How do I use Watson’s Daily to illustrate my interest in sectors in a firm?

[avlasova]

Today’s careers question is “how do I use Watson’s Daily to illustrate my interest in sectors in a firm that I am applying to?”

From personal experience, firms are looking for a general understanding of your sectors of interest that is illustrated with specific examples. This is why I find the way Watson’s Daily discusses specific companies and surrounding news very helpful. When focusing on a specific news story, you can use it to zoom out into the sector more generally. For example, if you were applying to a firm that works with life sciences, medical patents, etc, you could use the relatively recent story of Amazon expanding into medical tech to talk about more general trends in the sector and demonstrate that you have been following the news. It also helps to know who the firm’s clients are and follow them and/or their competitors in the news as well as sector developments that may affect their business and demonstrate this understanding in your application/interview.
This is just one of the methods of tackling sector-specific commercial awareness in applications, so it would be great to hear how others have approached this!

[Ines Pinheiro]

This is a great approach Apolloniya! This is exactly what I do.

I find it really easy to navigate Watson’s Daily newsletter because it already gives you a breakdown of the relevant sectors. That way, it’s easy to find relevant information.

I also make sure I listen to the podcast because normally Peter provides a bit more context (especially when he invites external speakers – if you haven’t listed the cryptocurrency podcast, what are you waiting for?!) and being able to contrast opinions is always helpful when trying to forecast the next trend in a sector. After all, this is what commercial solicitors tend to do. Being able to demonstrate this skill during an interview shows your interest in the firm’s clients and the firm’s future (as well as your business acumen!).

[Peter Watson]

Hi there Apolloniya! I’m just getting back into the swing of things in the forum, so please forgive my absence! I think that a good way of doing research is trying to look at areas on a sector basis (no company exists in a vacuum). One way of doing this is to find an index (e.g. the FTSE100) and then looking at the companies in the real estate sector, for example. Once you’ve got the company names, you could use the search function on Watson’s Daily to look up individual companies and make your own notes on there (you can also do this on the website). You then need to take a step back and look at what is driving the companies across the sector at the current time, what challenges they may be facing and then look at how this is affecting the particular companies you are following. It may be that they are prospering while others are failing – so you need to ask yourself why that is, what’s different about them etc. It may also help for you to then think about how the company you are applying for can get business out of it. Although this sounds like a bit of a mercenary way of looking at things, it’s this commercial awareness that firms are looking for – in other words, how can the firm I am applying to make money out of this situation??

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