Harpenden, England, United Kingdom
I am an Accounting and Finance graduate from Durham University, but I have a strong interest in property and real estate and am interested in pursuing a career in this sector. Having gained work experience with Firethorn Trust, Bidwells' Capital Markets team and Fisher German through their Spring Insight Programme, I am keen to explore further opportunities within this sector. Beyond academia, I enjoy running, swimming, travelling and scuba diving, and was a member of my college’s lacrosse and rowing teams.
I completed an incredibly insightful week at Firethorn Trust which gave me an opportunity to learn about the real estate investment sector. I attended numerous team meetings, client meetings and completed independent tasks, such as creating a rates mitigation tracker for a property, and inputting data into my own logistics development model to produce the EM and exit yield. I became fully immersed in the property sector, developing my commercial awareness of the sector, reading various property articles, and reviewing investment memorandums, reports on title and marketing reports. I was also fortunate enough to visit two client sites in London. Additionally, I had the opportunity to sit down with each division 1-1 where I was able to learn more about the specific work they did in their division, as well as getting the chance to ask each team member about their career journey whilst gaining helpful tips and advice. I would like to extend my gratitude to the whole team at Firethorn for their help and support!
I undertook an intensive 2-week training course before my summer placement began to understand the range of roles across the office. During the placement my main responsibilities were to meet and greet clients as a receptionist, undertake care calls to clients, handle queries and arrange daily face-to-face drop-in sessions for our most vulnerable clients. As part of my role, I often had to think on my feet and use my initiative to move the clients forward. This experience significantly enhanced my verbal communication skills as many clients required prolonged support, so building rapport and adeptly tailoring my responses to clients with varying abilities were important skills that I developed. I also conducted research projects relating to digital exclusion and how this affects our clients, compiling the results into Excel spreadsheets with clarity and conciseness and delivering a presentation on paying council tax as a student.
This gave me the opportunity to work in an office environment and to take on responsibility in the Capital Markets division. I attended client meetings, the team morning meetings and became proficient in CoStar, by keeping a track on Excel of the most recent sales of offices and industrial units. I was also very fortunate to have the chance to go to some client sites in Oxford.
Secretary to Durham’s largest society (with a mailing list of 5.4k members) - responsible for the society’s newsletter, taking minutes at the meetings, advertising opportunities and events via email, maintaining the membership list with the Students’ Union and collaborating with the Marketing and Technology Officers.