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Career Workshops and Mentoring Scheme
Careers Workshops
Held at Tower Hamlets College, London on Thursday 12 May 2005 the City Circle organised sessions on
- IT & Computing
- Business and Commerce
- Science and Health
- Creative arts
Students on vocational courses at Level 2 had the opportunity to hear a range of speakers from each of these sectors talk about what their work entailed and how students could apply as well as answering questions.
The day featured talks on a variety of alternative careers including diversity and marketing in banking within Business and Commerce, graphic design in Creative Arts and occupational and speech therapy and pharmacology within Science and Health. There was also a specific session for prospective medics on the application procedure and also about the medical profession.
Over 100 students attending the various sessions over the course of the day and were given ideas on the range of careers they could pursue.
Mentoring Scheme
For this scheme we are looking for professionals from any field, based in and around London, who can act as Mentors and meet individual students or groups of students from Tower Hamlets College, for an hour every 3 or 4 weeks. The meetings can take place at Tower Hamlets College or, if convenient, at the Mentor's place of work. The Mentors will be able to share their first hand experiences to help students develop the skills, behaviour and attitudes necessary to achieve their career goals. Mentees can be paired up with Mentors from professions that they have an interest in. Tower Hamlets College will provide professional induction training as well as ongoing support for all Mentors.
Career Guidance Event
Held on Saturday 29 January 2005 at the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre, North Kensington, London, the City Circle organised an afternoon of career presentations for 14+ year olds. The events was sponsored by JPMorgan Chase
Over 60 participants attended to hear over ten professionals discuss a range of varied careers including: art, journalism, media, teaching, surveying, banking & finance, medicine, dentistry, public relations and law. The professionals discussed what it was like to do their job, why they chose their career and the route they took.
There was ample opportunity to network during the day.
One-Day Intensive Career Workshop
Organised on Saturday 2 October 2004, the City Circle teamed up with investment bank JPMorgan Chase and participating sponsors to provide a free workshop in London to help students develop those soft skills crucial for university and job placement interviews.
The workshop provided practical opportunities to conduct play-interviews and receive tailored advise and constructive feedback on vital non-academic skills essential in attaining successful offers. Skills provided included CV and application form writing skills, interviewing skills and presentation skills.
It was an excellent opportunity to build confidence, provide an insight into the city and develop excellent contacts with city professionals in what was an intensive but enjoyable day!
Student Industry Day
Educational underachievement in many parts of London has been steadily increasing. Underachievement in early school years in many cases spirals into a degenerative socio-economic position later in life. One of the key factors of this has been the lack of positive career models who can illustrate that getting a sound education is important in life. Through the Industry Day project the City Circle aims to project positive role/career models to students. These role models will demonstrate through their real-life examples that achieving in academic and/or vocational education is important to oneself and to ones community. The Industry Days are targeted at high achieving (or those with potential) students between the age of 15-16, to get them thinking about career issues before they make decisions for their A Level subjects.
A successful Industry day was delivered to 67 year-eleven students from North Westminster Community School in June 2002. With a project team of 14 the day began with brainteasers and was followed by students forming smaller groups to work on a case study. The case study for each student was to take a senior management role (CEO, CFO etc) in a software start-up company and request funding for the launch of their first product. To do this they would need to prepare a brief business plan, outlining the reasons for the product choice and their marketing strategy, finally they would make their presentation to a group of industry professionals and the rest of the students in order to establish if their business plan was successful. This session was followed by a working lunch break, which moved into the second session: careers' road map, where the students were provided with careers information of an Industry of their choice. The careers' road map was delivered by a partner at PwC, a strategy consultant at PA Consulting, a sales and marketing director at BT, CTO at Merrill Lynch and others. Before closing off the day each student completed a feedback questionnaire outlining if they felt the day was of use to them and whether they would recommend the programme to their fellow students. The overwhelming response was positive.
Project Manager
Salma Yousef, 07947 729 977, salma@thecitycircle.com |
