On Saturday 7th February 2015, over 400 teenagers gathered at the prestigious Royal College of Surgeons in Holborn, London for an afternoon of innovative careers guidance and speed mentoring from over 60 top professionals. The event was targeted at 14-20 year olds who had exclusive access to professionals from over 30 industries including banking, law, medicine, architecture, design, technology, engineering, fashion, PR, event management, journalism, pharmacy, sustainability, music production, acting and advertising. Many of the mentors work at top organisations and interesting start-ups including: Google, River Island, Change.Org, Goldman Sachs, The BBC, The Sunday Times, The Bank of England, Clifford Chance, The Tata Group, Raising IT, Supreme Creations, cyberGRID, Toshiba, the NHS and local government.We also had alumni from American Universities and Oxford and Cambridge to discuss university applications. We also promoted entering the music industry, with music sensation Arjun, and had representatives from the fitness and wellbeing industry.

Our Senior Panel of observers included senior directors from business from the Institute of Directors, the head of the Independent School Association, and the Chief Clerk to Buckingham Palace.

With ten-minute slots over a two-hour period, the students were able to gain key insights into a wide variety of industries, as they “travelled” from sector to sector to begin their journey on the path to success.

Speed Mentoring, which differs from usual careers fairs through its innovative use of interactive guidance, allowed students to receive valuable and honest advice directly from top young professionals. The uptake was huge, with pupils from Northwood College, The Featherstone High School, Queensmead School, Beaconsfield High School, Bentley Wood, Surbiton High School, North London Collegiate School, Dulwich College, Haberdasher’s Aske’s School for Boys, and we had some travelling all the way from Lille, France to join for the special event.

The feedback from the event was extremely positive with the average rating of the event at 8.9 out of 10. 

See what some students said about the event:

• I think it was fantastic, well organised and diverse.
• I enjoyed learning about new areas and seeing a wide range of what I could do in the future
• The work experience has been fabulous and all the mentors have been really helpful and gave great advice
• I enjoyed everything and everyone!
• Enjoyed meeting new people and professionals
• I loved meeting the design mentor because I have learning information from someone involved with design and information I could not have learnt at school or in books
• All the mentors were honest
• I learnt a lot about the world beyond school and education
• Babita was very useful, pushing me to search for work experience
• Meeting Miles was the favourite part of my day
• My favourite part of the day was learning about the tech industry and how to approach them
• I enjoyed meeting Crystal and Meghan from the PR table because they were really interesting and actually jot me thinking about the job
• I enjoyed meeting new people and learning about careers

Arjun – Music

Smruti and WOHAA Student

Sagar – Economics

Rich – Marketing

Edelman – PR

Mandy & Lucy – Medicine

Linzi – Law

Lilly – Law

Law table

Languages

Babita & Kate – Journalism

the room

Civil Service

Ben – Investment Banking