As part of Impact’s successful social impact and ongoing partnership with London schools, we teamed up with Pimlico Academy and attended their annual career’s fair.
Transitioning from school to the workforce can be a daunting experience for young adults. Our knowledgeable recruitment team provided support to Year 9 – 11 students from Pimlico Academy school in South West London. Here’s what our team had to say about the day:
Ellen, Senior Talent Partner – Temporary Support
This was my 3rd visit to Pimlico Academy for the Careers Fair, and every year it’s just as rewarding as the last. The morning was filled of keen year 9s- year 11s with inquisitive minds into the world after school/UNI or whichever path they may choose, some with firm decisions made and more with open minds on what to consider as their future career. It’s a great opportunity to inspire young minds especially to do with the world of recruitment – not many knew it even existed as a career and were left interested and keen to learn more, which was such a positive response. Always such a pleasure to visit Pimlico and looking forward to next year!
Sarah, Associate Talent Partner
Speaking to the students of Pimlico is always so engaging and rewarding, for me and hopefully for them! I’m always so impressed by the conversations I have with the students, and their ability to see the bigger picture and ask such interesting questions. Their curiosity is so refreshing, and it was lovely to introduce them to the world of recruiting and show them that not all office jobs are suits and crunching numbers.
We’re excited to continue this journey with Pimlico Academy and other schools, fostering an environment where students can explore all the career paths that are available to them. By sharing our recruitment knowledge and experiences, we can empower these future professionals on their career paths!
To learn more about how we can make a positive impact on the students in your school or to explore our current roles, get in touch with our team today. Together, we can help shape a brighter future for the next generation of professionals.
It was an absolute pleasure to welcome Rae into our team over the past couple of weeks to undertake work experience. She quickly built relationships and was inquisitive and hardworking and it was great to see her grow in confidence whilst displaying fantastic creativity, diligence and communication skills. Here’s what she said about her work experience at Impact.
Thinking about my first work experience I pictured myself in a dull, hectic office with corporate, silent and intense robots tapping away, their eyes locked looking at a hypnotising screen whilst the day is wasting away. However, as I walked into the office and saw the big smiles and heard the music playing in the background, I realised that my initial thoughts were the exact opposite.
I was immediately surrounded by warm, welcoming people wanting to get to know me. I felt so welcomed and at once felt at ease, my nervous state was gone, and I just felt relaxed and ready to work hard. I had a detailed itinerary of my time here. I had no idea that it would be this organised, everything was planned out and everyone knew what they were doing with me. Not once did I sit there with nothing to do, there was always a task handed to me. I would be given a variety of tasks ranging from sitting in on interviews to writing an ad for a job, I would also be asked to do some research sometimes about Impact’s clients.
At Impact, although it is vibrant and exciting, it is also a busy office with a professional atmosphere, this is the perfect place to work, it is a fascinating, and friendly environment filled with lots of exciting and interesting people. The staff are always kind and warm, they always went out of their way to make me feel welcome. They take time to video chat and meet candidates and they always try to put them in a position that fits them and their clients best. Impact deals with all different types of creative clients from all different backgrounds.
Between the employees there was a real sense of community and friendship that they shared; it was as if they were a little family. Everyone was interested in everyone’s days and not one day went by when no one asked me how my evening was. They made sure to include me in their conversations and showed me how to do everything.
I am so glad that I came to do some work experience here, it has boosted my confidence and given me the experience of working in Central London whilst opening my eyes that working in an office is not always uninteresting and bland, they showed me that it can be interesting and exciting. I am so grateful for the warm welcome and the experience that Impact has given me.
Right from the beginning, Impact has been committed to our community and in particular students from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds, because believe that it’s important that we give back to our future generations.
Soon after the pandemic was over, we quickly began to reemphasise our long-lasting commitment to our community partners and in particular the local schools which we have built up a good relationship with.
Over the past 5 years, we’ve developed a particularly strong relationship with Pimlico Academy and our team has utilised their skills and experience to assist students in many areas of their future development. Including hosting mock interviews and working with the school’s career development team to offer work experience to their sixth-form students.
Most recently we have been working with the students on their confidence and skills as they approach the time in their lives when they will be looking at joining the world of work.
Earlier in the summer, Impact hosted a collection of students at Impact HQ and conducted mock job interviews with each student. And more recently, 5 of our consultants attended the school to conduct a CV and career workshop session for several of their classes.
Our team showed the students how to write a brilliant CV, provided in-depth interview tips and conducted a general Q&A on starting out on a successful career journey.
Both were hugely successful and the feedback we received was unanimously positive. We hope we helped the students to gain knowledge on how to apply themselves to the world of work and give them the confidence they need to be a success!
You can read more on our social impact here.
Here at Impact, we work with local school Pimlico Academy to help their students further themselves and prepare for the working world!
We help them with their CVs, hold mock interviews and offer work experience to their sixth-form students. This summer we had the pleasure of working alongside Elena and Nazifa, two 17-year-old students at the academy and asked them all about their experience with us at Impact HQ.
I have a strong interest in fashion marketing, and I was able to explore this area through my work experience. There were things such as watching fashion shows, drawing and participating in art competitions that I never really thought of as anything more than a casual interest.
However, doing work experience at impact and reading CVs relating to art direction and photography has given me an insight into the industry and has made me realise that it is something I want to be a part of.
My school signed us up for a mock interview with different companies and I got assigned to Impact, not knowing how lucky I was to get this interview! When I did the interview, I was very intrigued and looked further into recruitment agencies after the interview.
Before my interview, I remember thinking this is just for practice for future jobs and that I need to say what I’d already practised. Instead, I found myself asking questions and wanting to find out more!
The time came around when we had to decide where we were going for work experience week, and I instantly knew where I wanted to do mine. When I found out I got work experience at Impact I was so excited to do it and instantly went on the website to find out more.
On the first day, Nick spoke about what Impact does, the function of the company and each sector. We were then introduced to the team, and I was surprised by everyone’s bubbly attitude and high spirits.
The first task was to analyse the CVs of people who had applied for jobs. I picked up important CV skills, like how to know what a recruiter likes and how you need to make an instant good first impression just from the look of your CV and the very first sentence that you write.
The next day I got to apply my skills by updating my own CV with the skills I had learned and sending it to a recruiter. I listened in on interviews to see what questions were asked and how they were conducted and found that in interviews you must ask logical and well-formulated questions to find out specifically what the applicant is looking for, while also making a role sound interesting for the people who are applying.
I learnt how you must be able to articulate yourself but also come across as calm which seems like a difficult skill to obtain. As well as learning about how interviews are conducted, I noted how you come across in terms of first impressions and how confidence, communication and articulation are key skills. It was also helpful knowing what kind of questions a recruitment agency specifically asks to find out about their candidate.
One thing that fascinated me was the organisation of data through a database system. It’s very important to be able to keep track of all your candidates and clients in a recruitment agency. As I listened in on calls, I saw the interviewer typing notes and I was amazed how they simultaneously listen to the candidates, ask questions and write notes. It made me realise how fast-paced this job is!
In a document, you write key information as well as the notes from the interview such as salary expectations, what job they want whether its permanent or temp and whether you want to work in an office, remote, or hybrid. I learned many keywords that I didn’t know before.
The most enjoyable part of my experience was getting to write up company profiles. I got to do this on my third day, and I was introduced to LinkedIn. LinkedIn helped me write my profiles for different media companies. This was an interesting task as I got to learn about other companies as well as do a working task. I also got to work on ads for jobs. I learnt how important it is to make a job interesting and really sell it by making it sound exciting, giving people an incentive to apply for the job.
Something important I took away from the job is that people who work in recruitment agencies deserve so much respect. It’s a difficult job to make both candidates and your clients happy. I thought it would make everyone stressed, so I was surprised when I entered such a calm stress-free environment where everyone was having fun and really enjoying their job. I was happy to see such an amazing working environment that I hope I get to experience again in the future.
On my second day, it was my birthday, and everyone sang me happy birthday and got me a card and cake, it instantly made my day. I was very fortunate to get work experience here and look forward to hopefully working here again.
I am excited to engage in work experience before the upcoming year fills with exams and stress. Talking with our career advisor at Pimlico she suggested due to my outgoing nature that I spend our work experience week with Impact.
From there I searched the website which was very simple to access and navigate and understood that Impact stood for building positive relations by respect for the diverse community and that progression was their passion.
On arriving at Impact, I had been warmly welcomed by Nick who gave us a tour of the elaborate building which consisted of several spacious offices as well as booths spotted around the floor which allowed colleagues to engage in private calls and we spoke about what the week would have in store for us.
We delved into analysing candidate CVs which allowed me to gain the knowledge on how to improve my own CV, which would be to include the best aspects of myself as a top-tier person with important attributes that I could bring to the table. As well as the importance of email etiquettes and how they could form an initial judgment of an individual. Keeping a short but snappy email is the way to go!
Having experienced how colleagues work in their day-to-day was eye-opening seeing colleagues take calls and zoom meetings being friendly as the call initiates and how quick and efficient they were able to grasp and attain knowledge of candidates. This varied from what role the candidates want to pursue, a reason they want a change as well as salary hopes and more all in the time span of 40 mins.
What I gained most significantly from those calls is the overall persona that the candidate portrays themselves as. In addition to learning new terms such as eCommerce, temps and hybrid workers.
I also had the opportunity to write a research profile for a company – learning about a company, what roles it offered, what its ethics were and what makes them stand out as a company through its website and LinkedIn to fully understand a candidate and company. I grasped the intensive work that Impact does and how each colleague must understand each role within the company to the smallest of details.
Overall, my time at Impact has been enlightening in understanding how the working world functions as well as how colleagues interact with each other in office-based environments even if recruitment isn’t necessarily the path I strive to take in the future.