Sophie Judd, one of our second year trainees, recently went up to Nottingham to represent us at the Careers in Management Fair. Below, Sophie looks back at how the day went.
As mentioned in a previous blog post, the NAO are visiting a number of careers fairs up and down the country. Last Monday, Jola (another second year trainee) and I had the pleasure of going and speaking to the students at Nottingham University at their careers fair. Whilst our freebies weren’t quite as enticing as those of our neighbour (no one can compete with L’Oréal’s free make up!), we still had a lot of students come and chat to us. We invited them to complete our quiz, including the important “how many lollies are in the jar” question (which had wildly varying answers!) and they walked away with an NAO goodie bag filled with sweets, lollies, pens, torches and card holders.
We were really excited to see that we attracted students from a range of disciplines, which I think is representative of those on the NAO grad scheme. Whilst there are those that have studied Accountancy/ Economics/ Finance at university, NAO graduates tend to come from a wide range of backgrounds. Jola and I both studied History at university, and others in our intake have studied everything from Medicine to Philosophy. It was interesting to see the kind of questions that the students had for us on the day, ranging from the standard “Who are the NAO and what do you do?” to “What’s the most interesting client you’ve worked on?”
Graduate fairs are a great way for employers and students to meet each other, and for students to find out about the kind of careers that are available to them. Graduate fairs are special as they provide an opportunity for students to find out what it’s like to work at these organisations from people who already work there. It can be a great way to pick up tips that might help you later on when you’re applying. So make sure you come and say hello to us at the few remaining fairs we’re visiting over the next few weeks – we’re looking forward to seeing you there!
Apply now!
Our 2016 graduate training scheme is now open to applications (deadline 31 January 2016). Head over to our graduate recruitment site for further information on how to apply.
If you’ve got any questions around the application process, please leave a comment below. You can also contact our recruitment team by email, via our Facebook page, or on Twitter.