Business Development brings together commercial acumen with creative thinking and that has never been more important than in the current environment.
The Business Development Academy is a two year programme designed to give a thorough understanding of business development within a professional services environment and provide experience across different marketing-related disciplines.
Business Development is about bringing commercial acumen together with creative thinking and our team exemplifies this. We advise some of the world’s largest and most complex businesses and work alongside some of the best lawyers and the most astute professionals across the business services teams, who will challenge and stimulate you to be your best.
Our purpose, as a BD team, is to support the development of valued client relationships, to champion Slaughter and May and enhance its market standing.
During the programme you will undertake four rotations, of six months each, from the six different areas of marketing and business development:
During each rotation you will be taught key skills unique to that discipline, whilst also developing the more general skills essential in today’s business environment.
During your first few weeks with us – you will complete an induction training programme that provides an overview of the firm, our businesses and the industry. We will create networking opportunities for you to begin meeting colleagues across the firm and to hear from senior leaders. You will also be given specific training for your first rotation.
We deliver regular training sessions as a BD team which forms part of our commitment to continual improvement and upskilling in order to meet the evolving needs of our clients. Training is also an integral part of our graduate scheme. Each rotation requires a different skill set so you will receive a lot of bespoke one-to-one training at the outset of each rotation as well as participating in our wider team training sessions.
Our Learning and Development team provide key business skills training and coaching throughout the year (including personal impact, performing under pressure and managing time and others) which you will also benefit from. Overall, you will receive training opportunities to increase your technical BD and marketing understanding, widen your market knowledge and enhance your people skills. We will continuously monitor your training needs, as we do across the team, and will develop and implement further training as required.
In order to qualify for this programme you must be a graduate or final year university student with three good A levels (or equivalent) and a 2:1 degree (or equivalent work experience). We also look for proficiency in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel.
We will consider all qualifying applicants, irrespective of their chosen degree discipline, and we are open to more experienced graduates as well as those who have completed their course of study more recently.
The rationale for our flexibility regarding background is simply that we aim to employ those with the brightest minds, regardless of what or where they have studied. Background, race, colour, ethnic or national origin, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, religious beliefs and age are all irrelevant to our application process.
We have thought hard about the kinds of people that work well in our team and the kinds of colleagues we enjoy working with, and we have settled on the following team values:
In order to apply you will need to complete the application form on our careers site before Friday 6 January 2023. There are three questions for you to answer to help establish your creativity, analytical abilities and written skills, as follows:
You will also need to attach your CV and we’ll ask you to complete a voluntary diversity and equality questionnaire, because we truly believe that with diversity comes strength.
Who you know and how you got where you are don’t matter to us – we’re looking to hire people who can demonstrate a passion for marketing and business development, along with a genuine enthusiasm to join our team, a creative and analytical mind and the confidence to bring their individuality and talent to our diverse and successful offering.
We will wait until we have received all applications before we invite successful candidates to the next stage. Applications will be screened by HR and the business development team. Those invited to assessment centres will be asked to complete a range of online assessments testing your Microsoft Word, PPT and Excel skills ahead of the assessment centre in February 2023. We will then host assessment centres on 27 February 2023, 1 March 2023 and 2 March 2023.
If we offer you a place in the Business Development Academy, you will be expected to regularly work from our London-based headquarters as well as from home from September 2023.
To find out more, please read the Business Development Academy Brochure which provides more detail about the structure and content of the programme, who we are looking for and how we will invest in you once you join.
If you have any questions about the programme please contact Elana Wicks (Business Development Programme Manager) or Laura Bissell (Senior Pitch Manager). For queries about our recruitment process please speak to Nina Galliano (Recruitment Adviser).
One Bunhill Row
London
EC1Y 8YY
United Kingdom
Square de Meeûs 40
1000 Brussels
Belgium
2906-2909 China World Office 2
No.1 Jianguomenwai Avenue
Beijing 100004
China
47th Floor, Jardine House
One Connaught Place, Central
Hong Kong
China
