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The BP IST Discovery Day for women was a fun and insightful event and it gave me a good opportunity to find out more about the firm and the people working there. It is always helpful to meet employees and graduates at a firm and the people I met at BP were exceptionally nice.

BP seems to put a lot of emphasis on increasing the number of women applicants and graduates they employ, so I felt like they wanted to show us that they are keen on making us feel welcome. The number of attendants was around 20 and there were enough opportunities to get to know some of the graduates and get to know them well.

The Day was very well structured, we started with a round of introducing ourselves and a general overview what IST does and how it fits within the wider work of BP, we then had the opportunity to meet some of the current graduates and network with them which was a lot of fun and very relaxed. This was followed by a tour of the trading floors, interview tips, a panel session with some of the more senior employees and some general information about the internships and graduate opportunities that are available.

The general atmosphere was very friendly. I was surprised at how relaxed the culture is compared to some other areas in business, I was wearing normal business attire and found that most of the employees were not that formal. Their offices are open plan which is important to facilitate communication between employees and I was positively surprised that their trading floors did not feel like fridges but had a normal temperature.

Taken the short duration of the programme, they really tried to provide us with the most important information about the firm, but we also had a session on interview skills which is useful for any kind of interview. It included methods for structuring your answer, tips on body language and we had the opportunity to practice those skills.

Î÷¹ÏÊÓƵing out whether or not I would like to apply for a full time role with BP was my main objective and it was a really good insight. Being able to network with the graduates was particularly helpful as they have been in my position not long ago and told us why they chose to work at BP.

Even though the discovery day only lasts for an afternoon it gives you a good insight into the company culture. The tour of the trading floors was very interesting and allowed me to see how people interact on their day to day job and having the chance to network helped me to build personal relationships and find out about the culture.

I learned a lot about what BP does in its IST arm and what kind of jobs are available. This was very helpful as I am interested in trading and BP is one of the largest physical commodities traders and it gave me an insight into how they can leverage information from their infrastructure and refineries in order to take positions in the market in a way that banks are not allowed to do anymore.

I did not ask for reimbursement so it might have been available.

There were two networking sessions, one with current graduates and the other one with more senior employees. Both of them were quite informal and we felt like we were able to ask any questions we were interested in. As this event was focussed on women we met mostly female employees which gives it a special dynamic.

I would definitely recommend the IST Discovery Day to a friend who wants to find out about their career options. I was not aware of most of the roles that are available within the firm that I would be interested in and meeting the employees gives you a very good idea if you like the culture, so actually going there is the only way to find out.