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My TC journey (career changer advice)
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<blockquote data-quote="HorsesForCoursesNeighNeighNeigh" data-source="post: 82714" data-attributes="member: 8899"><p><strong>Commercial awareness</strong></p><p></p><p>My experience was that the vast majority of what I learnt was not directly tested, but allowed me to speak with confidence and hugely improved my written tests. I used the TCLA resources, the TCLA webinars, the sample Qs, Know the City, etc. and basically rote learned as much as possible.</p><p></p><p>A lot of my interviews tested a general “business sense”—like do you actually understand why businesses do what they do, how decisions are made, the factors and psychology behind it? The ideas behind retaining clients vs getting new business, reputation, risk reduction, the need to understand your sector? Working in BD, studying economic policy and having parents with a small business all helped a lot! Being able to articulate these motivations and understanding the WHY (more so than the technical terms) was absolutely crucial. One of my written tests explicitly measured this, with a scenario designed to make you think through the client’s motivations, as well as how you link soft and hard skills. I think this would be tough to really learn without some experience, even just working with a small business owner for a while. </p><p></p><p>However on the other hand basic M&A questions came up constantly, and there’s no excuse to not know that fairly inside out—for me it was a matter of rote learning, then trying to link with what I already knew. The TCLA resources are amazing here, I treated this like exam learning and it helped so much. I made up simple acronyms to remember key things—e.g. “cheeky fellows in restaurants enjoy takeaway lamb curries” got me out of some tough spots! (Departments in M&A—corporate, finance, IP, real estate, employment, taxation, litigation, competition, still in the brain months later). </p><p></p><p>I found a lot of the questions I was asked related as much to policy/political awareness as a more narrow “commercial” angle. Things like bad laws, working with controversial clients, journalism that I deeply disagreed with and why, law’s position within the City’s ecosystem, the relationship between lawyers and politicians, etc. These were by far my best questions as a result of my work experience, but I think areas that a lot of others might have found tricky. You really need either good experience or wider reading for these.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="HorsesForCoursesNeighNeighNeigh, post: 82714, member: 8899"] [B]Commercial awareness[/B] My experience was that the vast majority of what I learnt was not directly tested, but allowed me to speak with confidence and hugely improved my written tests. I used the TCLA resources, the TCLA webinars, the sample Qs, Know the City, etc. and basically rote learned as much as possible. A lot of my interviews tested a general “business sense”—like do you actually understand why businesses do what they do, how decisions are made, the factors and psychology behind it? The ideas behind retaining clients vs getting new business, reputation, risk reduction, the need to understand your sector? Working in BD, studying economic policy and having parents with a small business all helped a lot! Being able to articulate these motivations and understanding the WHY (more so than the technical terms) was absolutely crucial. One of my written tests explicitly measured this, with a scenario designed to make you think through the client’s motivations, as well as how you link soft and hard skills. I think this would be tough to really learn without some experience, even just working with a small business owner for a while. However on the other hand basic M&A questions came up constantly, and there’s no excuse to not know that fairly inside out—for me it was a matter of rote learning, then trying to link with what I already knew. The TCLA resources are amazing here, I treated this like exam learning and it helped so much. I made up simple acronyms to remember key things—e.g. “cheeky fellows in restaurants enjoy takeaway lamb curries” got me out of some tough spots! (Departments in M&A—corporate, finance, IP, real estate, employment, taxation, litigation, competition, still in the brain months later). I found a lot of the questions I was asked related as much to policy/political awareness as a more narrow “commercial” angle. Things like bad laws, working with controversial clients, journalism that I deeply disagreed with and why, law’s position within the City’s ecosystem, the relationship between lawyers and politicians, etc. These were by far my best questions as a result of my work experience, but I think areas that a lot of others might have found tricky. You really need either good experience or wider reading for these. [/QUOTE]
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