Isobel Nash, our guest blogger today and student Events Assistant in the Careers Service reflects on our recent Rare Recruitment Panel event.
On Wednesday 10th October five ethnic minority graduates from RARE Recruitment visited the University of Bath to tell students their career experiences and how they secured top jobs, despite barriers they had faced. The event was a great success with many students coming away with tips and tricks of how to get the best graduate jobs and internships.
The first speaker, Naomi Kellman told her inspirational career journey from being a first class graduate of Oxford to influencing education policy at the Department of Education. What I learnt from Naomi was to choose a career you really care about. Naomi felt pressured to follow the traditional route of going into finance, but instead chose to go into the field of social justice in education - something she really feels passionate about.
Savanna-Rei Rennals taught me to never give up. Savanna dreamed of working as an engineer for the Transport of London, but after initial rejection due to lack of experience went into teaching with Teach First. She later decided to re-apply for the Transport of London and RARE helped her to secure her dream job. Savanna is now currently working in Track Maintenance as a Performance and Innovation Engineer and is also working towards becoming a Chartered Civil Engineer.
The third speaker Harriet Ohemeng taught me to use rejections as motivation. Harriet knew she wanted to do law from a young age, but struggled with rejection from law firms. Instead of being defeated, Harriet went to RARE for help and they helped her to secure a job at a top law firm, Freshfields. Harriet advised the room to always get feedback when you get rejected and to go to career events and be active with networking and asking the professionals questions.
"Get help when you need it." was Alex Thomas' top tip. Alex didn’t know what he wanted to do with his Natural Science degree from Cambridge, so he went to RARE for some advice and eventually decided on a career in consulting. Rare supported Alex through the process and he now holds a top graduate job offer from BCG.
The final speaker Andrew Osayemi had a more unconventional route into finance, which taught me dedication and passion can get you a long way. Andrew initially didn’t want to go to university, but when he decided to go, he didn’t secure a 2.1 which most finance firms require. Despite this Andrew secured a graduate job at an investment bank after interning for them. On his internship he proved himself worthy through hard work, passion and dedication, so when Andrew told them he didn’t get a 2.1 they accepted him anyway!
Despite challenges such as being intimated in a work environment where no one looks like you, lack of experience, rejection and lack of confidence all the speakers overcame their challenges to secure top jobs. If you would like to know more about Rare visit their website at https://www.rarerecruitment.co.uk/ .
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