In November six of our students were selected to spend the day in Whitehall with the Civil Service Fast Stream. The day was organised by the School of Economics and the Civil Service. Tapasya Bhandari, one of our students who attended the day has written a blog post to share her experience of the day:
I had the incredible opportunity to attend the Civil Service Insight day arranged by the School of Economics. The day started with our train journey to London which was a lot of fun for me as I got to know other people in our school. We were accompanied by Katie Marshall from the school and Liz Foden from Careers and Employability Services.
We were received by Abigail at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who was an absolute delight to meet! We started with a tour of the beautiful FCO building followed by a lovely lunch. After lunch, we were given a presentation/talk by Abi on the Finance fast stream and Civil Service in general – her day to day tasks as a finance fast streamer and her careers progression (very fascinating!) with the Civil Service, why she does what she does, what motivated her to join the fast stream and how it is different to her prior private sector experience (which I personally found quite beneficial). She also discussed potential careers for Economics graduates within the Fast Stream and current government plans for civil servants. The roundtable discussion was followed by Q/A, which again was quite interesting and helpful as we got an opportunity to ask her questions in an informal setting – from assessment centres for FCO to their Brexit plans.
Later in the day, we were taken to the HMRC building and had the opportunity to speak to another Finance Fast Streamer. It was quite insightful speaking to her as she has a degree in English/Sociology but was working towards getting an accountancy qualification. It was quite fascinating hearing about her career progression within the civil service and different roles she has had in different departments. Tips she provided on numerical reasoning tests were also quite helpful (how to prepare).
I think it was great day! I got everything out of it I hoped to get and much more. Will highly recommend it to anyone thinking of pursuing a career in the civil service.