“I studied Mandarin at Tsinghua University in Beijing during my gap year before moving to London to complete my Undergraduate degree in Statistics, Economics and Finance at University College London from 2009 to 2012. Having undertaken various marketing internships and having studied a bit of Marketing in my last year at UCL, I secured a place on the Unilever Future Leaders Programme with a focus in Marketing.

Since joining Unilever in September 2012 I have spent 12 months as the Homecare Assistant Brand Manager in a local marketing role, constantly deepening my knowledge of Unilever brands and the people who use them, and using this level of insight to help develop products’ personalities and bring them to life in the eyes of consumers. I have worked on the launch of new products, looked at sponsorship opportunities for some Homecare brands and planned digital  and TV campaigns to raise awareness and engage with consumers.

In October 2013, I moved to a global marketing role in Oral Care. This role is all about strategy, deciding where we want to bring the brand in 5 to 10 years and how we will do that. I work on innovations and advertising development at a Global level (working with France, China and Brazil). These roles have provided me with the opportunity to work with iconic brands, develop my leadership skills on a day to day basis, being responsible for key projects, and also experience working closely with colleagues in a number of business areas – from the Supply Chain to Sales and Research  & Development.”

Unilever are taking part in UCL Careers’ Employability Summer School – a 2 week programme running between 2nd – 13th June. Who is Unilever? We make some of the world’s most loved brands: Dove, Lynx, PG Tips, Sure, Magnum, Persil and Hellmann’s, to name a few. 173,000 employees around the world work to bring them to life. They’re sold in 190 countries, and are used by two billion people daily. We have an impact on lives in so many different ways, from providing food and refreshment to cleaning clothes and washing hair.

It’s easy to dismiss the importance of company values; but Saturday, 26^th April marked the first anniversary of the tragic Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh.  This led to the deaths of over 1,100 garment workers and serious injuries to many more.

Modern supply chain management involving product outsourcing in overseas markets may mean cheap clothing on demand but when a company fails to audit its suppliers, the consequences are far more serious than a few pence on the price of a T-shirt or pair of jeans!

And finding a job in today’s global marketplace doesn’t mean leaving your values behind.  Today’s top employers want graduates with the global mind-set who can demonstrate that acting as responsible global citizens means more than looking after a company’s PR image.

UCL’s Global Citizenship Summer School has been designed to help you examine how your strengths and values match up to today’s global market.  With the involvement of organisations such as Save the Children and a unique programme making use of the latest tools to help you identify and articulate your strengths to employers.

UCL Careers Employability Summer School is part of UCL’s Global Citizenship programme.  To REGISTER and find out more click here For more details of the other strands of UCL’s Global Citizenship programme, see: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/global-citizenship/programme

 Christina graduated from UCL in 2011 with a degree in English. She is currently training to become a primary school teacher at Reach Academy with ARK Teacher Training. Here, Christina takes some time to talk about her experiences at UCL, how these have helped prepare her for her career, and how she is able to make a big difference with ARK Teacher Training.

After she graduated, Christina worked for a major global investment bank. Between her second and third years of study, she successfully completed an internship with the bank who offered her a job upon graduation. There, she worked as a Document Management Analyst, managing client relationships and contracts. Despite this being an interesting experience, Christina felt that there were other ways in which she’d like to be challenged, including making better use of her English skills.

Throughout her time at UCL, Christina worked as a student ambassador taking part in school visits and showing students aged between 14 and 18 what life was like at university. It was this experience that first piqued an interest in teaching, especially when she discovered that some children have had a very different experience of education compared to hers. ‘I was always pushed, and we were told that we could be whatever we wanted to be’ she recalls, ‘but it seems that there are a lot of young people out there who aren’t getting that encouragement’.

She left the bank after a year and joined Reach Academy as a teaching assistant, and this was where she discovered ARK Teacher Training. She had spoken to colleagues about becoming a teacher, and they mentioned ARK’s highly supportive programme. ‘The programme sounded great. It looked really tough, and it is, but the multi-layered support from ARK has been fantastic. I meet with my mentor (also a UCL alumnus) really frequently and get weekly training from ARK’s experts. The course is also academically very rigorous’.

The rewards are also great: ‘I love teaching primary. There is more fun, more joy in the classroom. It’s an amazing experience when you teach a Year One child to read and they turn round and say “I can’t believe I’ve just read something!”’

Looking back, Christina recalls UCL’s impact on the success of her teacher training year: ‘my time at UCL prepared me very well for teaching. The emphasis on self-reliance and self-motivation from UCL is vital to teaching and training with ARK, because there is a huge amount to get done and it is very much down to you to sort it. That said, I have had a huge amount of support from ARK, and the excellent mentoring arrangements they have feel similar to the relationships I had with my tutors at UCL.

‘My degree from UCL has also equipped me with some useful skills for the classroom and work more generally. We were always encouraged to be inquisitive, and this really helps when dealing with small children since quite often, if something is wrong, they can’t really explain what or why. My self-awareness and communication skills were also really improved by my time at UCL.’

Christina’s main advice to current UCL students thinking about their careers is to do their research before applying for a role; ultimately it is something they will be doing every day and they should be motivated by the organisation’s mission and ethos. Equally, students should remember that if they outgrow a role, they will have plenty of transferable skills to take forward to a new job or even career, as Christina herself experienced!

ARK Schools is an education charity and one of the country’s top-performing academy operators. Its aim is to create outstanding schools that give every pupil, regardless of their background, the opportunity to go to university or pursue the career of their choice and they are taking part in UCL Careers’ Employability Summer School – a 2 week programme running between 2nd – 13th June.

The activities you will participate in at UCL’s Global Citizenship Summer School are divided between those led by our very own top-notch careers consultants, and guest employers from a variety of sectors. If you’ve attended any Skills4Work events before, you’ll be pretty familiar with why this employer involvement is such  a useful tool. If you haven’t, or you’re still a bit confused about what you’ll get out of this element of Summer School, read on.

Say you’re a highly motivated student who knows exactly what firm they want to work for. For the sake of a good example, let’s presume you study finance and it’s your dream to work for Barclays. Would you pass up an opportunity to get a personal session with somebody who recruits graduates to work for Barclays, in a totally informal way, and receive feedback from them on your CV and your interview abilities? Of course not – it’s an excellent opportunity and you never know how far impressing the right person at the right time can take you.

The scenario described above is not, of course, applicable to everyone. Let’s look at another example – say you are serious about your studies and have a good idea of what you want to do, but only vaguely where you want to work. Why not take the totally free opportunity to meet a recruiter from the sector or sectors you’re interested in, who will give you extremely relevant feedback to prepare you for your applying within their industry.

Who knows— you might even be surprised when you’re a student who just wants some professional feedback— anybody’s professional feedback—and you realise that your skills are quite well suited to an employer that you’d never considered before.

At Summer School, you will have the opportunity to meet a variety of employers. At the alumni panel, UCL graduates who are now at places like BskyB and Deloitte (and many more!) will answer your questions and tell you about the skills they developed when they were in your position.  At the speed interviewing, you’ll answer competency questions under time pressure to a variety of employers who include Morgan Stanley, GlaxoSmithKline, and LBA Books. You can get your CV checked by employers such as Macfarlanes or Cisco. This is just a glimpse of the sectors and types of employers who will be present – think of the different helpful viewpoints you will be exposed to and the invaluable advice you will receive tailored to your employability.

To register and find out more about the UCL Careers Employability Summer School as part of the Global Citizenship programme run by UCL, head on over to: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/global-citizenship/programme

– Weronika Benning, Skills Administrator, UCL Careers

This post originally appeared on the Develop your Career blog