Developing commercial awareness
Know how to research and analyse employers, sectors and global trends.
Commercial awareness is often one of those terms students have heard of, but don’t necessarily fully understand what it means. Take a minute or two to think about what you understand it to mean. How would you define it? What do you think you would need to do to develop it?
What is commercial awareness – and why is it important?
In a nutshell, commercial awareness refers to your understanding of:
- Organisations – how much you know about specific employers
- Sectors and industries – how much you know about the wider industry you want to join e.g. law, business, neuroscience
- Economic, social and political trends (both nationally and globally) – how much you know generally about what’s going on in the world and how this will impact on your chosen sector/industry
You might also hear it referred to as business awareness, business acumen or having a business focus, but commercial awareness is equally important wherever you work – from a large graduate employer to a charity, the public sector or even for yourself!
There are two main ways that being commercially aware will help you with your career development:
- Career planning – researching potential employers and job sectors will help you make informed decisions about if they’re the right fit for you or not
- Recruitment – employers in all sectors will test your commercial awareness during the recruitment process. Demonstrating an interest in them, their sector and how wider issues in the sector could impact them will help you stand out from the competition
Commercial awareness is really a combination of two other skills, skills you are developing all the time at university – research skills and analytical skills. Having great research skills will allow you to build your knowledge of trends and issues but it’s your analytical skills that will ultimately allow you to apply this knowledge, for example to predict or anticipate challenges within a sector or the impact of an emerging trend.
Ways to develop commercial awareness
We sometimes think of commercial awareness as something that you need to develop as part of your preparation for recruitment, for example to demonstrate your interest in an application form or an interview. To some extent this is true – a lot of your research into a specific organisation will happen at this stage. However, developing your knowledge of what’s happening in your sector, and the world generally, is much easier if you do this gradually over time. We recommend adding small activities to your daily or weekly routines. Some of these will take no more than five minutes but over time, these regular activities become a habit, meaning you always have your finger on the pulse of any emerging trends in your sector!
Use the resource below to identify practical ways you can develop your commercial awareness:
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How commercial awareness is tested in recruitment
Whilst employers are unlikely to explicitly ask you about your commercial awareness, they’ll be assessing this throughout the various stages of the recruitment process and forming a view of your general business acumen. Think about the different ways that you can stand out from the competition by showcasing your interest and understanding of the organisation you are applying to and the wider industry within which it sits.
For detailed advice on how to prepare for recruitment, look at our CVs, applications and interviews section, but here are some top tips top get you started:
Use your employment history and past experiences to demonstrate the knowledge and skills that you have already established, which will be of interest and appealing to the recruiter.
Highlight any relevant qualifications that you have achieved or training courses that you have undertaken to showcase your commitment to learning and development in the sector.
You could also use the interests section to highlight how you have a genuine interest and enthusiasm for this line of work. For example, you could highlight how you have pro-actively become a member of associated registered bodies (e.g. CIPD, GMC, BPS), subscribed to relevant news and information outlets (e.g. social media, journals and podcasts) or attended conferences and webinars linked to the sector.
Use the cover letter to tell your story and provide a compelling narrative of what motivates you to want to work in this field. Demonstrate your research into the role, employer and wider sector and highlight the knowledge, skills and experience that will convince the recruiter that you already have much to offer and are worthy of being progressed to the next stage of the recruitment process.
This is a golden opportunity to evidence your passion and interest so provide specific examples from your personal and professional background to make a unique and convincing case as to why you have the motivation and business acumen to be a success for them.
During the application and interview stages, you'll almost certainly face questions designed to test your commercial awareness. Common questions include:
- What has motivated you to apply for this role?
- What appeals to you about working for our organisation?
- What do you think are some of the key challenges facing our industry?'
Questions such as these provide you with an excellent opportunity to demonstrate your research, knowledge and enthusiasm. If you've prepared well, you'll feel more confident in having professional conversations and presenting opinions and ideas, rather than just regurgitating facts. Without doing your research, they will be very difficult questions to answer convincingly and may suggest to the recruiter that your commercial awareness is not as strong as it needs to be.