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Trying to “cram” commercial awareness right before an interview isn’t an ideal approach, as you’ll likely only pick up a shallow understanding of the commercial topics that you read about. If your understanding is shallow, you’ll also likely have little interest in what you’re reading about and discussing, which won’t come across well during an interview. 

Think about the first few pages of a dense novel. It’s harder to maintain your interest at the start, as you don’t yet understand the context or the history of the characters. It’s the history and the development that draw you in, meaning stories tend to become far more gripping once you start to understand how the sections you are reading fit into the broader context of the book. 

It’s the same with commercial awareness. News stories and commercial concepts are not generally interesting in isolation, but once you start to understand how it all fits together - and the impact this can have on firms, clients and industries - you’ll likely find it all a lot more interesting and become more confident talking about it in interviews.

It’s better to get into the habit of building your commercial awareness on a regular basis, and even 5 minutes per day can make all the difference. You’ll be surprised at how much more interested you become in business news and commercial concepts more generally once you have started to understand the bigger picture. To that end, I’m now going to cover a collection of recommended resources that you can use to help build your commercial awareness.

Business news

You should get into the habit of reading the news daily, if only for a few minutes. You will soon build a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of what is going on in the business areas relevant to the organisations to which you are applying. 

There are many sources you can use to build your awareness, knowledge and understanding of current affairs. BBC Business News (online) is probably my favourite source for readings about the news, as the articles are short, concise and (generally) jargon-free. 

Helpfully, these articles also tend to include a series of “related” links at the bottom, which can help you to trace back the history of a particular event or trend, and access supplementary information (such as the spectrum of opinions around a particular story). Reading these related articles can help you to build a more comprehensive understanding of different topics. 

I used to copy and paste major headlines from news websites into a Word document, the add to the document as related stories and developments emerged. This helped to boost my general knowledge and understanding of what was going on in the world, whilst also providing a consolidated document that I could quickly and conveniently refer back to before interviews to remind myself of the news stories that I have followed.

You might also want to place an additional focus on two to three topical issues that really engage and interest you. Research them in greater depth and consider not only the debate and critical analysis surrounding the issues, but also the ways in which the issues could affect City firms and their clients. I created mini reports, which really helped me to prepare for in-depth discussions about the stories during interviews.

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