Why I love being a Career Consultant

Since taking up my first position, I have never looked back. I thoroughly enjoy supporting students through their time at Business School, helping them in many cases, to transition from a past career into a new one, enabling them to understand their transferable skills and experiences applicable for a change of direction. At the other end of the spectrum, working closely with MSc students with little or no relevant work experience, to secure their first step on the ladder.

I really enjoy getting to know the students as individuals and over a period of time, developing a strong and effective working relationship with them. In the beginning, getting an understanding of what they want out of their career and then working with them to map out an executable strategy to implement in the pursuit of that ambition.

One of the most amazing and totally unexpected aspects of working with international students over the years is that a number of them have become personal friends after graduating. I am now in the fortunate position to know that wherever I go in the world, I have someone to catch up with.

Student success story

There are often stand-out examples of my work with students, which make me really proud and is the most rewarding element of this job. One example is having worked with an MBA student this year who joined having decided to use the MBA to accelerate and grow out of their previous career. Having outgrown the job, for them the MBA was the opportunity to kick-start their professional growth. After an initial period of applying and some networking, I found that they were experiencing a great deal of despondency. They were considering returning to their previous career and seeing it as an option which was not so bad after all. The journey upon which the student had embarked all of a sudden seemed to have overwhelmed them and the mountain to climb was just too steep.

We sat together and really developed their channel to market strategy from just a CV and covering letter to really start networking and looking at areas connected to where they wanted to go as other options to explore. The development of a powerful and effective Linked In profile really helped and after a while, an interview came through with a leading global pharmaceutical firm. The interviews went well and a few months later received an offer for a really interesting job, perfectly aligned to their skills and experience as well as to their career ambitions.

For my part, I could understand the desire for career acceleration and saw the potential in this individual. I could understand that the task appeared too difficult and the size of the challenge insurmountable. But as an outsider looking in on this individuals’ situation, with the benefit of more experience, I could see that there was scope for great success here and that I just needed to guide and occasionally push in order for things to start to happen. This student has had a very good return on investment for their MBA and it has been through listening, accepting advice and being determined to follow through with a workable plan which has brought about such success. This, for me, is by far the most rewarding element of my job.

Rachel Tonner

Careers is where I have spent most of my working life, starting in recruitment in 2007 where I quickly learned how complex and challenging it can be for job-seekers to secure offers, and for employers to appoint the right candidates. As my career has developed, it became even more evident to me that being in the right work environment and the right role has huge effects on people’s potential, career trajectory and also their mental health and happiness. To be part of the process that helps someone to find a workplace where they flourish is why I love being in Careers.

Over the years, I’ve run recruitment campaigns across many industries, from entry to director level hires and have set-up and led recruitment teams. A number of years ago I stepped out of direct recruitment and into Learning & Development, setting up career programmes and seeing my work contribute to the step after the job offer and into the development and growth of an employee.

I now work as a Career Consultant in Imperial College Business School, supporting MSc and Full-Time MBA students, and co-leading on the Career provision for Full-Time MBA learners.

An exciting an energising job

Put quite simply, I love my role. It is really exciting and energising to work directly with such a diverse group of students who have different backgrounds and aspirations, but the same desire to succeed. I am able to share the lessons I learned as a recruiter and help inform students about the recruitment process they’re going through so they feel prepared and ready.

An average day is varied and can include running large workshops, facilitating small group sessions that practice interview rounds and group assessments, and having 1:1 appointments with my MBA students (of which I, and the other Consultants have separate portfolios of students we support). In the quieter, summer months, I’ll be creating new content for the next cohort to access, attending conferences to keep updated with recruitment trends and learn what particular companies are recruiting for and what they want to see from applicants.

My favourite part of my role is running mock interviews. To be able to take a part of the recruitment process which candidates often find stressful and has the lowest levels of confidence attached, and being able to pinpoint how people can present themselves more effectively, or feedback their strong points, is extremely satisfying.

My biggest highlight to date: student success story

One of my biggest highlights to date at Imperial has been working with an MBA student who was changing careers, and although extremely intelligent and capable, would take on a nervous, unconfident character through interviews, as if a switch from her normal-self had gone off. I loved working with her, giving her practical and specific feedback, observing the improvement in her performance and eventually seeing her secure a job offer from one of the most competitive top investment banks.

This type of tailored support is what makes Imperial College Business School unique.

Many students feedback to us that they are surprised and pleased to hear how different, useful and individual the support they receive from Careers is compared to their previous universities. The Imperial Career Consultants genuinely care when a student progresses in an application and gets one steps closer to a job. We make a real effort to provide an excellent level of service, and constantly share amongst the team of consultants how we can be more helpful and provide more ideas and information to particular students and their challenges.

When students are working with Consultants they don’t only get the 1:1 tailored approach, they get a team of Career Consultants (and ex-recruitment professionals) behind them, feeding into that support and encouragement to ensure it is as impactful as it could possibly be and give the student the best possible opportunity to secure the role they want.