‘JOBS IN THE CITY’ PANEL
Despite the challenges that remote education brings our Horizons careers and further education department continued to go above and beyond by providing a variety of virtual panels and workshops aimed at preparing pupils for life beyond Bradfield.
One particularly popular event saw a panel of speakers share their experiences of working in the city with panel members discussing their current roles, providing insight to the pupils on their career journeys and sharing their recommendations of how to prepare for the world of work. The webinar also provided the opportunity to discuss how jobs are changing with the impact of COVID and also how Brexit is impacting insurance and private equity firms.
Our panellists spoke at length about how key it is, if pupils go down the university route, to study something that they really enjoy. They also encouraged pupils to make the most of their time after Bradfield and to utilise any resources available to help them make career decisions, whether it is the network of friends built up over their time at the College or the wider community available at their fingertips via The Bradfield Society online. The panel stressed the importance of broadening knowledge as well as developing networks and experience as much as possible while building technical and personal skills and that, ultimately, there is no rush to decide what to do and no need to panic.
It was a pleasure to hear from our panel members: David Miller, a trader who works as Head of European, Middle East and African Equity Dealing for Invesco and has 36 years’ experience in the asset management industry; Simon Jupp (E 02-07), a Solicitor at Taylor Wessing currently focussing on Intellectual Property; Adrian Pulleyn (H 01-06) who works in Equities for Berenberg Bank in investment banking; Hugh Lenon who qualified as a Chartered Accountant and then moved into Private Equity, now Chairman of Phoenix Private Equity and Henry Withinshaw who also qualified as a Chartered Accountant and now works as the Chief Operating Officer of a Lloyd’s syndicate and a UK insurance company.
BUSINESS SCENARIO WORKSHOP
A group of Sixth Form pupils bridged the gap between school and industry during a business themed workshop, delivered by the education team from immersive career experiences company, InvestIN.
Pupils had to work as a team in a Dragon’s Den style scenario, to identify a business opportunity and deliver a winning pitch. They gained first-hand experience of the types of group simulations used in recruitment processes today and put into practice the skills top employers are looking for such as critical thinking, teamwork, commercial awareness and communication. One of the key focuses of the workshop was for the pupils to demonstrate that they had these transferable skills and how they can apply them in different situations.
Those participating found the opportunity to work within a smaller group rewarding as they learnt a lot, were all able to participate and could ask as many questions as they wanted to.
SHORTLISTME
Our Horizons Department is always on the lookout for ways of enhancing its offering to pupils to ensure that they are well prepared for life beyond Bradfield. There has been an accelerated shift towards video interviewing over the past few years, in particular within the last 12 months, and employers are increasingly utilising such platforms as part of their recruitment processes and work experience placements.
While the Department already runs a successful CV writing and interview practice course, an opportunity arose to expand this into the virtual world and this year the College has signed up to a platform called ShortlistMe, a web platform which offers young people video interview practice. The platform allows pupils to practice as many interviews as they want as many times as they want.
Our Horizons team is working with ShortlistMe to help develop the interview repertoire and to add new styles to our Bradfield interview marketplace as they become available.
