Winning the Arts and Humanities Award, Marie Notermans is back with her second blog

Sometime in early February, I was sat in bitterly cold Geneva cafe when I received a call from a withheld number – it turned out to be Barclays Graduate Recruitment team, looking to arrange a phone interview. I was flattered, assumed my application had missed the pile entitled “bin” by a few centimetres, but was excited nonetheless. I rang up the Careers Service at the University of Exeter when I was back in Spain, and asked for some tips on phone interviews.

When the day of the phone call came, I ummed and ahhed over the questions, hung up, and never expected to hear from them again.  A couple of weeks later on a Monday evening, I was at work, when I got an email – inviting me to an assessment centre later that week.

I was really flattered – clearly the phone interview had gone better than I thought – now for my next challenge…what was I going to wear at the interview! A mad dash around a few Spanish department stores, a train, plane, tube and taxi ride later, and I was in Canary Wharf ironing my suit for my interview the next morning. I had never been through an assessment centre before, I didn’t really know what to expect, but oddly enough I did enjoy it. There were a group of around 5 of us, and a variety of tasks to complete, followed by an interview.

It was a much longer wait than your average job interview to find out the result – around 2 months.  This is because each company taking part in the awards invites their 10 finalists to an award ceremony in London where the winner of each award is announced. So in April, I made the trip back to the UK to meet up with the team from Barclays and the other finalists.  The awards ceremony was great as I got to meet all the other finalists who were very interesting and some people from Barclays over a relaxed lunch.  Sir Trevor McDonald hosted the awards ceremony, so hearing from him was also fascinating. When it came to the Arts and Humanities award I was looking around the table, wondering which one of the finalists would be announced as the winner, when suddenly my face appeared on the screen at the front.

It took a good few seconds to work out I had actually won, and that I was supposed to go up on stage to collect my award. I can only think that I must have looked terrified, because Sir Trevor said to me “you can look happy about it, you know”!

Find out how Marie got on in her interview next week on Monday 16 September 

You could be winning the 2014 awards - take the first step. Pre-register here. 

Marie Notermans, winner of the Arts & Humanities Undergraduate of the Year Award talks about her experience applying last year

 Do you have what it takes?
 Pre-register today. 

Sometime back in the latter end of 2012, I was sat in a room in the middle of the Spanish plain, hugely regretting my choice to pack shampoo rather than Marmite in my year abroad suitcase(s). I was despairing at my lack of ability to remember the gender of the word for ‘class’ in Spanish, but more than anything, I was wondering what on earth I was going to do with my final summer as an undergraduate.

Last year’s plan to get some experience was launched rather half-heartedly some time in March, so I knew I had to get my act together earlier this year – this really was the last chance saloon. I spent hours scrolling through internships and looking for “the job” that would be the perfect fit for my skills and interests. I looked through the usual big graduate recruiters with internship programmes, but the more I saw that asked for “a mathematical degree”, the more despondent I got.

Surely the skills I had gained through my study of English and Spanish counted for something?

One thing I did manage to do in Spain (if not perfect my grammar) was read my emails, which was where I heard about the Undergraduate of the Year Award. I remember reading about it in first year, but seeing that the requirements were asking for a penultimate year student, hadn’t entered.

I cut myself a large slice of manchego cheese, and sat down at my computer. I looked through a few of the different awards, but decided on the Arts and Humanities Award since I am studying a language degree.    What really interested me about this award was the prize of a 10 week summer internship at Barclays.  In the past I had thought I may not be suitable for a role in financial services since I don’t have an economics, finance or maths background.  The fact that Barclays were sponsoring this award clearly meant they wanted to hear from students with an Arts and Humanities background so I decided to find out a bit more about them. Despite my lack of economic knowledge, the financial crisis (and accompanying bad press) hadn’t passed me by, and I have to say that I was sceptical – especially given that I was living in a country where even the word “bank” would raise the hackles of every person within half a mile.

I’d heard of Barclays before, but what was the wealth and investment management bit about? I googled, wikipediaed and read the website from top to bottom, and had a slightly better idea. It was a bank, yes, but it was a private bank. It dealt with wealthy individuals, charities, entrepreneurs and many more. But what interested me most was how much change was afoot – I began to realise that the financial crisis had really changed the industry, and this wasn’t the same bank that I had seen before.

I put in an application, dreamt a bit, and forgot about it.

Marie will be back blogging on Wednesday 11 September 

Being a top ten finalist for the Arts and Humanities Undergraduate of the Year Award.

George Popescu-Craiova writes about his experience applying for the Undergraduate of the Year awards and urges you all to stop procrastinating and start being the best today. 

On the 19 of April I went to London for the Undergraduate of the Year Awards ceremony, where I was among the 10 finalists for the Arts and Humanities Award, sponsored by Barclays.

This journey began more than a month before that, when I applied for this Award. I am a second year politics, philosophy and economics student at Manchester University and was looking at the time for a competition that would somehow relate to social sciences.

I have to admit the Undergraduate of the Year was advertised extensively in my online searches, as it is organized by TARGETjobs. The competition is open to many fields of study, from IT and computer science to management. Each field of study has a sponsor, usually the biggest firms with the most potential for attracting future graduates. Also, the usual award for the winner is an internship with the respective sponsor company, or a one-year placement for those with placement years, among other incentives like a free iPad with the award.

When I applied I imagined that the competition would be rough, but only later I would find out how amazingly devoted the other finalists were to their fields of study and future plans for graduation. For the Arts and Humanities Award, the process consisted of a number of tests, numerical and so on, just like for a normal application for an internship, followed by a phone interview if you were successful.

The next stage, where only the 10 finalists would go to was the assessment centre at Barclays in Canary Wharf, London. Of course, by the time of the assessment, the remaining candidates would be the most skilled and the most knowledgeable about the sponsor, Barclays.

If you do decide to apply for this competition, you must keep in mind that you may be a very capable individual, but you must also do extensive research on your sponsor and seriously consider an internship or future job with them. In the actual assessment centre, you will again be tested on your numerical skills, your commercial awareness skills, you might do a role-play exercise where your knowledge of the company is tested, a presentation in a team, but these vary from sponsor to sponsor. It is a combination between what you excel in as an individual, your past achievements and your dedication towards obtaining an internship with the company. It’s not enough, sadly, to be an over-achiever, you must also present commercial awareness.

When I think about the whole experience and the competition, I feel that I have a lot more to learn and to dedicate my free time to. The people I met were from very diverse degree backgrounds, someone was studying english, another was studying war studies and so on, yet they all achieved so much in their two years in university and all presented exceptional commercial awareness. The employees from Barclays were great as well, really friendly and talented individuals, willing to help and give advice at any stage of the programme.

I strongly urge you to be the best at what you do and to test yourself against others in competitions like Undergraduate of the Year. Ultimately this not only looks good on your CV, but it makes you want more, it gives you a chance to talk to the best students out there, the best employers and to build a network of friends and potential co-workers after university. Just writing about this made me think I should stop procrastinating writing articles about why we should try to be the best and just start doing it.

In the end, I want to thank Barclays for all the support and advice, I want to congratulate all the winners and finalists this year, you guys were amazing and also a big shout out to the only other finalist from Manchester University, for the Law Undergraduate Award, Phillip Ebsworth.

If this post has inspired you - why not pre-register for next year's Undergraduate of the Year awards. 

2013 Arts & Humanities Undergraduate of the Year Award

My name is Daisy Reid, I study French and Italian and UCL, and I was a finalist for the 2013 TARGETjobs Arts & Humanities Undergraduate of the Year Award. Here's the (slightly unusual) story of how I got there, and what I've gained from the experience.

Travelling on the Paris Metro last November, I was surprised to receive a phone call from an unknown number. Even more surprised when I found out that it was actually a call on behalf of Barclays Wealth, encouraging me to finish my application for the Arts & Humanities Undergraduate of the Year Award.

Let's rewind a few weeks. I was a month into the first semester of my year abroad in France, researching summer internship schemes and ways to boost my CV for when I graduate next year (I had decided that although two summers spent working as a barmaid was probably acceptable, during the third I should really do something to improve my employability outside the hospitality sphere). 

I initially found out about the award through the TARGETjobs newsletter. Seeing that it was sponsored by Barclays Wealth was the real game-changer for me; I have always hoped that my language degree would not restrict me to translation and teaching, but instead open up opportunities for me in larger global corporations, preferably in the financial sector. In fact, wealth management was an area I had been leaning towards, but with no idea how to get my "foot in the door", so to speak. Surely they want economics and business students, not someone specialising in French and Italian! So an international wealth management company deliberately reaching out to arts and humanities students seemed tailor-made for my situation. However, half way through the application I got cold feet, looking at the multi-talented previous winners and deciding that I was way out of my depth.

Then came the phone call. I was told that my unfinished application showed real potential, and encouraged to complete it and send it off. It was at that point that I decided to stop putting myself down; they had personally made the effort to get in touch with me, so returning the favour was the least I could do.

A few months after submitting my completed application, I was asked to complete a number of aptitude tests. Technically they weren't that difficult (although A Level maths probably helped), but the time pressure made them very challenging. For anyone considering applying next year, I would strongly recommend completing practise tests beforehand. When I didn't hear back for a few weeks, I assumed that I simply hadn't been successful.

However, literally days into the second half of my year abroad (which I spent in Italy), I received an invitation to a phone interview. This forced me to realise that I actually had a real chance at this, and I began to prepare meticulously. Having literally just arrived in Italy, this was far from easy. In between enrolling at the university, finding a place to live (I was staying in a youth hostel for the first week or so) and finding my way around a new country, I was scouring WikiJobs, the Economist, the Financial Times and gathering any scrap of information on Barclays I could find. Somehow I made it through, and after turfing everybody out of my youth hostel dorm and attaching threatening notes to the door in a number of languages banning anyone from disturbing me, I submitted myself to an intense half-hour interrogation by a member of Barclays HR. I can honestly say that preparation for these things is everything, and mine paid off; I was invited to an assessment centre at the Barclays building in Canary Wharf.

So a mere ten days after arriving in Bologna with five months' worth of luggage in tow, I was on a plane back to London wearing a suit and reading a newspaper. It was slightly surreal. The assessment day was one of the most challenging processes I have ever been through. Along with the nine other finalists, I was to complete a role play, case study, group exercise, presentation, another aptitude test and go through a number of rigorous interviews. The day lasted around five hours in total, and although it was unbelievably stressful, I got to meet a number of inspirational people (including the other candidates!) and get a real idea of what it's like to work for Barclays. In addition, this was the recruitment process that all candidates must undergo for internships and graduate schemes, so having already done it once can only help me in the future!

As one of the ten finalists, I was automatically invited to the final awards ceremony, hosted by none other than Sir Trevor McDonald. That was certainly an experience in itself. A champagne reception, string quartet, three-course meal (with wine), endless networking opportunities and the chance to meet the finalists from all the other awards (including engineering, first year, business and many more); it was an incredible day and I felt unbelievably lucky to have been a part of it. Marie absolutely deserved to win and I know that she will be an amazing addition to the Barclays team. As for me, I have come out of this with more than I could ever have imagined. I now have experience at every level of the wealth management recruitment process, a number of valuable contacts, a new talking point to put on my CV and the confidence that my degree can actually take me wherever I want it to. A number of people have already got in contact with me offering new opportunities, and I wasn't even the winner!

If you are wavering between applying for next year's awards or not, I have the answer for you right here. Do it. You quite literally have nothing to lose, and you never know: you could find out a thing or two about yourself.

I would like to thank TARGETjobs and Barclays Wealth for offering me this amazing opportunity, and wish all future candidates the best of luck.

If you would like to get in touch with me about any of my experiences, I would be happy to answer any questions. Just leave a comment below!