Commercial Awareness

We strive to make the job market more accessible to students through our events.

(Click/tap on each event below to view specific details)

But what is commercial awareness?

Here's a dictionary breakdown:

Commercial: Making or intending to make a profit
Awareness: Well-informed interest in a situation

Therefore, commercial awareness is understanding how organizations that make money... well... make money. It's knowing about the business operations of the company you want to work in, no matter what it is. And many things can affect a business, including political, social, environmental, technological, economic, and legal factors. This is why our society caters to ALL students from ALL departments.

So why is it important?

Well, first, every business needs to make money, right? If you were an interviewer in a big company with pretty big clients and the huge role of deciding who gets to represent your company in interacting with these big-shot clients (or customers), you'd want to be sure they know how your business works, right? There's a good chance you'd also want to see if they know about your competitors, or whether there was some recent government policy that means your company would have to close down one of its branches (or something). After all, you wouldn't want to give a big job to someone who doesn't understand how the little-big things affect your ability to make money... right?

And that's exactly why recruiters seek candidates with strong commercial awareness.

But hey, look at the results from an ISE survey (below) asking employers and students what they think the most important skill is.

An ISE survey asking employers and students what they think the most important skill is.

(Source: Are students focusing on the wrong skills? | ISE Knowledge hub)

As you can see, commercial awareness is pretty high on the list, but only 16% of 567 students believe it is important, compared to 30% of 171 employers.

So basically, this means there's a huge gap between how students like you and I see this skill, and what employers actually think about it. This makes sense since you've probably never heard about commercial awareness until we started talking nonstop about it (except you're one of the lucky few :-) So we aim to bridge this gap through our events. We feature professionals talking about businesses and industries and we hold discussions to assist students like you and me to understand all these social, political, and economic trends that will affect our applications for internships and job opportunities in our dream companies.

Membership

Purchasing a membership will give you access to everything we do as a society, including our events and activities. We do have a few taster sessions here and there, but we really like to keep the main events to members only. There are two options available for memberships: £9 for the full social and events membership, and if you're not too sure whether you'd actually like to come to the events, a £5 membership option is available. If, for some reason, you decide that one of the events we put on is interesting to you, a £4 one-time add-on is also an option! Why? Events and Activities

Now we can talk about exactly what kind of activities we have planned this term. You've probably noticed that commercial awareness is a mouthful (and maybe tricky to understand at first). But don't worry, we've designed our events to make it as easy as possible for you, whether you’re a new or a returning student. So we're having:

Guest Speaker Events: Let's say you're super into tech and would like to work at a tech company. We get an expert who's pretty high up in a tech company to talk to you about their business -- and throw in information about their internships and opportunities. It's the same for law, business, healthcare, politics, etc. (look out for our events calendar to know the exact industries we're looking at this term). You get to meet them, connect with them, and maybe get experience to put in your CV. We also hold group discussions where you can expect a diverse range of views, a platform to broaden your knowledge, and a safe space to grow your confidence in expressing yourself. We're also in the process of partnering with career and graduate networks for you to expand your cohort!
Commercial Awareness Quiz Nights: Don't worry, it won't be that high stakes. Our plan is to convert everyone's favourite games night activities, such as Jeopardy, and make them relevant and informative! We'll also incorporate Case study competitions to see how well we truly understand the information we're ingesting. Whether it's an expansion strategy, M&A, or ESG compliance, there'll definitely be something to talk about.
Movie Nights: This is the one that we're most excited about. Think about The Big Short, the financial crash of 2008, which has loads of information to take on that can be relevant to today's geopolitical climate. Now it won't just be films like The Big Short; Legally Blonde definitely has some lessons we can apply to our growing awareness. Regardless, members will be able to submit films to watch (on the caveat that there has to be something applicable to commercial awareness), and we will press play.
Socials: Don't be surprised. We organize social events too. We even have a social secretary whose one job is to make sure you make friends within society and have fun. Again, look out for our events calendar to know what socials you can expect, but we're pretty confident you'll like what you see.

Sounds good so far?

Contact Us

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