Lucy's success story: Securing an Industrial Placement with Grant Thornton

Lucy is a Politics and International Studies student at the University of Warwick. She secured a Public Sector Audit Placement with Grant Thornton in Birmingham, through Bright Network. 

First, please tell us a little bit about yourself.

"I chose to study politics mainly because I loved studying it at A Level, but I always loved maths as well. My career path is less a conscious choice that I made, and more something which I found and then realised that it fit. I didn't go to university with a career in mind at the end of it, although I always hoped that I would get to work on something related to the public sector because I love the practical side of my politics studies." 

What motivated you to apply for your role?  

"I've just finished the second year of my degree, and realised after my first year that the idea of doing a placement was something that really appealed to me. I mentioned that I have a love for politics but also that I really loved studying maths at school, and a role in Public Sector Audit really appealed to me as a combination of the two. Reading the job description on Bright Network made me realise it might suit me, and so I decided to go for it!"

What was your application journey like?   

"I approached each step of the application individually, which I think helped to contain the nerves. Deciding to do a placement year meant that I applied for a lot of different roles, but each time I felt about as nervous as if it were the only role I was applying for! The recruitment team at Grant Thornton were fantastic at demystifying the whole process and explaining how each stage of the process would work, which meant that I never felt caught off-guard."

What are you most proud of about your journey?  

"I'm proud of my persistence throughout the process. I applied for quite a few different placements which I didn't end up getting offers for, and it was sometimes very hard to maintain motivation. I persisted, and kept looking and working through application processes until I succeeded with Grant Thornton! I had also never gone through the complete process of a job application before, so there was a steep learning curve which at times I found difficult to adapt to. But ultimately securing my placement made all of the parts of the journey which I found difficult worth it."

What are your tips for people looking to follow in your footsteps?  

"I would say that my biggest tip is to never give up. The process of finding a placement is demoralising at times, but I found that approaching each application with a fresh perspective helped. Additionally, I never anticipated getting a placement in audit, coming from a politics degree, even though I knew it was the sort of role which I would find interesting. Trust your intuition and if you think that a role is something which would suit you then go for it, because there's no harm in trying." 

Tell us about the future. What’s next?  

"I'm looking forward to everything really! To be honest there's a bit of me which still can't believe that I'm in this position, but I'm looking forward to both the specifics of my job and also the more general aspects of corporate life that you can't learn from being at university. I'd love to continue down the Public Sector Audit path after university, but right now I'm taking the journey one step at a time."