Shoosmiths supports Worktree Career WorkOut programme

Brian West, Shoosmiths Real Estate Associate in our Milton Keynes office attended a Career WorkOut session at Oakgrove School on the 21st of September 2016, 2-3pm. The event was organised by Worktree a Milton Keynes based employability education charity on a mission to help young people succeed in work by broadening their career awareness, stimulating their aspirations and requiring their communication skills.

Brian was firstly involved in a pre-session Worktree briefing to outline what was going to happen in the Career WorkOut hour. He also met and introduced himself and his organisation to the other work guests. Brian was then involved in talking to small groups of Year 13 (aged 17-18) students answering their questions about his job and career journey. The aim of the event was to develop young people’s career awareness and aspirations, also to improve their employability skills, especially speaking and listening.

Brian was one of 15 volunteers who attended on the day with guests from various organisations including in addition to Shoosmiths,Army Careers, Dentons, PJ Care, IBM, BI Worldwide and Santander. Guests from different work backgrounds sat in a circle facing outwards, each faced by two to three learners. At the facilitator’s instruction, the learners began asking their first work guest open questions about his or her personal experience of work. After six to eight minutes, the facilitator stopped the conversations and asked the learners to move to their left and begin questioning the next guest. They continued until they had met seven to eight guests within the hour. The session ended with a brief oral evaluation, completion of written evaluation forms and a group photograph to capture the session.

Brian explained ‘The Career Workout is a great opportunity for the students to speak to people from a number of different jobs. I found it interesting how some of the students had a clear career path they wanted to follow, with one looking to start his own business. Others were keen to learn more about different jobs and you could see they found the event useful. It was good to see people interested in so many different careers and the odd one or two had even considered law.’

‘I enjoyed talking to a variety of people about their jobs and learning about the career choices they made.” A Year 12 Oakgrove Student explained after the session. ‘

Bhupinder Roada, Worktree Events Co-ordinator, commented ‘We look forward to welcoming several more Shoosmiths colleagues who are already booked on to Career WorkOut over the coming weeks and months.‘

To find out more about the WorkOut programme view: http://worktree.org/volunteers/what-you-can-do/