Category: Events

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Olivia Wyman Hackathon Challenge

Have you ever wondered what it is like to work in consulting? 

Do you want to apply your analytical and coding skills to tackle a real business problem?  

Sign up for our Oliver Wyman HackAtOW challenge! You will meet other European students and young professionals, join a multicultural and multi-background team and tackle a concrete innovation challenge to help one of our clients to make an impact on their business! 

This is a unique opportunity to test your coding skills and be part of an international challenge while also having the opportunity to learn specific technical skills and soft skills from Oliver Wyman experts and peers. 

The finalists will go to Madrid to pitch their idea in front of a jury and the winning teams will receive a prize and will have fast-track access to the selection process to join Oliver Wyman. Travel costs for the final phase are covered by Oliver Wyman. 

The Challenge 

One of our top Retail clients has hired Oliver Wyman to help understand their promotional program and assess the environmental impact. 

You will be in charge of helping the client to understand the sales profile of key products and their current promotional program by looking at the sales and the promotion data.  

Phase 1 – Offline 
Participants will understand the client needs, evaluate them and provide a comprehensive analysis applying advanced analytics, machine learning and coding skills. You will be provided with specialized mentors on the most innovative content and methodologies. 
 

Phase 2– Live in our Madrid Office 
Selected teams will prepare a short pitch, answer questions and defend it in front of a jury of Oliver Wyman Experts. 

You will receive feedback and training on templates, frameworks, and how to make a perfect pitch, with which you will present your idea to the judges. 

Delve into the challenging topics, come up with your own ideas and work with the team to develop a winning solution. 

You will expand your network and meet students from other European countries and the Oliver Wyman team! 

Prizes 

In total, there will be two winning teams and all the finalists will have fast-track access to Oliver Wyman Data & Analytics selection process. 

Winner (1st Prize): up to 2.000€/winning team 

First Runner-Up (2nd Prize): up to 1.000€/winning team 

Who can Register 

This is the right challenge for you if you are:  

  • Student in the penultimate or final year of university studies, or recent university graduate or young professional with a quantitative academic background (Mathematics, Statistics, Physics, Computer Science, Informatics, Data Science, or Engineering). 
  • Fluent in English 
  • Additional fluency of the local office language that you are interested in for those outside of the UK (Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain) 
  • Comfortable using a programming language to explore and analyze data e.g. Python or R 
  • Enthusiastic about exciting questions and challenging topics in a quantitative environment 
  • Able to work in a team and a quick learner 
  • Keen to have fun with us! 

Please note that you can participate individually or in a team of 2 members. 

Timeline 

Finalist teams or individuals will fly to Madrid on Thursday 20th 

Travel, accommodation, and meals will be provided. 

Apply Here 

Be a part of this international innovation journey! 

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targetjobs Undergraduate of the Year Awards Update!

AI and Robotics with Ocado Group

The lucky winner will win a 12 week paid Summer Internship plus the chance to have a 121 career conversation with a senior member of the Technology Leadership team.

Software Engineering with Skyscanner

Students could win a paid Skyscanner 12 week internship in London or Edinburgh, plus exclusive one-to-one networking opportunities with senior colleagues and £300 to spend on travel.

ICAEW100

We also have the ICAEW100 which is open to all students, and is a 30-minute, case study based online exercise. Every student who completes it receives a bespoke feedback report outlining their strengths and weaknesses which could be helpful in their career search. If a student’s score lands them on the leaderboard and they can stay on the leaderboard until the end of the competition, they’ll also be in with the chance of winning £1500, alongside prizes from the competition partners.

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Interview: Dr Gary Ushaw

We interviewed senior games lecturer, and former Director of Business and Engagement for the School of Computing, Dr Gary Ushaw, about what you can do to improve your employability.

Sum up your role in 10 words or less 

 Career opportunities for Computing students (especially games) 

What are your official job responsibilities? 

As part of my role as Director of Business and Engagement for the School of Computing, I had an overview of all career, employability and placement activities for our students. 

What are your unofficial job responsibilities? 

As a part of Game Lab, I have a lot of successful links with the game development industry. My term as Director of Business has recently come to an end, so I am reverting to focusing on the games industry. However, I remain more than happy to talk to students about careers and placements across the digital sector. 

Why do you have strong links to industry? 

I worked in the video game industry for many years (lead programmer and engineering manager with Ubisoft, BBC, Sony, Rockstar, Atari) so I have an extensive network of contacts in that industry, which has widened across the entire UK game development sector due to the success of our graduates from the MSc and MComp in Game Engineering. 

What companies do you work with? 

We work with every major game development studio in the UK (Activision, Rebellion, Ubisoft, Epic, Nvidia, Sony, Rockstar, Warner Bros, Microsoft, Sega, Sumo, etc, etc) as well as the independent game developers around the northeast and further afield, and international developers around the world. They all employ graduates from our MSc/MComp, provide industry talks, and advise on the course content, because they know the high quality of our graduates. 

How would you say you help students improve their employability? 

The key word here is “opportunity”.  As a school, we provide a lot of opportunities for students to meet potential employers from across the digital sector and beyond. We also provide opportunity for improving your interview skills, CV feedback, etc. We are currently ranked third equal in the country for employability of our undergraduates in Computer Science, which is due to our fantastic students seizing opportunities. 

What areas do you think students need to improve on when it comes to employability, and how can they improve those areas? 

Different companies focus on different areas, many will be interested in technical skills, but all are interested in the ability to communicate and work well with others. If there is one area I would highlight, it is the team project. Employers do not want to hire so-called hero programmers, who do all of the work themselves. They want to hire team players who can forge meaningful and productive relationships with their peers. Our team project in Stage 2 is designed to provide that experience and opportunity. 

In what order would you rank the following things in terms of importance from an applicant (first most important, last least important) 

CV, Cover Letter, Portfolio, Interview, Code Interview 

They are all equally important, with some sectors focusing more on some stages (portfolio for example). The key is to remember that each of those elements listed is a mechanism to get you to the next stage of the process. CV and portfolio get you to the interview and technical test stage. The other thing to remember is that interviews are a two-way process – you are finding out about the company, and whether you want to work with them. 

If there was one piece of advice you want students to take away from this interview, what would it be? 

Seize the opportunities. 

Can students contact you for advice, and if so, what is the best way to contact you? 

Yes, absolutely. Email me, or just come to my office. 

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Tell us how we should be helping your employability

Please fill out one of the following forms, the one relevant to your current stage, to give us some insight as to what areas of employability we should be improving to help you.

Stage 1

https://forms.office.com/r/WjRGbbdw1n

Stage 2

https://forms.office.com/r/ijaQG9LSyx

Stage 3

https://forms.office.com/r/34dayVgatM

By filling out one of these surveys, we can get a better idea of what content and resources we should be creating to help you as students.

Your help is much appreciated!

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Breaking up your employability journey – Stage 3

For most, university is about gaining the necessary skills and knowledge to enter a certain field or industry. It is this reason why a lot of people quite easily fall down the rabbit hole and assume they must have their whole university time planned, with placement along the way before concluding in the perfect graduate role.  

Especially for those who are just starting, the untapped potential you have at your fingertips over the next few years can be really overwhelming and you can’t help but try to plan everything as soon as possible (I know I did). This isn’t sustainable and will likely lead to early burnout.  

To hopefully help you with the process, the following article lays out a method of breaking down how you can improve your employability over the course of your university career. This is just a rough guide; some stuff will work for others that doesn’t work for you. And that’s okay.  

If there is one thing you do learn though, it is that you do not need to do everything straight away and even the smallest step is important. 

This is the third article of three, focusing on what stage three students could be doing in this final part of their degrees. If you are interested in any other stage, Stage 1 or Stage 2 please click the respective link. 

Semester 1 

Polish and Self Promotion 

Whether you are returning from a placement, or have just finished your second year, congratulations on making it this far. Regardless of what grades you’ve received, the fact that you’ve already committed this much time to your degree is impressive and won’t go amiss by employers. 

For many, this year is a big one. You get to specialize and focus on a certain field by picking modules, a dissertation and the looming threat of securing a job for when you’re done. It can be a lot, and it can be stressful. But remember, you already have two years of knowledge and skill to show off, so be sure to do just that. 

To avoid the stress of trying to sort out your CV and portfolio, applying for jobs and doing a dissertation all at the same time. Be sure to try and break them up. I recommend starting with your CV and portfolio. 

In the previous articles, I kept mentioning that you should be improving and iterating on your portfolio to the point that you are probably sick of the word. But it really is that important! By now you should hopefully have a nice-sized portfolio of work, including things like your team project. Take some time to fine-tune and make your portfolio something you can really be proud of. Check out this article for some more tips. As the year progresses and you work on more specific projects for your chosen career, be sure to include them in your portfolio and maybe even do a few shameless promotions on LinkedIn! 

Semester 2 

Apex of Applications 

Except for some roles at larger companies like Google and Microsoft, the window for most of your applications will be within your second semester. And there is no point beating around the bush, it will be a stressful period.  

However, if you have a portfolio and cv ready before you even start applying, it will mean you have one less thing to juggle. Having a “generic” cv is a great starting point for any application but be sure to take the time to specialise it for the role you are applying for, much like how you would do with a cover letter. 

Keep a spreadsheet of roles you have applied for, as well as how far along the application pipeline you are, with the relevant cover letters and CVs for each role. This means that if you progress to the next stage, you don’t have to scramble around to figure out what you said in your application. 

If you start to notice trends in your applications with either no responses or immediate rejections, be sure to reflect on why this is happening and actively change your applications. Use the Careers Service to help with this! 

Semester 3 

Securing Those Graduate Roles 

Hopefully, between semesters 1 and 2, you will receive responses from the various companies you have applied for. If they like your application, you might have progressed to the next stage in their application process. It varies from company to company what the next step might be, but it could include any of the following: 

  • Assessment Centre 
  • Coding Interview 
  • Classic Interview (1-1) 
  • Group Interview 
  • Presentation 
  • Personality Test 

Any of these can be nerve-racking to attend but all you can do is try your best. Remember, you are already on good footing because they liked your application. They want to fill their open roles! 

Don’t get disheartened if you aren’t successful with your first, second or third application. The job hunt is an iterative process. After each one, reflect on what went well and what didn’t. Where you can, ask for feedback from those who conducted the interview or managed the application process then apply what you have learned the next time. 

And again, please make use of the Careers Service. It is there to make your life easier and has the main responsibility of helping you get a job.