Developing commercial awareness for recruitment

Having an understanding of the organisation you’re applying for is absolutely vital in the recruitment process.

This means demonstrating that you’ve done your own research and have a grasp on what the role entails within the context of the organisation. This is called commercial awareness, and is a valued skill to have in any role, knowing where your job and responsibilities fit into the organisation.

There are three key aspects of commercial awareness that you should know about:

1. What the organisation does?
2. Who does it do it for?
3. What makes it stand out?
4. What challenges the industry is facing

We’ll now look into these three aspects in further detail.

What the organisation does?

You can start off by thinking about physical things – do they sell items? What kinds of items do they sell – luxury, generic, essentials?

If the organisation doesn’t sell items, think about the services they offer. What kinds of clients do they have, are the services short-term or long-term? Is there anything physical involved in this?

Is it a charity, if so, how does it make the money to be operational? Is it a public organisation? If so, who’s the governing body (e.g. the NHS, local government agency, national government agency)?

Who does it do it for?

Next, look at the other side of things – does the organisation work for the public, for customers who are members of the public, for customers who are other businesses? Think about who utilises the organisation’s services or products.

What makes it stand out?

Has the organisation won any awards? What kinds of values does the organisation hold and show on their website? Why is this the organisation for you, and why do other businesses/people use this organisation’s services/products?

What challenges the industry is facing

Begin by thinking about the organisation itself and challenges it might face, and then go one step further and think about the wider industry/sector. Are there challenges facing the people in the organisation, are there problems with money, or challenges with the environment?

It’s great that you’re now thinking a little bit wider than just the role and responsibilities, but how do you show off all this excellent work you’ve been doing to research the organisation and wider industry?

You can do this right away as it’s likely any application questions outside of the general personal details will require you to demonstrate you have an understanding of the organisation and where your role will fit in. And if you’re tailoring your CV, it’s good to include some of these things into it to demonstrate your suitability for the role. You could think about:

• What makes the organisation different?
• Are there any products, projects or clients that stand out to you?
• Any specific tasks in the job description
• Challenges of the role and how you’d overcome them
• Why do you fit the organisation, but also why does the organisation fit you?

This is also where a cover letter really shines. A good cover letter has three core elements, which you can use the above prompts to help answer:

1. Why are you interested in the role?
2. Why are you interested in the organisation?
3. What makes you the right fit for the role and the organisation?

A few top tips on commercial awareness

Look beyond the marketing – sometimes organisations might highlight the great bits about their organisation, but overlook the realities. You need to become a detective and investigate deeper than surface level to find out what the company is really like, what kinds of roles and responsibilities you might realistically expect to have, and making sure you understand more than what the marketing tells you about the organisation.

Look beyond the sector – your desired job doesn’t have to be in the sector you want to work in! You might be really interested in working in finance, but you don’t have to limit yourself to ‘finance’ companies. There are many organisations that have finance departments, so you might want to expand your search wider than you first thought. If you’d like a bit more help with figuring out what direction your job search should go in, you can visit another of our courses called Finding Your Why. If you are a University of York graduate, you can also access coaching support through the careers portal.

Look beyond the big brands – some of the biggest and best-known employers might not have large staff numbers in the UK (think Apple or Google). It’s not the end of the world if you work for a smaller organisation, and you could even consider looking at their supply chain to find a way of contributing to the larger organisation, but in a different way! For example, if you’re interested in working for a car manufacturer like Jaguar Land Rover, they don’t make all the components for their vehicles themselves. It’s likely that a smaller organisation will provide lots of the technology, equipment and machinery for these larger organisations, and can be a great place to look for a role. About a third of graduate go on to work for small-medium enterprises (SMEs), lots of whom work on exciting projects for well known brands. If you’d like more information about why you should work in an SME, you can search for other courses in the ‘Graduates at Work’ series looking at just this topic.

Build a network – 80% of graduate vacancies are open to graduates of any degree discipline, and it is estimated 33% of all jobs are never advertised. By expanding your network and getting to know people from different industries, you open yourself up to a world of career possibilities through unadvertised vacancies. Places like LinkedIn can be really valuable for this.