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You have all the tools to succeed at the UNSW Business School, but it’s what you make of it, says alumnus Scott Richardson.

By utilising what the UNSW Business School had to offer, alumnus Scott Richardson ultimately shaped his university experience towards his dream career.

The UNSW graduate has a double bachelor’s degree of Commerce and Media Studies and is now a Management Consultant at PwC.

Halfway through his degree, Scott participated in a Business Case Competition hosted by Strategy& (part of the PwC Network), where he “fell in love” with consulting.

But the highlight of Scott’s time at UNSW was the Career Accelerator Program, which is available for all UNSW Business School students.

�ճ����Career Accelerator Program equips students with skills, experience and connections to industry. This is when he undertook the Career Mentoring Program and was paired up one-on-one with a UNSW AGSM alumnus for 12 weeks.

Meeting weekly, his mentor answered any questions he had about what it was truly like in the industry. They also discussed some of the tips and tricks to navigating the business world as Scott approached the end of his degree.

“It was my first taste of networking and socialising in a slightly different context,” he said.

“It was this program, as well as an Industry Insights event also hosted by the Business School, which landed me an internship and helped me secure my dream graduate position. I actually owe the Business School a lot.”

The Career Accelerator Program also offers internships, networking and global opportunities to give hands-on business skills and opportunities to secure highly competitive graduate positions.

What you should know as an undergrad

Scott said firms are on the look-out for skills they can’t teach you at work, such as being able to communicate well, being naturally curious and organic creativity.

“Those are the skills you really need to focus on developing over the next several years, because they are the things that are really valuable to firms,” he said.

He said the UNSW Business School offers programs specifically tailored to these skills sets.

“It’s going to be up to you to actively engage in those though, no one is going to do that for you,” he added.

He said the Business School is going to put you in the room with incredibly powerful, influential and insightful people.

“If you can maintain and foster those relationships long term, there’s a lot in it for you. Make sure you’re always offering something to the other person though, as that is what a relationship is all about.”

He offered advice passed on from his dad, “you create your own luck” which resonated with him throughout his degree.

“You can go to 15 networking events and 14 of them can be terrible. But if in that 15th networking event the stars align, and you have everything go your way, all that practice from the previous 14 events will come in handy. You might just get lucky, but maybe it isn’t luck. Maybe it’s the fact that you put yourself in that position to succeed, time and time again until you did.”

“I encourage you to persevere and not get disheartened by one or two awkward situations.” He reminded undergraduates throughout their degrees they’re going to grow, develop and change.

“You also need to be open-minded to the fact that you're going to be a different person, when you attend your graduation ceremony, then you are in this room today,” he said.

To extend yourself with practical experience and innovative thinking check out the wide range of UNSW Business School’s industry leading undergraduate degrees.

PwC Australia’s Insight Academy Applications are now open. Summer Intern and Graduate applications will be opening in early 2020.