Career Ready students graduate

Career Ready is a national charity linking employers with schools and colleges to open up the world of work to young people. Woodhouse run a very successful Career Ready business academy and offer a structured programme of activities that sits alongside college studies. It is delivered by employer volunteers who provide masterclasses, mentoring, workplace visits and internships to help our students compete with the best in the country. Career Ready gives students the confidence, skills and networks to achieve their potential.

 

A Career Ready LAB (Local Advisory Board) is the essential link between the college and local employers and consists of members of Woodhouse staff and business professionals. Our current chair of the board is Cansu Huseyin (an alumni of both Woodhouse and the Career Ready Program and currently working as a Human Resources Manager at R.J. O'Brien) who co-chairs with our Vice Principal Alex Christodoulou.

 

 

Our Woodhouse Career Ready Coordinator, Aisha Adesanya, told us "The Career Ready programme is available for everyone at Woodhouse and the 20 spaces available each year are in high demand. This year we had around 150 applications - and interviewed 50 of those to find the most worthy candidates. Career Ready is a social mobility charity and it is important to find students that will benefit the most from the opportunities it offers.

 

Students in 2022 were fortunate to have master classes with external speakers and board members to help with networking, preparing for work and success at assessment centres. We took them on workplace visits to big organisations like Euronext (a large, global stock exchange group) and in the summer they enjoyed internships at places like BP head office, Aviva and Euronext. For four to six weeks they got real life work experience with projects to complete - and of course they get paid.

 

Mentorship is one of the most important and rewarding things that Career Ready provides. Students really benefit from the mentors who are often in high positions - partners and directors at law firms, vice presidents in financial institutions - getting to meet and talk to these people at the top of their careers is so valuable. Mentors get to show them what’s possible by sharing how they got where they are now.

 

In the immediate future for the new cohort of students we are going to CMS (a law firm) for International Women’s Day to meet inspirational women and we have a speakerfrom EMEA to talk about life in Financial Services. And our very own Chair of Trustees, Peter Green is coming in to talk about networking.

 

I really like what I do with Career Ready - I think it is a really important opportunity for our students."