Happy New Year!

The Royal Holloway College Careers Service

wish you all a

Elizabeth, Virgnia, Janette, Emma, Rachel, Hilary, Rose, Carola, James and Andrew

Commonwealth Postgraduate Funding

Commonwealth Shared Scholarship Scheme (former DfID)

The Department for International Development and participating universities in the UK run this joint scholarship scheme. The aim is to assist academically able students from developing Commonwealth countries who would benefit from higher education in Britain to the developmental advantage of their home countries. Scholarships are normally awarded for taught masters programmes of study with developmental relevance. The awards cover tuition fees, an annual stipend and travel costs. Eligible Master’s programmes are:

• MSc Practising Sustainable Development
• MSc Sustainability and Management
• MA Cultural Geography
• MSc Medical Sociology
• MSc Health Care Systems and International Health Policy.

Royal Holloway has been allocated 2 awards for 2009-2010.

Eligibility: Students must be resident in a Commonwealth country, must not be employed by their government or by an international organisation and be under thirty-five years of age. Students must undertake to return to their home country after the completion of their studies in the UK. Nominations are made by the relevant Department to the Academic Awards Group at Royal Holloway, therefore interested parties do not need to complete any form. Prospective students who wish to be considered must ensure that they submit their application for admissions to College by 31 January 2009. Nominations from departments will be submitted to the Graduate School Office by 20 March 2009. College will submit nominations to the Commonwealth Commission by 31 May 2009.

Further information: Further information can be obtained from the Association of Commonwealth Universities (Woburn House, 20-24 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9HF; website or local British Council offices.

How to Apply: Please contact the relevant Programme Director.

Merry Christmas!

The Careers Service wish a Merry Christmas to all students and staff at Royal Holloway, wherever you are!

Postgraduate Scholarships for International Students

Queens University Belfast

Postgraduate funding for EU students is limited although there are schemes students can apply to. However for non-EU students there is little in the way of financial support for postgraduate courses.  Some colleges have their own bursary schemes and I will highlight them on this blog whenever I can.

Queens University Belfast’s School of  Management is offering 25 MSc scholarships for non-EU students renrolling in a full time postgraduate taught programme for September 2009. The busaries are worth £1,500 and whilst this is not sufficient to cover neither fees nor living expenses, it is a significant contribution that may help.

The school of Management runs MSc programmes in Accounting and Finance, Business Economics, Clean Chemical Technology and Management, Enterprise, Environmental Management, Finance, International Business, Management, Risk Management and Financial Regulation, Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility.

For more information click here

Going away for Christmas?

Non-EU students who are going home or travelling elsewhere over the Christmas period may be pleased to see  a recent change to the laws on Duty Free.

The RSS feed on this blog from the UK Borders and Immigration Agency recently linked to an article that shows your personal entitlement to bring goods back into the UK has increased.

From December 1,  those travelling from outside of the European Union will be able to bring back an increased amount of duty free shopping, following the first changes to customs allowances in 15 years.

Whilst you should always check before you travel because there may be restrictions based on your nationality, the changes to current restrictions, announced by the UK Border Agency in partnership with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), see the allowance for goods such as electrical products and souvenirs double from £145 to £300 . Additional changes include:

• Increase from 2 litres to 4 litres of wine
• New allowance of 16 litres of beer
• Restrictions on volume of fragrance removed
• Option to mix and match on tobacco products
• Option to mix and match on alcohol products

Scientists! Have you got your SEHTA application in?

The deadline for applications for the 2009 SEHTA work placement scheme is December 12.

See previous blog post here for details.

Students currently studying Biology, Microbiology, Biochemistry, Physics, Marketing, Accounting and Finance are welcome to apply. You can specify how long you would be available to work (e.g. summer 2009) and in what field. We will then try to match students with suitable companies. International students are welcome to apply. These positions are all paid.

Applications received after the deadline will not be considered.

Would you like a chat?

This blog is part of a range of innovative products the Careers Service is developing.

Another project of mine is to see whether students would be interested in web-chat (e.g. Messenger / Skype) with a careers adviser. You could chat about anything from “why was my application rejected” to “They offered me the job but I don’t know if I want it”! The plan is to pilot an hour-long chat that any student can participate in online from 7.30pm – 8.30pm one evening.  Would this be of interest?

Assessment Centres: Fast Track E-Tray Exercise

The theme of this week’s blog postings has been Assessment Centres. On Monday there was an overview of what they are and what you should expect, on Tuesday there was a posting about e-tray exercises and yesterday one about group exercises.

Assessment centres are changing. Some of the exercises that have been used for years are being replaced with newer versions. Companies like SHL and Morrisby have been developing new products to meet the changing needs of their clients, graduate recruiters.

One such product is the Fast Track Exercisecurrently being used by RBS. There isn’t much information available about these exercises so I thought it would be useful to blog about them. There is limited information available on these test yet but you may want to book-mark the tagon Wikijobs and keep up to date.  Have a look at thesecandidate reviews of Fast Track tests. The SHL website does not currently have practice tests for Fast Track but if you click hereyou can access some of their other online tests.

An EU student at Royal Holloway recently took one of these tests and has written a short handout on them with examples of what they had to do.  Click here to view it.

I would encourage students who have attended any assessment centre to use wikijobto share their experiences. Wikijob can only work through students sharing.

For those who missed this week’s Assessment Centre workshops there will be an event in January for you to attend. See the Spring careers programme for details – this will be available at the start of term.

Assessment Centres – Group Exercises

The second lunchtime workshop on Assessment Centre technique was held today in the careers centre. Yesterday we looked at the use of in-tray (or e-tray) exercises and how to improve your chances to succeeding in them. Today we had fun with a nice group exercise!

Group exercises are common at Assessment centres. They are used to determine how candidates behave in team or group situations.

Typically they will consider:

• How effective are you at communicating with people you do not know.
• How you present your own views or argument
• Do you assume a natural leadership role?
• Are you competitive?
• How persistent are you in convincing people?
• Can you negotiate?
• Do you encourage others?

Not all of these are positive qualities. Companies are looking for team-players as well as leaders; being competitive is good only if it is productive; do you know when you are wrong or when somebody else has a valuable contribution to make?, do you listen? Listening is as much a part of communicating and speaking. Employers look for a range of different qualities in their staff.

Group Exercise

This is usually an assessed discussion with a small number of candidates – usually about 8.  Candidates will receive a short briefing paper and will be asked to come up with a team response to the question posed.

This can also take the form of a case-study where the group is presented with a dossier of information about a client and the group needs to make recommendations about how the company can help the client.

Role Play

Role play is used to place a candidate in a hypothetical situation and see how they respond. Of course the situation is contrived but the closer you get to thinking as a real employee should, the better.

And finally….

Assessment Centres are a key part of the recruitment and selection process. You may not feel confident about them but you can prepare in advance and build your confidence up. The careers centre can help through one-to-one coaching, DVDs and printed materials, skills development workshops and practical advice.  We have even been known to help students understand etiquette and prepare for formal dinners and functions which formed part of their selection process (some Investment Banks and armed services invite candidates to formal dinners). If you feel you are a bit stuck, drop by and see us!

Some useful online resources are:

Wikijob – How to prepare for an assessment centre and general information about them

Video – What is an Assessment Centre with IBM.

Assessment Centres – E-Tray Excercises

Today was the first to two lunchtime workshops in the careers centre about Assessment Centres. The next one is tomorrow at 1pm and it will focus on Group Exercises.  You are welcome to attend even if you couldn’t make the workshop today. In today’s session we looked at assessment centres, typical types of written tests and did a sample test. Today’s handout covered online resources and advice from recruiters about assessment centres. If you want a copy come along to the careers centre or join us for the workshop tomorrow.

An Introduction to Assessment Centres was published on this blog yesterday.

E-Tray Exercises

E-tray exercises are timed and they are designed to test your ability for rational thinking under pressure. The usually consist of you receiving information about an issue and you having to determine an outcome. However you may not get all the information at once and, as the test progresses, information comes through faster and more urgently, making the decision making process harder.

You will usually be required to make some basic calculations, extract relevant data and make a judgement. However they often provide you with too much data and try to mislead you with irrelevant information. Some tests require you to formulate a response to a customer or managerial enquiry based only on the relevant information provided.

So what are they looking for? They will be wanting somebody who keeps to the brief and does what is required of them. You should be able to identify the key issues and then justify the decision you make using them. Employers want to see good quality structured writing with appropriate style, spelling and grammar.

E-tray exercises are changing. SHL, one of the leading providers of testing resources for recruiters, have devloped the Fast Track test which is currently being introduced by some employers. For example, Royal Bank of Scotland has adopted a new SHL test called Fast Track. This is a new type of e-tray exercise and a post about this will be published on this blog on Thursday.

You can improve your e-tray performance by using the UK Civil Service Faststream online sample test. Click here. The format of this test is very similar to other companies including the Big Four.

The careers centre has many resources to help you