PRESS RELEASE: PLACEMENT PROGRAMME REACHES OUT TO STUDENTS AND BUSINESSES ACROSS LONDON

6th April 2011: Step launches 2011 programme search for London’s Most Enterprising Students and Graduates

With graduate unemployment levels at historic highs, the UK’s leading paid student placement and internship provider today announces it is expanding its programme across London to enable more students and graduates to gain the experience which could be vital to landing a permanent job.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said:

“It is essential that graduates move successfully from academic to working life and a place on an internship scheme is a fantastic way to start out. I am delighted to support a programme that not only works to provide real opportunities for graduates, but that also directly helps to enhance the competitiveness and productivity of the capital’s businesses.”

For 2011 Step is working with two new key partners to help expand the number and range of opportunities available across London. The Careers Group (University of London) are giving Step a major boost this year by offering the placement programme to their employer partners for the first time, and will be working closely with Step’s other new partner Real World Magazine. Existing partner WEXO (Work Experience Online) will continue to focus on the creative industries and SMEs and the partnership will be managed by the central Step team.

Every summer STEP places hundreds of undergraduates to run business development projects tailored to their individual skills and career ambitions. And following a highly successful trial supported by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in 2010, Step will now continue to also offer opportunities to recent graduates.

The 12-week placements give students and graduates the chance to generate results which could provide a real boost to their employment prospects whilst gaining relevant and meaningful work experience. The programme, has delivered more than 23,000 projects in SMEs since it began in 1986.

Small businesses, which still may find themselves stretched in the current economic climate, also benefit from the projects, which can deliver substantial financial rewards. Every year, almost half (48%) of Step students add more than £5,000 worth of value to their host business, while a fifth (17%) have added more than £30,000.

Students and graduates can apply for a wide range of placements ranging from designing websites and bespoke software to devising marketing strategies and identifying potential new markets.

The programmes have helped deliver paid placements to companies ranging from Manchester United’s London offices to innovative new London Gin distiller, Sipsmith and internet sensations Mydeco.com and Skimbit to property company Ivy Lettings.

Philip Donnelly, Programme Director at Step Enterprise, said: “Step is a direct and practical response to the challenge that tens of thousands of UK graduates face when they move from the world of study into employment. I am delighted that with our new London partners we will be creating more opportunities for meaningful placements right across the Capital.”

Students and recent graduates can find out more and apply for a placement in London at www.wexo.co.uk Towards the end of their placement all candidates will write a blog on their achievements and personal development, which will be entered into the ‘Most Enterprising Student’ awards.

Businesses that have a potential project opportunity should email info@wexo.co.uk or visit the website for more information. Applications received by April 30th will benefit from a special Spring discount offer.

~ENDS~

For more information contact Robin Kennedy on info@wexo.co.uk

Notes to editors:

Step is a direct response to the challenge that tens of thousands of UK graduates face when they move from the world of study into employment.

Step has received a range of national and regional Government funding in past years, and until 2009 was sponsored by Shell UK. Following Shell’s withdrawal of support in 2009-10, Step Enterprise have worked hard to develop and enhance the programme, creating a sustainable focused entirely on the needs of participating students, graduates and employers.

*** PRESS COMMENT: WEXO invites government to help make “It’s not who you know, it’s who you are” a reality ***

5th April 2011: WEXO (Work Experience Online) welcomes this morning’s news that the government is to focus on reversing the growing culture of unpaid internships as part of its social mobility scheme. The announcement that Nick Clegg will champion this initiative is encouraging. WEXO invites the government to actualise its commitment to private/public sector partnerships and work with it to tackle these issues head on.

Robin Kennedy, Co-founder and CEO of WEXO said: “In a difficult economy, internships have started to replace graduate schemes in small businesses as a ‘first job’ vehicle. For some time now, we’ve been trying to foster a meritocratic culture that democratises access to work experience and internships using the internet. I welcome today’s announcements and look forward to hearing more but this space is fraught with sensitivities. We don’t need rhetoric and policy; what we need is to educate and incentivise companies to take on the best people and pay them fairly. I’d be delighted to work with the government to this end.”

WEXO has teamed up with STEP to make it easier for companies to find the best interns. STEP has already successfully operated the London Innovation Placement Programme and its own Graduate STEP Scheme with The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS). Both schemes, which WEXO has worked with STEP on, have proved successful in providing a cost effective solution that helps companies find first class interns who in return receive an appropriate level of remuneration (which is the equivalent of at least the national minimum wage) for their hard work. One of WEXO’s recent proposals was that companies should be able to recoup the costs of paying interns from this year’s VAT increase.

In an earlier release, Sir Stuart Rose, former Chairman of Marks & Spencer and founder of BITC initiative ‘Work Inspiration’, said: “I’m a big believer in what WEXO is doing to help get students and graduates working again. By utilising the power of the internet, they are helping match talent to exciting opportunities.”

~ENDS~

Notes to editors:

WEXO (www.wexo.co.uk) is a matchmaking network exciting work experience, internships and jobs. WEXO’s technology now allows companies to rank and sort applications and it has already developed a strong client list of over 500 companies including Sony Music, Armani and Working Title as well as many start-ups, charities and SMEs. WEXO has been featured on BBC Television News and was a finalist for the 2009 LSE Recruitment Awards in the ‘Most Innovative Use of Technology’ category. More recently the company has launched ‘WEXO tv’ to help inspire and educate people about different industries. The company was founded in 2007 by ex-investment banker Robin Kennedy and London ‘fixer’ Harry Becher. The platform was built with seed funding and the company generates revenue from membership fees, search fees and advertising.

Step (www.step.org.uk) has over 10 years of experience in developing some of the UK’s most innovative and well regarded placement programmes. Quoted as a model of good practice by the Alan Milburn-chaired Panel on Fair Access, Step are working directly with the Department of Business to make these opportunities a reality.

For more information contact Robin Kennedy on info@wexo.co.uk or by calling: +44 (0) 203 287 7644

‘George, aged 39, has shown much promise this term in growth studies but unfortunately his performance in yesterday’s examination fell short of expectations. He seems to struggle with the fundamental concept of ROI. With time, we feel he can excel and we would encourage him to work with others to this end.’

That’s how George’s report on yesterday’s budget might read. ‘ROI’ (Return on Investment) might seem like an overly complex term for a school report but you didn’t see my 6 year old niece’s equivalent which talked about ‘visual-spatial awareness’ – as if she’d know what that was?

Anyway, what a shame that an MP with such a strong commercial upbringing (Daddy founded a very successful wallpaper company) should fail to inspire us in yesterday’s budget – at least with reference to youth unemployment. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a criminal act. In terms of timing it was refreshingly short coming in at just 56 minutes – though Ladbroke’s still honoured a bet that Ken Clarke would fall asleep – but on our territory at least, it could have gone so much further.


We were actually impressed with some of George’s announcements yesterday, in particular:

1. ENTREPRENEURS: Doubling and extending the Entrepreneur’s Relief Scheme and Increasing the EIS tax break threshold from 20% to 30%. This will further incentivise angel investment in new enterprise (OFFBEAT QUESTION: When will the government start incentivising investment in music rather than just film in a world where the major labels have failed ALL their stakeholders? UK Plc used to be good at music?)
2. FIRST TIME BUYERS: 10,000 will now be able to put up just 5% of the deposit for a house purchase with the government and builders putting up a further 10% each.
3. CORPORATION TAX: Cuts of 2p make British corporation tax rates the lowest in the G7.

But on the measures designed to tackle youth unemployment, we think there’s ‘room for improvement’…

Naturally, WEXO has long been a proponent of incentivinsing investment in graduates (see last year’s press release) who offer an excellent ROI. The same could be said for work experience. Yesterday, George committed to investing in 4 times as many 8 week work experience placements as previously for 18-21 year olds. The scheme, administered by Job Centre Plus allows those doing so to collect JSA (Job Searchers Allowance). It’s a reasonably well conceived initiative (it does confuse the distinction between work experience, paid internships and National Minimum Wage legislation addressed in a previous blog) but it doesn’t address the issue of finding rewarding work experience. WEXO consistently has people referred to it by Job Centre Plus, who get all the funding, but don’t do the work. As George pointed out, the problem is that only 1 in 10 companies in the UK offer work experience as opposed to 1 in 4 in Germany. If George wants to see a return on his recent investment he needs to address both sides of the equation.

One of the ideas that we have been looking at with Kids Company et al is for organisations to involve their graduates in administering work experience programmes, developing their management potential whilst sharing the benefits of their training with their younger, potentially less fortunate peers. WIN:WIN. Ideas like these might persuade companies to open up their doors to the executives of tomorrow. We’d like to see more support for these kinds of initiatives.

I’d like to think that the ‘Growth and Innovation Fund’ could help foster private and public sector partnerships and ROI. It’s now new (Phil Donnelly of our partner company, STEP, was kind enough to give me a copy of it in a pre-budget meeting yesterday ) and it’s only worth £50m but as a company involved in a syndicate that invested time and money to bid on LDA (London Development Agency) Internship funding, my principle concern is the inevitable bureaucracy associated with public sector funding. Having made it on to the final 3 shortlist, six months after the deadline for an announcement we are yet to hear the result and the LDA are yet to hear if they still exist!

Along with work experience, George announced a £180m package to fund 50,000 more apprenticeships over the next four years, and 24 ‘University Technical Colleges’. We like the idea of practical tertiary education but as the Telegraph argued earlier this month, the concept of apprenticeships itself feels outdated and what about graduates? Wasn’t this the perfect opportunity to atone them for the tuition fee hikes? We disagree with the FSB that the universities (HEFCE) should be given more funding to run internships schemes but isn’t there a way the government can work directly with the private sector to help graduates?

As a parting shot (and leaving aside ‘Blairgate’), if each cruise missile we fire at Libya costs around £500k and we’re so in need of economic stimulus back home, why did the House of Commons vote so vehemently (557-13) in favour of military intervention?

Robin Kennedy

“Be passionate, be opinionated and always be a problem-solver“. So said our panel at last night’s filmed careers event and launch of WEXO TV, ‘How I Made it in Advertising‘. We were lucky enough to get an intimate and entertaining careers chat from five pros in the advertising world, jam-packed with practical advice and anecdotal lessons. The Tabernacle in Notting Hill hosted our evening in its beautiful and embellished theatre.

On the panel sat Julian Diment (Carphone Warehouse), Rebecca Robins (Interbrand), Nick Foster (T-Mobile), Tanya Hamilton-Smith (JWT) and Robin Garton (MBA). Collectively they’ve worked for and with the likes of Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis, Tesco, Orange, Andrex and Reuters. A pretty impressive but instantly likeable bunch, if we ever met one.

Our audience consisted of everyone from LSE undergraduates, Masters students and careers advisers for schoolchildren to keen WEXO members who’d travelled from as far as Cardiff! Needless to say the atmosphere in the Tabernacle was rather electric, with guests in the running to win a work’s week experience in advertising particularly excited. To begin, each of our speakers zipped us through their background, and how they found themselves on their current career paths. A few central themes arose, which anyone looking to delve into the advertising should consider noting. Pens at the ready:

1. Follow your instincts. When it comes to joining a team, go with people you instantly feel you can gel with. If you’re pretending to be someone you’re not, it’ll show in no time.
2. Relationships are key. Care about the people and brands you work for. Not in a sentimental sense, but in terms of genuinely wanting to push forward their agenda. Those relationships will form the core of your contact base in time.
3. Do your research. Know the brands or companies you aspire to work with, before you find yourself in that interview you worked so hard to nab. With LinkedIn, Facebook and Google at your disposal, any failure to read up will tend to reflect badly on your preparation.
4. Don’t be a slave to the numbers. When you’ve got an idea in a creative position, it’s vital to balance both your own gut feeling and the anticipated demand from market research. You’ll sell yourself short by only responding to one or the other.

After learning how each speaker ‘made it’ in advertising on their own paths we then enjoyed the Q&A session. While I tweeted furiously throughout, our audience came through with questions on the prevalence of social media, importance of corporate social responsibility and recommended academic paths to advertising jobs.

Some particular crackers included a question on whether the panel members would have handled the John Lewis ‘freezing dog’ Christmas ad differently and a personal question about why so few of the panel seemed to be on Twitter themselves! These two are in fact our winning questions for the event: in our promo we had advertised a week’s work experience and subscription (worth £800) to The Reel. We’re happy to announce that Debra Sherman and Lucy Hine are our two winners, and more details will be coming their way today. Well done!

As the Q&A went on, similar themes started to crop up while the panel used stories of their own experiences to illustrate their points. It was particularly interesting to hear about Garton’s adventurous approach to adverts when contrasted with Hamilton-Smith’s self-described ’safe’ angle. Knowing we were sat with one of the brains behind Orange Wednesdays (Diment) was also impressive and inspirational.

All in all, the gist seemed to be: use your skills, resources and creativity to push yourself towards the department you’d work best in. Although the advertising industry is so varied, finding oneself in the wrong area could be disastrous and personally unfulfilling.

WEXO Members can watch the entire event on WEXO TV here or break it down into clips of the Q&As.

Tshepo Mokoena

Are you comfortable that you’re getting value for money? An inside account on the intricacies of unpaid internships…

For a long time now, there has been a debate raging about unpaid internships and I wanted to take some time to clarify our position. This follows both our original blog on this subject (in the words of the original protagonist) ‘It’s my work, he’d say, and I do it for pay…’over a year ago on 1st December 2009 (in response to a BBC debate on Intern Abuse) and the proceeding comments in August last year (following our failure to bring together an Internship Alliance to try and lobby the new government to incentivise companies to operate paid internship schemes).

The song effectively remains the same:

“Today, more and more actual graduates are resorting to internships and in the brave new world, it is only right that if you are adding value to a company you should be paid at least the National Minimum Wage (NMW – approx £210 a week). Social mobility is key and unpaid internships discriminate against people who simply can’t afford to work for free. But in these dire economic times, with companies struggling to make ends meet, we must be careful not to scare companies away from opening their doors to young people all together. They need to be incentivised to understand their obligation to help the youth of today; not named and shamed because they can’t.”

Many will argue that not paying interns NMW is illegal. I suspect this is probably true but so is smoking cannabis and approximately 1 in 4 16-25 year olds have broken the law and tried it. What I am more interested in is the morality of not paying interns.

An article on Business Link’s website makes it very clear as to who is and who isn’t entitled to NMW. As it infers, my mother who volunteers for the local hospice (a charity although by law voluntary workers can work for any of charities, voluntary organisations, associated fund raising bodies or statutory bodies) is not entitled to minimum wage (and nor would she want it) because she is a volunteer – and so does not have any contract (written or verbal) to perform work or provide services. Anyone who falls outside of this is entitled to minimum wage. This probably includes most interns.

What about undergraduates? Along these lines, for anyone who is shadowing a company or learning from them as in work experience, then there is not the obligation to pay them because they are not providing a service or working under contract. On occasion, undergraduates are exempt from NMW (usually if their tutors agree that the internship is related to their course and they are not performing a service to the host company). During my time at university I did 3 internships over 3 summers and each of these paid me in excess of minimum wage (one even gave me a bonus at the end). I’d like to think this was because in each case I provided a service that added value in excess of the value I derived from the internship experience.

Legally, isn’t this a grey area? Yes, but what matters for me, as I have suggested above, is that if someone adds (monetary) net value to the entity they work for (or be it future value) then morally they should be rewarded for it irrespective – and this we see as the acid test. Along these lines we are very happy to see companies offer ‘work experience’ for up to 2 weeks – and we would encourage them to pay expenses during this time. Any longer than this though and the chances are that an individual will be adding value and so should be paid accordingly.

What about the BBC and Parliament? I am not exempting these institutions that are renowned for not paying their interns but arguably the interns are deriving more value from the experience and so do not pass the acid test. If though (as is often the case with smaller companies) there is a ‘job description’ or a list of responsibilities then the logical conclusion is that the intern is going to be adding value and should be paid accordingly!

I am no socialist – I view myself as a liberal conservative, a proponent on free market economics and people ‘getting on their bike’ (albeit with the safety net of a welfare state) – but I am tiring of companies (particularly in some distinct parts of the creative industries) telling me that they used to work for free and so their interns can too. I do not see why anyone should pay their interns (especially in this day and age with student debts as they are) anything less than I pay my cleaner.

What about start-ups? WEXO is a start-up and we pay our interns. I don’t feel comfortable asking people to help me build a company for free. I am encouraged to see a number of start-ups round London doing the same thing. I’m all in favour of getting young people in to experience start-up life and entrepreneurship but not if they’re a substitute for employees. If you can’t afford to pay your interns or grads, you should probably wait until you can, question your business model, or look at some other form of commensurate remuneration via say equity or (bizarrely in an equivalent move to what Barclays Capital is suggesting for bonuses) even bonds (in simple terms, IOUs). This might not stand up legally but it probably does ethically. If as a ‘Founder’ you choose not to pay yourself (as I myself have done on occasion) then to my mind, that is your prerogative but I suspect that in your own interest, you would be advised to make an IOU arrangement via directors loans instead of just foregoing payment. Not paying yourself does not justify not paying your workforce.

Should there be a limit to how long internships can last? Timing is one issue that we haven’t visited in past writings. In economic times like these though, internships have become a temporary employment vehicle for graduates and in line with other players in this field (including STEP whose BIS and LDA programmes we helped deliver last year. Programmes that include schemes to help incentivise companies to pay interns) we strongly suggest that internships should last no longer than 3 months. After this time, companies should either ‘step’ up to the plate and commit to a giving them a job or let them get on with finding one elsewhere. Otherwise young people will get stuck in an ‘internship trap’.

What about the new £2.50 an hour proposals from the CIPD? The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development have suggested interns should be paid £2.50 an hour which works out as roughly £400 a month (see BBC article earlier this month) As far as we are concerned, all this does is reduce the inequality. In all honesty, could you live on this?

So what? I voted Conservative, was impressed by Michael Gove when he spoke at an event I attended; and on the face of it, I can’t stand Ed Balls. I believe in cutting the deficit, to an extent; (we still have less debt as a country than Japan and Italy have had for much of the last decade as per interesting Fresh Minds article) I will hold my hand up and say that I back the hike in graduate fees. What I can’t condone is slashing investment in jobs (be in the Future Jobs Fund or private sector stimuli) and basic education (literacy in particular in this country is poor). We called, some time ago, for companies to be able to recoup the cost of hiring interns at National Minimum Wage from the recent VAT hike. This could help solve the conundrum addressed herein. Last week youth unemployment reached new record highs. And young people don’t fully understand the roles that ARE on offer hence our event on 8th February. We issued a press release for this last week but as I said in another release in June:

“Existing public sector initiatives have made no dent in this crisis; it is our opinion that if the situation is to improve, the government needs to start properly backing the private sector [not just relying on it]. The VAT hike will help UK Plc raise a much needed £13Bn but figures suggest the average return on hiring a graduate is 500% over 3 years so that’s one of the main places I’d be investing it.”

Robin Kennedy

“Read. See. Expand“: that’s how you’ll get somewhere in fashion. And no, these aren’t my own words (I’m no fashion career expert, and certainly not the kind of girl to quote herself. Yet). They come from Emily Zak, Vogue’s Retail Editor, during her address at the WEXO-sponsored LSE Fashion Society career event last night.

So in case you’re confused, this week’s blog is a bit of a departure from the norm. Last night our offices at WEXO Towers were inundated with well-dressed hordes of LSE fashionistas eager to learn from five guest speakers. Our stylish and incredibly experienced panel included: Chloe Lonsdale, founder of MiH Jeans; Kinvara Balfour, fashion writer and London Editor of Daily Candy.com; Austique’s co-founder Katie Canvin; and Ruby Dhillon, manager of Gucci fragrances at Procter & Gamble.

Needless to say, we found ourselves in the company of some pretty driven and well-connected women.

When I wasn’t furiously flooding the WEXO twitter account with event tweets, I drew on five different routes to success that our guests highlighted:

1. Experience is everything. Put in the work at internships and placements, and you will be rewarded.
2. An artistic and culturally-aware approach will get you far. If references to ‘A Love Story’, the history of French couture houses and the difference between raglan and dolman sleeves are lost on you, you need to read more. All the fine details are magnified when it comes to a feel for and knowledge of fashion.
3. Starting a fashion company needs a business-savvy approach. Now that sounds almost redundant and obvious, but meticulous planning can hardly be stressed enough.
4. An opportunity to get your foot in the door may spring up at any point. Always be prepared, and don’t forget about the importance of nearby, untapped contacts.
5. A strong work ethic and passion to succeed in any enterprise will be invaluable in fashion. If you’re resilient, this is the industry for you.

Wow. Fashion and the military seem to have more in common than autumn’s trends of olive-green parkas and utilitarian detailing, huh? Persistence is key to making it in fashion, so we thought we’d help point you in the right direction towards building up your style knowledge. Our panel suggest checking out blogs from the Coolhunter, Jak & Jil, Garance Doré, Nowness, Fifi Lapin and of course Vogue.com. In their view, blogs are a new and exciting platform for fashion, but still can’t quite match the reach and presence of good old-fashioned print magazines.

Got more questions of your own for our panel? We’ll be collating them here in the comments section, or on the wall our Facebook fan page. Here’s your chance to unleash any burning questions of the fashion sort. We’ll also be posting video footage from the night soon, so keep your eyes peeled!

Overall if I learned anything last night it’s that hard work and a refusal to fail will be the perfect ingredients for anyone looking to break into the industry. On that note, forward march!

Tshepo Mokoena

Photos courtesy of Chu Ting Ng at TheQualified blog.

It’s a strange task, preparing a blog post on a spot of broadcast intern experience I recently undertook in Brighton: perhaps since so much of my opportunity arose from being in the right place at the right time.

The place was the Brighton Institute of Modern Music, where I trained as a vocalist on a one-year diploma, having completed my BA in Development Studies at the University of Sussex in June 2009. The time came when I muscled my way onto a work experience mailing list within the school, normally reserved for students on the degree programme. An unpaid radio broadcast assistant position was posted at Tony Marks’ New Music Show on local station Brighton Juice FM and looked like an exciting combination of music editorial and hands-on experience with bands in the studio. I applied immediately, and had my interview booked by the end of the day. Time to brush up and start listening to the show, huh?

My first task was to research and write up a nine-question interview for new LA band, Girls, before I’d even met Tony. That night I heard my own words crackle over the radio and felt the kind of excitement that’s recently pushed me towards finding work opportunities in the music industry, and world of media in general. Fast forward a few days: I’d managed to get through the interview and was in the studio for my evening shift. Each week I was responsible for setting up the main sound-bites for the show’s highlighted tracks, as well as for preparing interviews with bands on nights when I wouldn’t come in. Alongside great research and editorial experience I was given free gig tickets where I could blag them with friendly Brighton bands, and learned how to think fast and find solutions under the time pressure of the ever-ticking clock in-studio.

Right place, right time and a great insight into the world of small-scale radio broadcasting: so sums up my time at Juice.

Tshepo Mokoena

If I can offer you one piece of advice it is this: Don’t settle for something that doesn’t make you happy.

A career is a lifetime investment. You wouldn’t go into a car dealership and buy the first car you were offered, nor would you accept a marriage proposal from a mediocre stranger, just because they’ve asked you. Choosing a career is no different – it’s a decision that’ll be with you for years to come, so take your time and choose carefully.

When I graduated with an MA from Edinburgh during the depths of the global recession, I had to forgo dreams of landing a grad-scheme job in a multinational corporation with years of stability ahead of me. At the same time, I couldn’t bear the thought of being a dogsbody in a dead-end job, working just to make ends meet. Instead I decided to ride out the recession, committing myself to a year of gaining experience and invariably working for free. I moved in with Grannie, ditched the gym membership, and signed up for jobseekers allowance knowing (hoping, praying) that in a years time I would have found the job of my dreams and it would all be worth it.

3 months into my graduate year, and one internship down, I came across the WEXO site, and more importantly came across an internship posting at LeapAnywhere.com. It was one of the only sites that listed jobs for skilled, savvy and interesting grads, with not a ‘sales clerk’ or ‘admin assistant’ role in site. Phew!

(This is now the section where i have to sum up my job and company; an incredibly hard task at the best of times, not least when I’m sitting at my desk, smiling at my boss, and already 100 words over the word limit.)

I rocked up to interview for the role of Charities Associate and felt immediately at home in an office-come-playroom, scattered with Macs, beanbags, park benches and laughter. In a somewhat overly friendly mood, I sat discussing philanthropy, politics and above all giggling with my interviewer for well over 2 hours. When asked if I had any questions I responded with “Do you like marmite?’ “Can you juggle” and “Would you rather have 6ft long arms or knees the size of footballs?”. I had a call the next morning offering me an intern role to start ASAP.

9 months later, I am the full time Head of Charities and Partnerships in an exciting, dynamic and familial internet start-up. I’m the happiest I could imagine, working in a company that begins the week with an ‘Inspiration Session’ and ends with week with ‘Beer-o-Clock’; combines my passions of charitable engagement with creative technological innovation, and offers me responsibilities well beyond my experience (but not beyond my aptitude). I have 400+ Charity partners on my books, and already feel like I’m making waves in an industry I’m professionally and emotionally committed to.

The moral of the story is this:

1. Be honest with yourself and your employer. (Offering my personality in interview paid dividends and meant that I was employed as a person not just a skill set).
2. Find something that makes you happy – don’t ‘settle’ for the first job you come across because you feel you have to.
3. Instead, get the experience you need.
4. Don’t rush your decision, you will find something that ticks all the boxes!

Click here for our YOUTUBE channel, and you can check out our WEXO Profile to view any current opportunities at LEAP ANYWHERE.

Felicity McLean