St Petersburg University students learn about career start opportunities
St Petersburg University has held the Autumn Career Day 2022. Representatives of almost 30 leading Russian and international companies, as well as government agencies, took part in the traditional job fair. They presented internship and employment options to students of the University.
The Assembly Hall and the corridor of the Twelve Collegia building housed special stands with information from various enterprises specialising in pharmacology, energy engineering, management, economics, banking, consulting and other fields. Many of them are long-time partners of St Petersburg University. They often invite our students to take part in internship programmes. There, in addition to work experience in the area of study they have chosen, students can acquire certain professional skills. For example, Gazprom Neft trains future economists to work with software tools used in the company’s practice. ’Most often, we recruit students of economics as interns. We also accept students of IT, mathematics, ecology, mining and exploration,’ said Kseniia Dementeva, an employee of the company’s recruitment department. ’I think that there are many graduates of St Petersburg University among the employees of our company. Three of my colleagues are graduates of this university. To my mind, St Petersburg University students are responsible and disciplined. They are always serious about their tasks and the very process of being selected for an internship.’
You can sign up for participation in programmes that will help you start a career in your dream company not only during the Career Day. They are launched throughout the academic year, so students are advised to follow the information on the University website. In particular, applications for participation in the joint mentoring programme of St Petersburg University and the Nexign company will be accepted until 20 October. According to Irina Nikulina, Lead Specialist in attracting and working with gifted persons, in the process of communicating with their mentors, students will get to know a big company, immerse themselves in the corporate culture and make a plan for their further career development.
As to our company, we expect fundamental knowledge and skills from all candidates, because we work with large, high-load projects. We practically do not offer junior level jobs, only the middle and senior ones.
Irina Nikulina, Lead Specialist in attracting and working with gifted persons
’Among our employees there are graduates of all three mathematical areas of the University. There are truly smart guys there. Last year, during the Nexign Bootcamp project, a third-year student of St Petersburg University was number one in the leader board for the testing track. We invited him for an internship first, and then he received a job offer from us,’ said Ms Nikulina.
You can achieve professional success not only in a company, but also in the public service. This path is often chosen by students who want to work on socially significant projects and make the lives of others better. During the St Petersburg University Career Day, students could participate in a trial testing taken by applicants to the St Petersburg Youth Labour Pool. The city needs graduates belonging to a large list of specialities. It includes not only managers and lawyers, but also specialists in the field of construction, architecture, urban design, heat power engineering, computer security, nature management, and many other areas.
’When enrolling people in the Youth Labour Pool, we assess their basic competencies such as logical thinking, computer skills and good Russian. Literacy is a must, because civil servants work with documents and sometimes one comma can affect human lives. These qualities are enough to be enrolled in the Labour Pool. Further on, the employer considers the applicant in more detail, in terms of their professional characteristics. The employer finds out whether this person is suitable for their organisation,’ said Igor Murashev, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Public Service and Personnel Policy. ’Every year, we employ about 150 specialists for entry-level jobs. Over 1,000 university graduates have found jobs during the Labour Pool’s existence. Most of them continue to work for government agencies. There are also those who have achieved high managerial positions in the Administration of St Petersburg.’
We did not expect students to show such interest in our trial testing. We are very happy about that since the government authorities do have a need for young specialists. We are looking forward to seeing students and graduates of St Petersburg University in our Youth Labour Pool. Moreover, they can send us documents a year before their graduation. That is enough to take our entrance tests and complete the introductory training. I should note that the University graduates always show some of the best results in testing and interviews.
Igor Murashev, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Public Service and Personnel Policy of St Petersburg
Experts from leading companies held lectures and master classes for the participants in the Career Day at St Petersburg University. Natalia Stepina, Territorial Manager for Collection of Problem Debts of Individuals at the North-Western Bank of PJSC Sberbank, told the students about the basics of financial literacy. To emphasise the importance of tracking income and expenses, she cited several facts illustrating the behaviour of Russians in the financial sector. Only half of the adult residents of Russia keep their family and personal accounts, and only 20% of citizens plan to invest their savings instead of keeping them at home. Almost 80% of Russians expect to live on a state pension when they reach a certain age, and 70% of citizens hold the state accountable for its worthy amount.
Natalia Stepina emphasised that, when calculating your personal budget, you must not jump over the steps of the hierarchy of needs. Having received a salary, a person must first allocate funds to meet their basic needs, then proceed to the next step, i.e. life and property insurance, and only after that think about investing or about more risky capital injections. Moreover, with low income, one should not make expensive purchases or take loans. The expert also shared some tips on what you can save on without depriving yourself in order to save up for your goal. ’Be sure to start keeping track of your income and expenses. When you see your expenditure over the past few months, you will immediately understand where the main bulk of the funds go. Having decided on your super-expensive item, you can optimise it,’ Natalia Stepina noted. ’After that, you can keep a full-fledged budget, taking into account your financial goals, current expenditure and income.’
The representatives of B1 Group spoke about the auditor’s work and the latest trends in this area. Process automation, which developed in large companies with their own ecosystems, has also influenced the auditor’s job. According to B1 senior manager Roman Vorobev, the company seeks to implement such IT solutions in order to: reduce the number of routine operations; increase the time for procedures directly related to risks; and free up human resources for creative tasks. All that is connected with the transformation of audit as such. Until the late 20th century, it was a work with source documents. Now this format takes a back seat to big data processing introduced at more and more audit firms. That makes it possible to identify the maximum number of risks with a minimum investment of resources.
However, this does not mean that a graduate who chooses this profession will have to work exclusively with numbers and documents.
Auditing is a contact job, because the information we work with needs to be obtained and interpreted. It enables you to develop your communication skills.
Roman Vorobev, Senior Manager, B1 Group
’You will have to communicate with clients and the older and younger colleagues in your team. You will need to get out of your shell and rebuild yourself from the perspective of an adult, mature professional. Auditing is always a team effort. Everyone works for a joint result, and everyone’s contribution is important,’ Roman Vorobev added.
As part of the St Petersburg University Career Day, expert presentations were also held. They were devoted to: the search for career opportunities in consulting; the main areas and culture of working with data; the creation of high-quality journalistic texts; internship in blockchain technology development at the Competence Centre of the National Technological Initiative of Russia; and some other issues.