ANTHEA - Graduate Recruitment & Development Assistant at Watson Farley & Williams
ACHIEVEMENT
SITUATION BEFORE COACHING
WHAT WE WORKED ON
COACHING RESULTS
ANTHEA'S FEEDBACK
Anthea has secured an internship position at Shearman & Sterling followed by securing a full-time position at Reed Smith before the end of the coaching programme and later successfully moved to Watson Farley & Williams.
Recent graduate with an MA in Management and BA in English working in Customer Service.
Anthea sought my help after unsuccessfully trying to secure a graduate position for 6 months. Her fruitless job search left her confused, frustrated and made her question career choices in the first place. She knew she was doing something wrong but she wasn’t able to figure out exactly needed to be improved, so she stopped applying for jobs completely which made her feel very anxious. She was extremely stressed out since living in London is very expensive and she was still financially dependent on her parents.
The key challenges she was facing were:
• She lacked understanding of her own strengths
• She lacked understanding what career options would match her skillset
• Her CV didn’t highlight her accomplishments and strengths
• She lacked overall understanding of graduate recruitment process
• She didn’t understand how to “sell herself” effectively while writing cover letters and answering application and interview questions
• She lacked experience at presenting herself at interviews
Her lack of clarity about what she wanted to pursue as a career was the main obstacle. Together we explored her professional and personal values to identify potential careers options to match her strengths. Through the carefully designed exercises I helped Anthea to clarify her desires, dreams and ambitions and turn them into precise goals. After a few sessions with me she was able to identify what a fulfilling and meaningful career looks like for her and together we defined short term, medium and long term career goals. Then I equipped Anthea with tools to design a clear and tangible action plan to get direction and focus her efforts to achieve her goals.
Once the main obstacle was cleared up, she was able to move forward with more certainty. She was already aware that the graduate recruitment process is highly competitive so her performance at every stage has to be exemplary. We worked on improving her CV and LinkedIn profile and I helped her to write strong and targeted cover letters by teaching her how to demonstrate a genuine interest in her chosen industry, company and position and that she was the best candidate for the job. I also revised all her cover letters and applications to increase her chances of securing interviews. Within a few months Anthea started receiving invitations to video and telephone interviews and I helped her to prepare for them by practising answering motivational, competency and strength based interviews.
Anthea has secured an internship position at Shearman & Sterling followed by securing a full-time position at Reed Smith before the end of the coaching programme which in her own words made her feel over the moon. My coaching empowered Anthea to discover her career direction and helped her to define a job search strategy and targeted action plan. Most importantly she has learned how to talk about herself in a way that convinces hiring managers that she is the best person for the job. She learnt how to create an achievement and strength based CV and how to prepare for job interviews by identifying the possible questions and creating answers based on what companies actually want to hear. All this helped her to become memorable at interviews and stand out from the crowd which assisted her in successfully changing jobs in the next year. Most importantly, Anthea no longer had to rely on her parents’ financial support, she managed to move to a beautiful apartment and enjoy what life has to offer.
“I sought out Evelina after thorough research. She came out as the best option and all I can say is I have absolutely no regrets. Over the course of 12 sessions of varying lengths, Evelina helped me identify my strengths, weaknesses, my current skill set and what exactly I wanted from my career. I was struggling as I did not know what I wanted to pursue as a career. Through honest, open and frank discussions with Evelina, she helped me identify this as well as my values and she facilitated the creation of a targeted action plan to achieve my career goals. This involved securing relevant work experience and following this, a full-time role and both of these milestones have been reached, so I am over the moon.
Evelina is incredibly knowledgeable, professional and she is truly an expert when it comes to the recruitment process. She is also patient, understanding and flexible. She not only helped me carve out a career direction, but also helped me practice and prepare for every step of the recruitment process including case studies, interview practice (both strength and competency-based questions), in-tray exercises, what to wear, confidence and just about everything you might encounter in any recruitment process.
I have truly enjoyed working with Evelina. I would not only definitively work with her again, but I would also highly recommend her without hesitation. Thank you so much Evelina, for all the hard work and time you have put into this process and for helping me to build the confidence to be where I am today. I could not be happier.”
