The Student Perspective of Spark

Hi everyone, my name is Dario, and I am studying for a Double Degree in International Economics and Management at Bocconi and Peking University! Last summer, I attended the AC215: Business Analysis and Valuation course at LSE Summer School. I decided to study here to improve my academic and professional skills, and it was an incredible experience.

The great academic courses offered by LSE Summer School are just one of the perks! During your time there, you can also register for incredible professional development events, through a programme called Spark, that will help you make your profile more competitive in the job market.

The professional events that LSE offers can give you the unique opportunity to learn more about specific topics related to your career development. The even more amazing thing is that these seminars are hosted by experienced professionals and impeccable members of the LSE faculty.

I attended the ‘Developing your LinkedIn Profile and networking in person and online’ event, which helped me to understand how to effectively structure my LinkedIn profile in order to make it more appealing at first sight to recruiters. The tips I received are things I had never heard before and I would not have been able to find them easily without going to LSE. The speaker at the event, an expert on recruiting in the corporate field, gave us many tips on how to effectively structure your work experience and discussed the importance of LinkedIn for improving our network and job opportunities. Following her insights, I noticed a huge increase in recruiter engagement on my profile.

I also signed up to an Industry Insight event, called ‘What I know now that I wish I knew then: Reflections from a career in investment banking’. I will always remember the unique insights Dr Kenneth Lee gave on the best practices to face an interview. He taught us some smart ways to approach interviews - we focused on how to present yourself and how to face unexpected questions that may arise, especially in the most competitive firms. It was very useful to hear from him, since I experienced similar questions to the ones he discussed at the event in an interview I later attended, and luckily I was ready to face them and perform well!

The Cover Letter and CV seminars helped me to better understand all the apparently minor things that can make an applicant stand out in their screening process. Thanks to this, I have made changes to my CV, particularly relating to the formatting and how I express my achievements - the result was very effective. In fact, after attending several recent career opportunities, I noticed how much my CV made me stand out compared to other applicants, many times despite the fact that I was one of the youngest people at the Interview or networking event.

In my case, my current goal is to land a top job offer in Management Consulting. My experience at LSE has already been pivotal for me to get my offer for a summer internship at Gartner this summer as a Business Associate Intern!

To conclude, I would highly recommend that you attend as many Spark events as you can during your experience at LSE, to maximize the growth you will experience from it! As a tip, I suggest you register to them as soon as possible, as seats for these events are limited. Good luck!

 

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This blog was written by one of our 2022 Student Ambassadors, who are here to share their stories and help you understand the summer school experience at LSE.