Carlos Diez is the Director of the Career Management Center at IE University. After completing a degree in journalism, he worked at a number of global human resources firms, both in Madrid and London. He went on to pursue an Executive Master in Human Resources at IE Business School, where he had his first contact with the IE Career Management Center (CMC).
Today, Carlos manages the career services that IEU offers to undergraduate students. We recently got the chance to sit down with Carlos to discuss the services offered by the CMC, and to explore the dynamics of the international job market.
“The job that I do now with the undergraduates is the same as I did in London with senior executives,” Carlos explained. “It’s a different conversation, at a different level, with different expectations and different profiles, but at the end of the day it’s talking about career management.”
A decade ago, companies were more interested in searching for individuals with technical and hard skills, but this has changed in recent years. Carlos told us that in today’s market, companies are searching for candidates with strong soft skills. Even in banking and finance, Carlos explained that there has been a significant shift towards this new trend.
Interviews, for instance, are becoming increasingly aimed at measuring and evaluating soft skills. Employers are looking for candidates who display highly developed communication skills, emotional intelligence, and empathy.
For undergraduates in the beginning of their degree, the CMC works on guiding them by sharing an open vision of the different career opportunities available to them. The career paths in today’s job market are broader and more dynamic than they were decades ago, according to Carlos. IE University focuses on employability by exposing our students to a variety of industries and companies from day one. By providing countless opportunities for students to develop their professional expertise, they will be well on their way to finding a great job after graduation.
The CMC teaches students how to develop the skills they need to succeed in complex job application processes. Workshops are held regularly to help students develop networking skills, get to know the demands of a corporate working environment, work on verbal and nonverbal communication, and enhance their interview skills.
Carlos explains that the CMC trains students to succeed in the three basic steps of a recruitment process:
Online tests
The CMC provides students with practice tests to help them develop their numerical, verbal, and logical reasoning abilities. These kind of tests are commonly used as a ‘filter’ or first stage among large multinational corporations.
The HR interview
Carlos and the rest of the CMC team have experience conducting these kind of interviews. They therefore have valuable insights into how to impress interviewers, and stand out amongst the crowd. They’ll help you understand what companies are looking for in this second stage. The CMC helps students through practice interviews, where they’ll receive important tips on how to improve their performance.
The technical interview
For this final stage, the CMC conducts a mock interview tailored to the specific company or industry in question. Normally, there is someone in-house who is able to help out in this process, but the CMC also gets outside support from external partners of IEU if necessary.
“IEU students… [will] pursue a job where they can have an impact and do something meaningful,” Carlos tells us. The job market is now very competitive and our students have to work hard in order to achieve their career goals. Thankfully, the IE University CMC will be there to help students pursue their passion and land the ideal job to successfully launch their professional careers.
