Justin [00:00:01] What are some of the trickier interview questions that get asked and without providing like a word-for-word response? What's sort of the best way for the grad to answer them?
Charlene [00:00:09] Yeah. One question we usually ask students that sometimes helps them is how they keep up with current world affairs. We're looking for someone that has a good cultural mindset and has the finger on the pulse of what's happening around them. So we're looking for responses of how students keep up with the news, whether it be listening to podcasts or watching the news, listening, reading on an app on a daily basis. That's the question that students sometimes struggle with. And social media is a way of getting news, but it shouldn't be the only way you get your news. But a company like EY that really prides itself on having a high level of commercial awareness, that's really important to have as well.
Justin [00:00:58] Okay. Perfect. That's really good. Yeah. And I can see that especially with the EY being so global, I can see why you guys would look for that.
Charlene [00:01:04] Yeah like for example, when you are in a client environment or in the client's office, sometimes a small talk might be about what's happening in the news that morning or that week. And it's a good talking point. But also when clients come to us at EY, they're looking for solutions to either current problems they have or seeing a change in market trends. And a lot of the time it's influenced by what's happening around the world. So we need our students and our consultants to be keeping that finger on the pulse because that's going to influence the decisions and the solutions that we provide our clients. So that's kind of why it's really important. And so you can kind of start doing that now, like I always recommend to students, if you're not doing it already, download one or two news apps on your phone and just make that as part of your daily routine or twice a day, just as you check your social media, however many times a day, just like just check your news apps and just like do a local one, so within your country that you're in and do like a national one, like a BBC one or Al-Jazeera, because that's super important just to know, like the bite-size headlines, to kind of keep that finger on the pulse. Obviously, there are going to be some like kind of topics and things happening that is closer to home for you and you're more motivated to learn more about it. And that's really important as well. But just knowing the key headlines of the day can really kind of get you, you know, a good frame of mind for doing your work with the client entity as well.