Many employers complain about the lack of business or commercial awareness in applicants even though they are otherwise impressed with candidates. But what are they looking for? Employers expect you to be aware of the commercial context in which their organisation operates. For example do you understand how an organisation attracts and keeps customers and what impact the world economy has on that particular business sector?

To steal from both KPMG and Siemens, commercial awareness has been variously defined as:

• Understanding commercial realities and implications of situations, e.g. Who are the company’s market competitors?  Who are their customers (internal and external)?  How does the company know if they are happy? How does the current economic climate/current affairs affect the company?
• Being able to apply understanding of business in a business related situation, e.g. Knowing what the core company values are.  What does the bit of the company that you are applying to do and how does this fit into the overall company strategic aims?
• Having interest and initiative in developing business opportunities, e.g. What are the gaps in the market? 
• Identifying business opportunities and turning them into viable propositions, e.g.  How can you fill these gaps?
• You’ll notice that ‘business’ is a term used again and again in relation to commercial awareness, but don’t assume that a degree in business is a necessary prerequisite to understanding or developing commercial awareness.  It is an attribute that can be learned and demonstrated by anyone, the next section will make this clear.

Well, in a nutshell, gain an understanding of what is going on in the business sector you are interested in and be aware of current affairs and how these may impact on that sector.  Sources for this could be professional magazines, the Financial Times, and news and business programmes on the television and on the web, such as the BBC's business pages

The BBC web site is an amazing source of news and business analysis, so too is BizEd a website for business studies students.  Most employment areas have specialist press, for example, PR Week and Campaign are essential reading for the PR and advertising industry respectively. Find out what you should be reading. The Careers and Employability Service subscribes to some journals, others you may find in the library or on the web or you may consider taking out your own subscription. 

Also, you need to get involved with as many employer events at the university as you can whilst still a student – gaining an insider view is really so much easier when you spend time talking to someone who already has that insight.

It’s really about understanding your industry sector inside out and being able to view it from a business perspective i.e. a strategic overview rather than just a role specific viewpoint.   

At a very basic level, an employer will expect you to have gained an insight into any organisation you have worked or volunteered for. You can demonstrate this by showing you understand its structure, products or services, its ethos and the challenges facing it. 

Use your work experience (even part-time work in a non-related field) to demonstrate this by being able to talk about:

• How the company you worked for was structured.
• How it differentiated itself in the market.
• Who the customers were and what were their needs.
• Who were the main competitors.

On a more complex level, you can demonstrate commercial awareness by speaking about, not just your work experience, but yourself and your experiences in a business context.  For example:

Describe any roles and responsibilities you have undertaken in business related terms, e.g.:

• Did you raise money, how much and who controlled the budget? 
• Did you organise an event, what was your strategy, how many attended, was it a success, if not, why not?
• Were you responsible for decision making, what decisions did you make, what was the outcome?

Use your extra-curricular activities to demonstrate business thinking:

• Have you taken part in any enterprise or business game activities, if so, what was your part in these, what did you learn?
• Have you been involved in any financial, market analysis or sales activities, what did you do, what was the outcome?
• Have you launched a new product, maybe as a project, if so what was your process, how did you find out about your customer market, have you achieved any profit?

Use your interests to show that you keep up to date with current affairs and industry knowledge:

• Are you a member of any professional bodies?
• Are you able to discuss your thoughts on major current news and consider how these might affect the business?
• Have you considered how the economic climate might affect business, what are the implications of an economic downturn/surge?

Research any company before going to an interview, make sure that you are able to converse intelligently about the business:

• What products and services do they provide?
• How are they structured, where would your role lie in this structure?
• What are the key market trends for this business?
• What are the company’s key aims, objectives and values, do you agree with these, would you fit into their culture?
• What benefits will I gain from being commercially aware?

Clearly there are benefits to being well informed about the business area that you are interested in working in, here are a few to give you an idea:

Increased competitivity in the jobs market.

• Clear understanding of the role that you are applying for, the company that you are applying to and the sector that you’d like to work in.
• Strategic context for your role, making your job more interesting.
• The ability to offer a higher quality of service to your customers.
• The ability to sell your product confidently.
• The ability to make decisions based on a strategic overview of the company.
• The ability to look at a situation from different perspectives, e.g. that of the customers, the employees, the leaders in business.