Competitions: bridging the education-careers gap

For most young people, it isn’t the step between school and university that is daunting, it's the step into the unknown that follows. With competition for graduate jobs intensifying, and a degree itself rarely enough to secure employment, students have to continually strive to stand out from the crowd.

Whether it be through work experience, volunteering or university societies, career relevant experience often makes the difference between a job offer or a rejection.

Outside the realms of the traditional internship or work placement, careers focused competitions can provide an original way for students to gain that all important experience, develop career relevant skills and prove themselves to potential employers.

One such competition is the Chartered Institute of Management Accountant’s (CIMA) ‘Global Business Challenge’ (GBC). The GBC has been running since 2009, and currently involves over 15,000 undergraduate students from 26 countries, with Barclays as the main partner.

The competition is split into three parts. First, teams produce an initial consultancy style report based on a case study company. The best regional teams then progress to a national final, where they present their report to industry experts. Finally, there follows a global final for the winning team from each nation.

Andrew Harding, the managing director of CIMA, says that: “So often we talk to employers and they say the undergraduates that are available for them to recruit fall short of their expectations."

He says participants have a lot to gain from the GBC: “Firstly it’s the experience of applying and focusing their analytical skills on a particular problem, and solving that problem.

“When they get to the final, they will also meet executives who work in that industry, and get a chance to talk to them about the reality of the industry, how it works.”

However, the competition is more than just a skills boosting exercise for those taking part, with significant potential to cultivate real career opportunities.

Harding says that the competition gives companies the chance to see young people in action, and he adds that the corporate sponsors “take a great deal of interest in those that are participating”.

CIMA have recently released the results of a survey of 1,700 finance professionals across the UK and Europe, that found UK candidates were almost twice as likely to lack functional skills, basic literacy and numeracy, than their European peers.

For those who have taken part in career competitions, the value in terms of dealing with the skills gap is immediately obvious.

Many of the larger competitions happen in industries where there is already a relatively well trodden path for students to follow into a career, but for those looking to get into a relatively niche business, industry specific competitions can be a lifeline.

Overall, whilst getting involved with a career-focused competition may require a competitive streak, and commitment to time management, it could prove to be the difference between making it into a target career and falling by the wayside.

Source: telegraph.co.uk