Royal Holloway Year in Business: New YIB Mentor programme

This term we launched a new YIB Mentor programme, providing 2nd year YIBs seeking placements with a Mentor from the final year, someone to advise and encourage them during the course of their placement search. 19 final year YIBs completed a training programme and induction and were allocated groups of 2nd year YIBs to Mentor.

One of our Mentors, Inesa Soghoyan, did a Global Key Account Management placement with the Affiliate Marketing company Awin in Central London. She created a video to help students seeking placements: https://youtu.be/kMCtdM1Hygg

We have received positive feedback from a number of 2nd years about the scheme. Comments included "My mentor has always replied quickly to any questions I had. She has given me lots of tips regarding the application processes and has set up MS Team meeting which was fun and also helpful". "He gave me valuable advice and introduced me to certain software to help keep track of my application" and "we have been emailing and this is ideal."

In addition to helping their specific Mentees, many Mentors are actively reaching out to 2^nd year YIBs to answer questions about their specific companies or sectors where they did their placement. The Linkedin Year in Business group is an ideal format for encouraging the creation of a Year in Business community across year groups and this is one we would like to foster and develop going forward.

If any 2nd years haven't yet made contact with their Mentors, they are encouraged to do so (and if unsure who the Mentor is, please ask MN-YIB) The Mentors have a wealth of experience: they have been through the rigours of the placement application process themselves, they have developed resilience in the way they handled the issues thrown up in the workplace by covid-19 and they understand the true benefits of undertaking a placement year.

Mentors who have written or video profiles on the blog include:

Alisa who did an IT placement with J&J: http://yearinbusiness.blogspot.com/2020/02/alisas-placement-at-j-it-portfolio.html

Michael who did an Account Management placement with SAP http://yibprofile.blogspot.com/2020/02/michael-sap-concur-account-management.html

Majurra who did a Marketing placement with GE Healthcare http://yibprofile.blogspot.com/2020/02/majurra-ge-marketing.html

Heather who did a Finance placement with Asahi Breweries http://yearinbusiness.blogspot.com/2020/01/heathers-finance-placement-at-asahi-beer.html

Vishank who did a Finance placement with The Walt Disney company http://yibprofile.blogspot.com/2020/02/vishank-walt-disney-co-finance.html

Karolina who did a Sales Development placement with Oracle: http://yibprofile.blogspot.com/2020/02/karolina-oracle-sales-development.html

Saniya who did a Sales placement with Atos http://yibprofile.blogspot.com/2020/02/saniya-atos-sales.html

Daniel did a Planning and Business Development placement with Ekol logistics in Turkey. If any 2^nd year YIBs are interested in finding out more about an overseas placement they can connect with him for more information. https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielhendrich/

We are so impressed by our cohort of final year YIBs who completed their placement positions during the course of the Pandemic. This has been a particularly challenging year for all and we are so impressed with their resilience. They demonstrated maturity above the years in the way they have handled the move to home working in the midst of their placement year and it was a pleasure to read glowing reports from the placement providers and see the students’ own Linkedin postings recognising the value of the time spent in industry. Although a few experienced a shortening of their time on placement due to the pandemic, and while a handful were furloughed, all met the minimum criteria required by the University for their Year in Business degree.

Our Final year YIBs undertook placements at the following companies: Asahi Breweries, Ascot Wealth Management, Atos IT Services, Awin , Camino Partners, Cherith Simmons, Dior, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, GE Healthcare, Groupe SEB, Johnson and Johnson, McLaren, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, Oracle, PiXL club, PwC, Ricoh UK, SAP UK, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking, Rank Leisure Holding, Superdrug, Surrey Chamber of Commerce, Teachitright, The Walt Disney Company, Unilever, VMWare.

A number of our students undertook overseas placements, joining companies such as BMW (Germany), Dentsu One Aegis (Vietnam), Ekol Logistics (Turkey), Hunty (Spain) , Loro Piana – Luis Vuitton (Italy), Oakleigh Thailand Co, Royal FrieslandCampina (The Netherlands).

Students undertook a wide variety of different types of placement. To give a flavour, some of the roles included Business Operations, Client Services executive, Cloud Business intern, Customer Success Manager, Digital Marketing, Events and Marketing Coordinator, Finance, Global Account manager, HR, IT placement, Personal Assistant to CEO, PR and social intern, Project Finance Energy placement, Project Manager, Recruitment Resourcer, Revenue Management, Role Ops support, Sales and Marketing, Sales Development Intern, Sales Analyst, Stock Management intern, Supply chain intern, Wealth Management Assistant,

For 2^nd years seeking placements in 2021/22 there will be more support over the coming terms. The deadline for applications is not until July 31^st 2021. There will be further YIB and Career workshops, starting with a Resilience workshop at the beginning of term. Students will still be able to book 1:1s with the Placement team to review their placement plans or with a Career Consultant to review CVs or have a practice interview (book via the Careers’ portal)

If anyone has any doubt about the benefits of a placement, listen to these former YIBs on the blog: http://yibprofile.blogspot.com/