As part of our Social and Sustainability promise, we're committed to helping schools equip their students with career skills to prepare them for the world of work.
Careers support in schools
As well as supporting schools with careers advice, Wave has also been participating in a careers scheme run by North Tyneside Learning Trust (NTLT) for the last 5 years. NTLT organise a number of mock interview and careers speed-dating events at senior schools across the county. These events are for Year 10 students and are run in numerous schools on a rotating basis. Key members of our HR department, including the Director of HR, L&D Manager, and an HR Advisor have attended these half-day events, and more recently, our Trade Effluent Specialist came along to interview too.
Career speed-dating for students
The career speed-dating events allow students to rotate between employers on the day and get insight into a range of job roles, careers and sectors as each employer presents information about different careers. Members of the Wave team have presented on the utility sector and in particular HR roles, as our previous work with schools has shown us that this is a career that's rarely talked about but one pupils welcome hearing about.
Interview guidance
The half-day mock interview events are a great opportunity to make a real impact on the students. Each one arrives with a pre-prepared short CV they’ve completed either in class or as part of their homework. They then take part in a 10 minute interview where we use common questions and then leave them with feedback notes. In Marden High School we also have an arrangement with the Head Teacher where in exceptional circumstances (following a mock interview) we can refer a student to their excellent, Life Skills Coaching sessions if we believe help is needed. This has produced long term and lasting results for individual students.
These mock interview events form the bedrock of our education work and we're looking to involve more line managers from Wave in this scheme as it also further helps their development.
