This blog entry was written by BBA5 student Ekaterina Borisovskaya, who is currently on an professional internship experience at Gran Meliá Don Pepe in Marbella. Ekaterina has written a series of blog entries in the past and she’s a Les Roches Marbella Ambassador.
Hello, everyone.
I am back today with the big announcement of Career Day happening on the 19th of October. You will not have classes that day, so you can dedicate all of the day for this event!
I am here to share with you some tips that I wish I knew when I had my first Career Day. I have been gathering your questions, and I added the questions I would ask myself as a first semester student and I combined it into this blog. I hope this helps you prepare the best for your Career Day and get your dream internships!
How to register for the event?
You have received your emails in your student inbox. There is a detailed explanation of how to register, what documents are necessary to include, what information is important.
Most important is that you don’t forget to register on the platform where Career Day will take place before the day itself.
How to use the platform?
In the e-mail sent by Career Services, you’ll see how to register on the platform. After you’re registered, you can view all the companies that will participate.
Here is my advice: explore the website and choose for yourself the companies that interest you the most. You should decide based on your own criteria: company, location, conditions and positions they are offering, etc. It is very important because you don’t want to waste your time on the companies that will not meet your career expectations. I recommend you to create a list of companies, with the order from most desirable to least.
What should I expect during Career Day?
Career Day will start from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm. The reason for that is because there will be companies from all over the world: from USA to Asia. It doesn’t mean you have to participate during the whole day, but make sure to participate when your company will be online.
When the day starts, it’s the most important part. Remember you prepared the list with the companies of your interest. Each company has a queue where you have to wait for your turn, like in real life. Most common what happens is that the companies which are widely famous, get a lot of people in the queue waiting, so if you are looking at a big company such as Four Seasons, Grand Hyatt, Mandarin Oriental and others, it makes sense to queue in those companies in first place.
After, just follow your list of companies and queue for them. There will be a lot of candidates so be as fast as you can.
What should I say about myself?
That’s probably one of the most common questions. As I said, there will be a lot of competition, so you have to show yourself from the best angle.
Firstly, don’t be nervous. First impression is key. I saw many of my friends panicking about nothing. The recruiter is looking for a passionate, self-confident and career-orientated student. They know that you are still studying, but you have to prove them you are the one.
How can you do that?
- Prepare a motivational letter. That would be necessary to do when applying to the job, so you could make one in advance. That letter would help you summarize your previous experience, passion for the company.
- Prepare a short summary about yourself. When passing a short interview with the recruiter, you might expect to be nervous which is normal. I suggest you have a document with that information (of course you must learn it to look more confident)
- Prepare for yourself a list of frequently asked questions. For instance, “have you had experience in hospitality before”, “why did you choose to study Hospitality Management”, “does your family have any connection with Hospitality” … and try to answer them, thus, predicting the conversation.
What to do after the interview?
During the interview, you can ask any question you want concerning the company, position (prepare your questions in advance). It is always good to show your interest to the recruiter.
During the interview, write down all the information you got to know about the hotel and recruiter. Ask for the contact information of the person who was speaking with you, you will need it for future.
After the interview, there is an option to leave a comment that your employer will be able to see after the conversation. I always leave a short note of appreciation, that it was nice to meet you and hope that we can work in future.
What is next?
When the day has finally came to an end, I would recommend you different options.
Now you have all the contacts of recruiters. You can search and add them on LinkedIn with a nice note that you got to know each other on the Career Day at Les Roches.
After a few weeks, the interviewer has to contact you in case they got interested in you. Then, you will be asked to pass another interview, or if you are lucky, you could get an internship proposal.
Don’t get upset if you haven’t heard from anyone. There are future events happening on our campus. It is a great chance to get to know and have interviews with such companies as Mandarin Oriental, Jumeirah, Marriott and many more leading hotel brands. You can view all the companies on Simplicity.
Good luck and I hope you get your dream internship!
