This year’s OB Careers Convention once again coincided with National Careers Week and was a resounding success with over 400 students from 14 Independent and State Schools across the Borough, along with some young OBs, tuning in to hear our panel of experts from across the OB and school community. Now in its eighteenth year, the event was held online, for the fourth year running, and spread over the course of three evenings (Tuesday 5th March – Thursday 7th March).
This year, we held twelve- hour-long sessions with over 50 experts, exploring a diverse set of careers, ranging from cyber security, investment banking, , and scientific research to surveying, law, engineering, medicine and many more. We also ran 2 additional 15-minute sessions covering ‘How to make an impact in 1 minute’ that attracted over 250 signups between them!
We have received excellent feedback from the career representatives, who were very impressed with the participants and gave some wonderful advice.
‘I always try to surround myself by people that are better than me. So I would recommend to really try to use the resources and people around you – if you have a classmate who is really good at something, be brave enough to ask them how they do that/learnt to do that, and would they be willing to show you how? They will be flattered and it would also help to reinforce their own skills. And 2. Talk to your teacher, ask for extra support and I am sure they will be able to help.’ Careers Representative
When asked if there is one piece of advice they would give for people starting out in their industry one representative advised:
Barak Obama answers this question brilliantly… “learn how to get stuff done”. So, show up, talk to everyone, find out how you can add some value even with a small simple task, and keep your word – do what you say you are going to do. Be curious, work hard and soon your impact in the workplace will be much more valuable than your old exam grades!.
We would like to thank all our fantastic representatives (OBs, parents, past parents, and friends of the school) who gave their time and shared their expertise – without them, we wouldn’t have been able to run the event.
As one 6th Form student said: “I just would like to say that thank you very much for the opportunity to hear all the interesting career pathways. It was definitely beneficial.’
If you are interested in helping at next year’s Careers Convention, we’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch with us at obclub@bedfordschool.org.uk and help inspire young people who might be considering your profession.