We have had a great start to our Career Spotlight sessions with excellent speakers and engaged students.
In our first session we had Kahina, a front of house manager who works in Brighton, speak to students about working in the hospitality sector. Students wrote questions beforehand and were also able to think of some on the spot in the session – this was great preparation for the speaking and listening exam components of their qualifications.
Some students said they were more interested in a career in hospitality now as before they had thought it was too hard for them, mainly due to anxiety, but felt reassured that some roles were not as customer facing as others.
Kahina's key points were that you do need your English and maths! And also that if you work hard it is a great sector for progression.
For the second session, which took place last week we had Lauren from successful Worthing bakery, Baked. She explained how she started up her business and the ins and outs regarding being self employed, what motivated her to start up, and the pros and cons of working in the hospitality industry.
She then opened the floor up to questions and our young people asked some excellent ones regarding her business.
Following the session, one young person said:
"I'm really interested in opening my own book shop when I'm older so it has been very interesting listening to how to start up my own business and also know how much everything costs."
Other young people said they really enjoyed it and it sparked an interest in what their business ideas could be.
If you know a NEET young person who lives in West Sussex, these sessions are a great opportunity to engage them in thinking about careers. Any NEET young person aged 16-24 is welcome to attend the Careers Spotlight sessions with a relevant professional, whether they are an asphaleia student or not!
To find out more and register for a young person, please email us on trainingreferrals@asphaleia.co.uk, or call on 01903 823546. To find out more about our further education and employability programmes, click here.