Commercial Awareness 2012
Commercial Awareness 2012
Commercial Awareness 2012
Jenny Keaveney
Careers and Employability Service
What is commercial
awareness?
Best summarised as an understanding of
the marketplace and environment in which
an organisation operates
Equally important in both the public and
the private sectors
What is commercial
awareness?
"At heart, commercial awareness is about being able to
talk to clients, finding out what they want, why they want
it, what they will do with it and what they are prepared to
pay, and then delivering it in the way they want.
To do that you need to understand how organisations
work, the issues they face and the role of people within
them.
Christopher Stoakes
'All You Need to Know About Commercial Awareness'
Analysing organisations
What does the organisation do? (make a product,
provide a service, etc)
What roles are involved in doing this? (probably more
than you might think!)
How is the organisation structured?
What restrictions are there on how the organisation
operates? (professional, legal, regulatory etc)
What other organisations do similar things? Are they
direct competitors?
What outside factors may contribute to the organisations
success or failure?
Legal
Finance
Banking regulation; the Public Accounts Commmittee hearing on
taxing multinationals
Law
http://targetjobs.co.uk/career-sectors/law-solicitors/291163commercial-awareness-and-how-to-achieve-it-by-traineesolicitors-and-law-recruiters
Following up
Read:
The business press. This doesnt have to mean the
Financial Times (unless you are applying for investment
banking) but you should read the business pages of a
quality daily newspaper
Graduate publications/websites such as Real World,
TARGET jobs and sector-specific titles such as Lawyer
2B; Accountancy Age; e-financial careers
Watch/listen to:
Business-related programmes on TV and radio such
as Working Lunch, the Money Programme, Bottom
Line, Law in Action, Dragons Den, The Apprentice
BBC podcasts www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/genre/factual/money
Student societies
Management/leadership experience
Organising activities and events
Financial planning/budgeting/fundraising
Marketing and promotion
Sourcing materials e.g. T-shirts
Work experience
Researching employers
Follow a company in the press for a month or so
Review a companys annual report
Perform a SWOT/PEST analysis on a company
or sector of interest to you
Analyse the market sector in which a specific
company works what are the current issues?
See www.kent.ac.uk/careers/EmployerSearch.htm for
some useful information resources
The British Library produces industry guides
covering everything from Advertising to TV & Film
http://www.bl.uk/bipc/dbandpubs/Industry%20guides/industry.html
Further advice
Book: All you need to know about Commercial
Awareness in Careers Resources Room
www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/commercialawareness.htm
Commercial Awareness
the employers view
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlwB3awsRd0
www.kent.ac.uk/ces