Get Hired, our spring careers fair, is happening on Wednesday 19 March from 12:30 pm to 4 pm at Bristol Beacon. Third Bridge who are sponsoring this year’s fair have kindly provided a blog that is written by a Bristol alumni.
Hi I’m Amelia, when I graduated from the University of Bristol in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, I put my travel plans on hold and started looking for a graduate job in London with no real idea of what I wanted to do. I had studied Russian at Bristol, and loved the exposure to different cultures through the department and my year abroad in Tomsk, so all I knew was I wanted to work in a multicultural environment where I could meet people from different backgrounds.
The Associate role at Third Bridge jumped out to me because of the international exposure that comes with working with clients and experts all over the world. Third Bridge is an expert network, specialising in supporting investment clients to respond to market movements quickly, by connecting them with industry experts. I applied for the French speaking role (one of many languages that Third Bridge recruits for, to work with clients all over the world) and the rest is history!
My journey with Third Bridge
My first few months as an Associate were spent going through a crash course in financial markets – after two weeks of classroom learning, I joined a team working with our largest private equity clients, sourcing experts for due diligences and portfolio work. It gave me practical insight into how a private equity deal cycle works, company valuations, and of course insight into diverse industries from speaking with C-level executives.
My confidence grew so much in these first few months from throwing myself into developing the skillset to cold call and build relationships with senior stakeholders. After five months I moved to our public equities division to become client facing and take on a book of business. I loved learning about the public markets (having not been able to tell you the difference between a mutual fund and a hedge fund), and spending my days discussing topics from the reaction to Gucci’s latest collection, to the impact of weight loss drugs like Ozempic on fast food companies, or defence spending trends.
After two years, I became a manager and launched a new product into the European market. I again was able to climb the learning curve and built a new skillset including hiring and training my own team, and developing commercial relationships working with key clients.
Another two years down the line, and the opportunity to keep having new experiences hasn’t stopped and I’ve just relocated to our New York office!
My advice to final year job hunters
Don’t put too much pressure on yourself – it can feel like you need to find the perfect graduate job that will set the tone for the rest of your lifelong career. Nowadays, ‘portfolio careers’ are the norm, and with the pace of innovation, our generation will be pivoting to new skills and industries at a faster pace than ever before.
While I was happy to spend over four years (and counting) in my first grad job because I’ve always had room to grow within the company, a lot of my friends and peers within Third Bridge have treated the Associate role like a springboard for their future career. I have friends who have spent a year or two gaining skills to go on to work with our clients at management consultants, PE firms, hedge funds, or in a new industry.
Reach out to hiring managers and people currently in the role you are applying for on LinkedIn. Not only can they give you insight into the hiring process and the company culture beyond the job listing, but you can also create an advocate for yourself within the company to help you through the application.
Check out mycareer to find out more about Get Hired.
Our sponsors this year are the Civil Service Fast Stream, Alphasights, Outlook Energy Approved Air, Third Bridge and Tractebel Engineering.