150 people from around the county booked their spaces for Essex 2020 >> Talent Forward - an unique online careers event featuring industry professionals in science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics.
Designed by always possible with the support of Careers & Enterprise Company, TechEast and People on Work. This unique event was kindly sponsored by CITY FIBRE.
Careers Roundtable
Our last session of the day saw a panel of professionals from a range of industries discuss their work and give their point of view on the skills that might be required for the future world of work.
After the panel answered questions ‘from the floor’ we rounded out the session with an inspirational video presentation by Grant Bibby - Global Marine Group Mechanical Engineering Apprentice.
Find out more about early career opportunities with Global Marine Group
OUR PANELISTS
- Aideen Sadler – City Manager (Southend) >> CITY FIBRE
- Glen Robinson – National Technology Officer >> MICROSOFT
- Karly Withers – Curriculum Manager (Animal Care & Science) >> SOUTH ESSEX COLLEGE
- Hayley Dixon – Deputy Director >> FOCAL POINT GALLERY
- Dr. Hephzi Tagoe – Research Scientist >> GHSCIENTIFIC
- Dr. Ole Kock – Product Development Manager (Space and Quantum) >> TELEDYNE E2V
Professionals Playlist
In this first session we gave an overview to the day and played a selection of videos from various industries:
- LEONARDO >> Provided an overview of their work in thermal imaging systems, radar systems, radio communications, infrared detection, signal processing and network systems and featured engineers from different departments speaking about their career journey and passion for the job.
- NHS >> NELFT Allied Health & Psychologists talked us through the many and varied career opportunities in healthcare and how science and creativity go hand in hand.
- CREATIVE CO-OP >> Offered an insight into life at a design agency, the various roles on offer, and answered practical questions about the skills and knowledge required to be a digital creative professional.
- UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX >> Provided us with information about the School of Life Sciences - study subjects on offer, their applications in the real world and progression potential.
Industry Q&As
Five 25 minute long Q&A sessions with industry professionals.
TELEDYNE E2V >> Ole Kock, Product Development Manager (Quantum) gave a fascinating insight into the cutting edge work of Teledyne e2v. Apprentice Engineers Rhea Jackson and Lucy Moore talked us through the day to day working life of an apprentice; how and why they both chose that path over going to university and what it’s like to work in a traditionally male dominated industry (spoiler - it’s no different to working in any industry; people are people!). Find out about the apprenticeship scheme.
CITY FIBRE >> Fibre Manager Luke Phillip is responsible for the fibre optic technology that is underpinning the fastest broadband speeds. Luke talked us through his varied career from celebrity PR, to a builder to engineer. He clearly demonstrated that it is OK to come at a career from a non-conformist point of view and that the adages of being hard-working, diligent and making yourself indispensable carry across any industry. Find out more about careers with City Fibre.
INTO GAMES >> CEO Declan Cassidy spoke about Into Games’ work supporting young people to find rewarding careers in the games industry. Into Games connects education and industry with various major projects and industry mentoring schemes. Declan described various roles within the industry and the skills, knowledge and qualifications that are required. Did you know that Into Games has the largest games careers resource anywhere on the internet?
AMAZON >> Head of Business Development Nikhil Amin talked us through different roles within Amazon’s departments and we discussed the ways in which Amazon constantly evolves and innovates to keep ‘ahead of the curve’ and stay successful. Did you know that each month teams from all departments are encouraged to put their creativity into action and ‘dream big’ in order to come up with an innovative idea to pitch to senior decision-makers? Winning ideas are developed and implemented. Nikhil started his working life as an engineer in the RAF, reinforcing the point from earlier that whatever you choose now doesn’t have to define your whole working life - it’s never to late to reskill and change your career path. Find out about Amazon jobs and apprenticeships.
HAYNARD LTD >> Dr. Julie Winnard is a sustainability and transport consultant and gave some insight into what the relatively new concept of sustainable development means in practice and how you can use a passion for sustainability to carve out a career within pretty much any industry. Unknowingly picking up on a theme from the previous sessions, when asked about her career path Julie revealed that she’d had a varied working life and had started out as an engineer in the motor industry.
Visit our resource page to view all the videos individually and find links to some of the company careers and apprenticeship pages.
Visit People On Work for lots more inspirational videos featuring people talking about their careers.