Monocle Headline Sponsors Two Key Careers Service 50th Celebration Student Events

UCT Careers Service (CS) partners with industry not only to help students with sector-specific knowledge and the ability to understand career challenges, but to connect recruiters to relevant and critical skills in their industry.

This year, banking and insurance consultancy firm Monocle has come on board as a headline sponsor of the FLUX Entrepreneurship Business Game and Expo. The reimagined one-day 120+ exhibitor Expo aims to be the largest on UCT’s campus.  

Founder, David Buckham, tells the CS why they have partnered with the University, the ethos behind Monocle’s Graduate Programme and how they help prepare graduates for the changing world of work.

“The partnership began in earnest when Monocle decided two years ago to collaborate with UCT as an employer partner. We believed that they were, and are, producing the best quality graduates in South Africa. In the past, Monocle has assisted with FLUX events, as well as with the Mock Interview Programme, and the professionalism that the CS office has shown towards us has been unique in the market,” says Buckham.

Monocle, therefore, wished to make the partnership more formal. This year, we offered to become the headline sponsor partner for both FLUX and the one-day Expo linked to the CS 50th anniversary, and we are very proud to take that position.”

The Partnership

“Monocle views the partnership with the CS as paramount to our success in two major avenues. The first is that Monocle would like to significantly increase our graduate intake for next year, using the opportunity with the CS to market Monocle to graduates for the 2019 programme.

The second is that Monocle has realised that in a very competitive environment, we need to make people, particularly students at UCT, more aware of our brand. Monocle believes that the more aware the students are of our brand, the more likely it is that they will understand that it represents a unique opportunity for them to build their careers.

Monocle also knows that we can offer the CS tremendous assistance by helping with mock interviews, providing professionalism and guidance in many areas that students find interesting, and building a long-term partnership for the future.”

The Monocle Quarterly Journal

“Monocle produces a journal called The Monocle Quarterly Journal. Every issue focuses on a different topic, with the latest issue focusing on the future world of work. Monocle believes the way in which people view the working world at the moment, particularly young people that are graduating into the South African environment, is very different to people entering the workforce ten, or even five, years ago.

The potential employee of tomorrow is a very unique and highly skilled individual. Monocle wants to illustrate that not only do we understand this person, but that we also may have some insights that could provoke their thinking. Monocle believes that the journal will add a lot of value to graduates, as it will hopefully lead them to question what type of world of work they want to exist in – do they want to be employees, do they want to be contractors, or do they want to be entrepreneurs?

The way we work is rapidly changing and the new journal will cover many of the most interesting ways in which this evolution is taking place, including the rise of the gig-economy, the idea of a universal income, what work means to different people, and even whether or not artificial intelligence will eventually take all of our jobs.”

Monocle’s 2019 Graduate Programme

“Monocle’s graduate programme focuses on four major aspects. Firstly, Monocle believes that there is some fundamental learning that needs to be undertaken by graduates coming into the consulting world. Monocle believes that there are fundamental concepts that are not taught at university that need to be conveyed, understood and tested, and so there is a very strong focus in our programme on improving subject matter expertise in banking, insurance and the financial industry in general.

Secondly, Monocle believes that people should possess hard skills, particularly programming skills, data manipulation skills and data analysis skills, as well as a sound statistical understanding. Thirdly, we believe professionals should possess a strong ability to communicate clearly, in both writing and in spoken word, and Monocle, therefore, spends a significant amount of time cultivating this skill, by having graduates write book reviews, for example. This is a key skill in the consulting world.

The fourth aspect is critical thinking. Monocle believes that across all generations – and not only in this generation – there exists a lack of critical thinking skills. People must learn to apply their minds critically to what they hear or read, so that they are not swayed as easily as the masses on important issues. This is an aspect of Monocle’s programme that is unique and that involves us teaching and testing the ability to critically question different bodies of text, or the spoken word, or even art and music. Critical thinking is not only useful to graduates working at Monocle, but is an important general life skill,” says Buckham.

The CS Employer Partnership Programme

David Casey, Director of the CS, says the service is excited and privileged to partner with Monocle.

“Monocle is one of our employer partners and are part of a programme of 16 employers who share knowledge and expertise as part of student career development related events on campus. These partners interact with our students who could become future employees.

By partnering with UCT, employers are provided with early access to the best and brightest university graduates in Africa; branding and marketing opportunities; and involvement in various student development programmes.

We need these partnerships to increase our impact on students, and the CS extends its gratitude to Monocle for their headline sponsorship this year,” says Casey.