UHY Haines Norton Study Scholarship Winner Shona Mani

Congratulations to 2017 UHY Study Scholarship winner Shona Mani, who has been selected for an internship opportunity at Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CAANZ). Here Shona shares with us details of the opportunity and her tips for other university students.

I would like to thank UHY Haines Norton as their Study Scholarship made my CV stand out amongst hundreds of CAANZ Achiever Programme 2019 candidates. The application process had five stages including psychometric testing, video interviews and the final stage was a daunting face-to-face with three interviewers. During all of these selection stages, I was confident because I had a lot to talk about from the experience of being selected for the UHY Haines Norton Study Scholarship.

I am currently doing a Finance Internship at Fisher and Paykel Healthcare, which is a global leader in the healthcare industry with over 4,000 employees and an annual revenue of $980 million.

For other university students like me planning to make it big in New Zealand’s finance industry, I would like to share three tips to increase their chances of securing an internship:

  1. Networking – reach out to prospect companies on LinkedIn. One coffee with their CFO will make you wiser rather than just attending University lectures.
  2. Reading – this helps you become a more interesting person, capable of carrying on conversations with the networked LinkedIn connections.
  3. Planning – be around people who are in the position you want to be in the next 5-10 years of your career. Believe me, the department Managers, Vice Presidents and CEOs don’t want to shoo you away, they are just busy but they love to share their success secrets. I have learned this at Fisher and Paykel because even the top management doesn’t hide behind any work cabins. They work in the same pods as us and we all have coffee from the same coffee machines as the CEO of Fisher and Paykel.

Thanks once again to UHY Haines Norton for believing in me.

We are so thrilled for Shona and wish her the very best for this next stage in her career.