Categories
Baker McKenzie Employer Engagement Employer events Employer Insight Employer Panels Employer Q&A Employers Spring Careers Festival Spring Recruitment Fair student success Student success stories

Jump-Starting My Career With Baker McKenzie

Sophie Martin, Baker McKenzie

My name is Sophie Martin and I am a Legal Project Coordinator in the Legal Project Management team.  I joined Baker McKenzie, Belfast, as a Legal Professional in September 2019, where I worked in the Contentious Support Group. This was a fantastic opportunity after university, which provided me exposure to a breadth of document review and due diligence projects, and in-turn, the opportunity to develop an array of skills, from analytical to communication skills. 

One of the best aspects about working for Baker McKenzie is the endless career opportunities. During my time as a Legal Professional, I had the opportunity to apply for two secondments. The first secondment provided me with the opportunity to work with one of our key clients in their London offices. This was a great experience, providing me with the opportunity to work directly with our clients, providing insights into their working culture and develop relationships with our London colleagues. 

A pivotal moment in my career, was the second secondment, where I joined the Legal Project Management team, initially for a 6 month period. Like many of my peers, prior to joining Baker McKenzie, I was unfamiliar with Legal Project Management and what a career in Legal Project Management entailed. The opportunity to combine legal and management, two of my career interests, and my curiosity to explore this niche career opportunity further encouraged me to apply for the secondment. When I joined the team in January 2020, I was instantly exposed to a variety of work and endless skill development opportunities. The variety of projects, global exposure, client-facing role and autonomy to shape my projects, provided me with the platform to catapult my professional career. This, combined with an extremely supportive and welcoming team, confirmed that this was a career that I wanted to pursue. This is where my career in Legal Project Management commenced, as shortly after starting my secondment, I successfully applied for a permanent role in the Legal Project Management team.

As a Legal Project Coordinator, no two days are ever the same, meaning the learning and development opportunities are endless. The core roles and responsibilities entail managing client matters, including liaising with the client and Firm’s matter team; supporting the legal team to track and manage projects by integrating matter management, fee management, technology and process improvement techniques; analysing complex reports, flagging key issues and designing bespoke reporting; budget monitoring; and providing support for client team collaboration sites.  To ensure that the Legal Project Management team ensure our overarching objective that all projects are managed on time, in scope and within budget, this requires multijurisdictional collaboration with our Legal Project Management colleagues and legal teams across the globe to ensure that we provide the highest quality service to our clients. 

In addition to the development opportunities I have received through my role, Baker McKenzie are committed to each individual’s career progression and provide various opportunities to facilitate an individual’s career progression, such as internal and external secondments, promotions and development programmes, such as the Baker Excellence Programme. 

I would highly encourage any student wanting to join a global, high performing firm, to join Baker McKenzie, where you can commence and develop your career, surrounded by friendly and supportive colleagues.

Interested in working at Baker McKenzie? You can chat to the team about upcoming opportunities at our Spring Recruitment Fair.

Register here: https://virtualcareersfairs.qub.ac.uk/event/5725

Date: 9 Feb, 2-6pm

Baker McKenzie are proud sponsors of the Spring Careers Festival 

Categories
Slice Spring Careers Festival Spring Recruitment Fair

10 Things You Didn’t Know about Slice

Connor McLernon

Connor McLernon, Talent Acquisition Partner at Slice is here with a quick flavour of life at the tech company.

  1. Slice is a tech company based in Belfast, New York and Macedonia

2. The mission is to help independent pizza businesses thrive

3. Affectionately, our colleagues are known as ‘Slicers’

4. Yes, we do eat a lot of pizza (pizza Fridays!)

5. We’re hiring Graduate Software Engineers in mid-2022

6. We use Python, Golang, Ruby, JavaScript, Kotlin & Swift

7. There are close to 1,000 colleagues (Slicers) globally

8. We’ve doubled in size during the pandemic

9. It is privately owned and well-funded

10. Come talk to us at the Spring Careers Fair!

Interested in learning more about Slice? Come and chat to Connor at the Spring Careers Festival 

Register for the Spring Recruitment Fair here.

Slice are proud sponsors of the Spring Careers Festival

Categories
internship KPMG Spring Careers Festival Spring Recruitment Fair Virtual internships

The real value of an internship

The application window to land a top summer internship is open, so we asked Denise McKenna, HR Business Partner from KPMG Belfast about why an internship is a smart addition to your student CV.

Denise McKenna from KPMG

Why should you do an internship? 

It will definitely help to boost the work experience section of your CV. It will give you something productive to do during the summer months. You could even save some money. Much more than that though – an internship is your way of trying on that outfit before buying it! An internship will give you a chance to see what your future career could look like and then you can decide if its for you or if you want to leave it back and try on something else! 

At the end of our internship programme, 80% of students are offered a graduate career – so your internship could be the first step on your career ladder. 

An internship will also give you a chance to learn ‘on-the-job’. You may get the opportunity to put into practice what you are learning at university – sometimes this can really help you to connect the dots and see how various aspects play out on real client projects. On the other side, your area of study could be completely different but in this case you will learn a lot about how transferable your skills are to the dynamic world of professional services. 

What are you looking for? 

Top Talent. 

KPMG want to hire talented and ambitious students from all degree disciplines and all backgrounds. The only requirement is a strong motivation to join our leading professional services firm and to experience what life is like in the No.1 Internship Programme (as awarded by GradIreland).

We have opportunities in Audit & Assurance, Tax Consulting, Deal Advisory and Management Consulting, so there really is something for everyone and you can apply to be based in Belfast or Dublin. 

How do I apply?

In order to apply for our Internships, all you have to do is go to our website, www.kpmgcareers.ie and submit an application form. The application form asks you to outline your previous education and work experience. Take your time and input your facts correctly – you’d be amazed on the number of people that don’t get the basics right! Also the long questions at the end of the form may seem painful but they help you to stand out from the crowd and this is how we get to know the real you.

Another important aspect of the application form is extracurricular activities, whether you’re a hard hitting boxer or a chess champion, we want to hear about it! Involvement in extracurricular activities shows skills and attributes that KPMG values in its people, so they should be included in your application form if they are important to you too! We also have a special place in our heart for Academic Awards, so if you have any achievements that you’re particularly proud of, there is plenty of room on the application form for those!

If we like what we see, we will invite you to an interview. We say interview but really it’s a short 30 minute chat about your experience so far and some competency based questions. No assessment centres or hoop jumping required! 

So if you are interested or want to learn more, come chat to us at the Spring Careers Festival or drop me a note at denise.mckenna@kpmg.ie

Register for the Spring Recruitment Fair here.

KPMG are proud sponsors of the Spring Careers Festival