Commercial awareness is being conscious of developments within the business world. It’s about developing and understanding how and why businesses behave in the way they do. This is particularly useful for law students but I also think it can be useful for anyone. Today’s post is all about the different ways you can improve your commercial awareness.
Work experience
Work experience is a brilliant way to increase your commercial awareness as it’s so hand on. Even non-law work experience can be extremely useful as it shows how different businesses are organised. However, if you can gain work experience in some shape or form within the legal sector, that will be extremely useful to you. Work experience also looks good to future employers so this is one recommendation I would highly advise you take.
Engage with the news
One of the habits I am trying to implement in my life is checking the news every morning from various sources. We all know that the newspapers and sites each have their own political stance. It’s important to get viewpoints from everyone and not just from those who you feel align with your views closely. For example, I like to check BBC News, The Guardian, The Times, The Financial Times and watch ITV News. This leads on to my next point.
Listen to podcasts
There are some brilliant podcasts available to help with increasing your commercial awareness. I can always do a post specifically focusing on my commercial awareness podcasts that I like to listen to so let me know if that is something you would like to see. Podcasts are great for a condensed source of information so I definitely recommend this as a starting point.
Research law firms
Researching law firms that are of interest to you can really help with building your commercial awareness. By looking in to what the law firms have been working on, you are able to bring this up in any potential interviews you have with the firm.
I hope this helps with improving your commercial awareness! Thank you for reading!
Beth
Beth Olivia 