Although a high school degree alone no longer guarantees career success, holders of internationally recognized degrees still have many doors open for them. With its Career Centre team, ICEF knows how to make the most of education its students receive. In this interview, ICEF Career Services leader, Victoria Pralich, shares how they connect students to employers, what jobs there are available for students, and where students should be helped when they’re starting out. Read also comments from the market leaders’ HR officers about the latest happenings on the employment market.
What is a Career Centre?
Just when you think you can breathe again after having made it to the university after months of preparation, there’s another challenge to face: What career is right for me? What job should I target and how do I achieve it? ICEF Career Services Centre was created to help students navigate career landscape and prepare for successful entry into the labor market.
The Centre serves as a kind of a navigator on students’ way to industry leaders, internships and job offerings. Along with guidance events, workshops, meetings with spokesmen of top well-known brands, resume writing and job interview counselling, the Centre offers a wealth of vacancies ICEF students can take advantage of to ease the stress and to avoid mistakes when entering the job market.
Elizaveta Rozanova, ROSBANK
Head of Enterprise-wide Risk Management Center
The crisis made us revise our decisions about our staffing needs. Now that key operational activities require less personnel, to the foreground come digital qualifications and good analytics skills. We continue looking for promising employees, conducting job interviews over Zoom, Skype, and WhatsApp.
At ROSBANK, candidate selection process is three-stage:
- interviewing by HR and subject-matter experts/managers, where candidates are expected to take tests and solve cases
- filling out the application and security clearance
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Now that hiring has moved online, we try to involve in interviewing as many team members as possible in order to get us the ‘big’ picture of the candidate. The questions we ask candidates are designed to allow us to see whether they are able to respond and adjust to non-standard situations, whether they are quick thinkers and can structure information in a way that can lead to a solution.
In addition to testing the basic knowledge of financial markets, financial analysis, and programming, we pay great attention to soft skills and the ability to work in a team. Traditionally, ICEF graduates stand out as excellent communicators and disciplined, enthusiastic workers, who, however, could have done better on the programming side. We would therefore advise ICEF students to do electives allowing to level up in technical proficiency.
We are increasing our presence in the social media – and, particularly, through our Career With Rosbank service on VK and Facebook – to be more visible to students and fresh graduates and to advise them on career options at Rosbank. Also, we are available on HeadHunter and in associated career groups where we post internship opportunities, and there is also a blog our team is running on Habr which targets both experienced professionals and younger recruits.
Basically all in-person internships have been converted to a virtual format and we are using Home Office to encourage communication between the team and the new employees. All our new employees are asked to complete the online quest called StartinG. Welcome to ROSBANK, which is about the history, the culture and the business specifics of ROSBANK and Société Générale. Then, there is a webinar to be attended, co-hosted by ROSBANK’s top managers. About once a week we all have a Zoom meeting just to chat and exchange views as we normally did during the coffee breaks. This, I think, will become a usual practice in the future. Overall, the online format is a centerpiece in our transition to new ways of onboarding new hires.
The key advantage of ICEF Career Center is its enhanced professional connections. Strong linkages have been established with businesses in Russia and abroad, financial institutions and government agencies, which ICEF is readily introducing its students to. And because the Career Center has been a springboard to success for many, some of whom have made it to the top, it has many of its career guidance events supported by alumni who act also as student mentors.
What companies can ICEF graduates and students work for?
Since ICEF bachelor's students earn two degrees, one from the Higher School of Economics and the other from the University of London, they have the benefit of going global. An internationally recognized degree is seen by employers as an endorsement of quality, signaling the advanced level of qualification. And yet, a prestigious diploma per se is not a guarantee of career success. Graduates have yet to prove their professional level, as well as demonstrate their best skills and knowledge.
Marina Zevakina, IQVIA
Talent Outreach and Acquisition partner
This year IQVIA is operating virtually, delivering some of its internship activities, as well as working meetings, in the form of Home-office webinars. We continue searching for candidates, and if graduates have concerns they might be ‘downsized’ after having been made a job offer, they can be sure this won’t happen at IQVIA. That we continue hiring people even now, when the market is down today, is a good sign of business stability.
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The entire selection process is now operated virtually and it didn’t take us long to move online. We make sure that our online screening process uses relevant tools: candidates do an online SHL test instead of the offline knowledge test, while business cases and final interviews are done via a video conference.
This year is the first time we are hosting our annual open house in the form of an online webinar. I’d say the transition to digital format has even increased connection. It is essential for students to use dedicated channels such as university websites, company websites, HeadHunter and its internships section, in order to stay updated on the events and to be able to follow them.
In the context of increasing competition for traineeship places, what will put your resume ahead of others is sections such as ‘participation in projects’, ‘volunteer experience’, ‘previous internships’, ‘extra training’ and ‘conferences’. Some students find it hard to overcome the “screen barrier”, tending to feel comfortable when communicating virtually. This is also something they will have to learn how to cope with. In a video conference, achieving eye contact and reading emotions can be difficult but generally comes down to the quality of a technology. We, on our part, would recommend students to browse for recommendations on how to prepare for online interviews and to test with friends. As to candidates’ hard skills, there are tests and case solving activities we use to assess them.
Orientation is provided to new hires also online – basically via the online team meetings and the e-courses on our training portal that are meant to introduce the newly recruited employees to our policies and values. There is also job induction training available to all new hires that involves independent study of materials for further discussion with the manager.
ICEF Career Center sees its mission also as maintaining contact with global business elite – McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, BCG, Bain, to name a few. By monitoring market requests and how recruitment requirements and candidate evaluation criteria change over time, the Center maintains widespread information-sharing networks to bring its training standards in line with expectations of the industries.
This grants ICEF students access to major international and Russian companies, including Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Alfa Bank, VTB, Sberbank, IIDF, Bain & Company, Deloitte, BCG, McKinsey, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Yandex, Gazprom, among others. ICEF graduates land jobs also in Russia’s governmental agencies including Bank of Russia, ministries and departments of the RF Government and Moscow City Government.
230 RUB
IS GRADUATES’ MONTHLY AVERAGE SALARY
What services does the Center offer?
Students learn resume writing skills and how to adjust their CVs to meet the employer needs. They also learn how to write motivational letters. Also, we teach them self-presentation techniques and how to overcome some of the disconcerting situations that can emerge during a job interview. This part of the training is largely contributed by employers themselves – through series of dedicated workshops, elective courses and case championships they host. One recently completed course series was with PwC, Unilever, and Bain & Company and had its focus on English proficiency and topics as diverse as strategic marketing and consulting, public speaking skills, time management, storytelling, business communication, team management, and information structuring. The Center is where students can learn how to communicate with companies in an effective way and that includes the ability to ask questions and come across as someone who is competent, as well as the awareness of personal goals and weaknesses to be dealt with.
Tatiana Semina, Raiffeisenbank
Graduate recruitment officer
My team sees students and graduates as a source of fresh eyes to foster development and lead the bank in the future. We therefore continue working to expand our talent pool, with one minor change in the procedure, and that’s remote format of interviewing and hiring, which we are not entirely new to, though, because we have been hiring candidates remotely before.
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Our requirements to candidates remain basically unchanged. Previous work experience or a completed internship is an asset. We see core soft skills evolving more towards flexibility and ability to adjust quickly to change, as was aptly demonstrated by the need to move operations online and we can never know what the future holds for us.
As for job search, it follows a classical scheme: create a professional resume, make a list of companies you see yourself working for, and devise a plan for getting yourself prepared for interviews and further stages of the selection process so that you are able to keep up with the requirements. It would also be advisable to network with companies through case championships, workshops or professional conferences which, too, have moved online. Many young people say they feel their lives are put on hold, but that’s not like that at all. There are still opportunities out there, they’ve just moved online. Attending venues has never been easier because you don't have to travel to them. We are soon launching an online boot camp to help young recruits start jobs remotely, and we are not the only ones who’s doing it.
When it comes to working from home, the approach differs with companies. At Raiffeisenbank, for example, new hires begin their positions not only under the guidance of their immediate managers, but also mentors who help them get acclimated, introduce them to the team, add them to chats, and answer all their questions – the duties mentors did earlier before the process moved online. And there is now a special online platform we’ve developed for our new employees, where it is easy to see and keep track of what new hires are expected to do on their first day, week and month. Also, all our new hires have access to the Bank’s online guide and the onboarding process schedule.
Generally, smart working has been practiced at Raiffeisenbank since 2018 and is available, upon agreement with the management, to those whose physical presence in the office isn’t vital to performance. Moving operations online has in no way affected our effectiveness. Moreover, candidates see online interviews as a more convenient format because they can find slots in their schedules easier. We are planning to continue to use the online format for candidate search and onboarding, especially given the multitude of online tools and venues available on hr-tech market, which we aren’t missing out on.
At ICEF Career Centre, psychological and motivational training unfolds through information support and individual guidance. While information is delivered at a multitude of venues where students can meet companies in-person, individual guidance involves counselling on a variety of career issues ranging from resume writing to choosing a career track to accessing the desired employer. The Center is supported in its work by HSE Career Services, whose resources are equally available to ICEF students.
Students and graduates are updated on vacancies, internship opportunities and upcoming events on a weekly basis. They can expect to be able to ask for advice at any time and be guided throughout the entire period of study. More benefits are available from ICEF’s mentoring programme with mentors from among ICEF alumni who act as counselors in work-related and academic setting.
How to prepare for an academic career?
Students who choose to continue their studies abroad can take advantage of the Centre’s dedicated preparation programme and ICEF Academia, a project designed to prepare students for careers in academia and PhD studies.
With assistance from ICEF Career Services, applicants can plan their enrollment by being advised on the choice of university, preparation of document package, obtaining references and taking GMAT/GRE tests. On a parallel track, individual guidance is provided on aspects of communications psychology so as to increase the applicant’s awareness of their potential for easier and more flexible adjustment to new settings. But, as was repeatedly noted by ICEF graduates themselves, they receive all this while doing a double degree. The double degree is what offers avenues to global integration, brilliant career prospects and a mindset that allows one to feel comfortable in professional and academic settings in Russia and abroad with equal ease.
More about job opportunities for graduates
