On Tuesday 8th February we’ll be holding the first of our ‘How I Made It’ official Q&A careers events intended to introduce students, graduates and young professionals to different opportunities and industries in the working world.

We’ll be kicking off with “How I Made It In Advertising: Brands, the Big 4 and beyond…” at 6.30pm on Tuesday 8th February at The Tabernacle in Notting Hill, London – where Jimi Hendrix played his last gig.

WEXO is all about privileged access and we will be featuring a panel of advertising executives who have spent time at the world’s four biggest advertising groups: WPP, Omnicom, Publicis and Interpublic as well as ITV, Orange and Dunhill.

It will follow a BBC Question Time format focusing on pre-polled questions including: “What impact is social media having on the advertising industry?”,“What opportunities are available?” and “Why have some campaigns been so successful?”. There will be a ‘money can’t buy’ prize for the best question which you can submit when you register…

We’re continually hearing that you don’t know enough about the working world to make informed decisions so we’re trying to give you the inside story direct from the people that hold the roles you might be best suited to. Watch this space for the next events, let us know what industries you’d like to hear about below or sign up for the event now.

The idea sprang from the “How I Made it in Fashion” event that WEXO co-hosted with the LSE Fashion Society in November 2010. It featured a panel including the Retail Editor of Vogue, Emily Zak, Chloe Lonsdale, Founder of MiH Jeans and the fashion journalist, Kinvara Balfour. The event was oversubscribed and substantiated the view that young people are seeking more pertinent careers advice. A recent Ofsted survey suggested that one in three schools are failing to give good advice to students about future career prospects. A report by Deloitte said that 95% of young people want employers to be more involved in providing guidance about careers citing that they feel ‘bewildered’ and ‘uninformed’ by the career choices on offer.

The problem we’re seeing daily is that students and graduates don’t always understand the roles on offer and so aren’t necessarily focusing on the ones that they’re best cut out for. This is only exaggerated by a difficult job market. For every 2 people we place there are 8 that we don’t. We’re trying to give all 10 of you the inside story direct from the people that hold the roles you might be best suited to.

There’s always been material available from careers advisers and universities but by filming these events we’re hoping to build up an interesting online archive of enlightening content that will help you understand the career you deserve.

Robin Kennedy

Photos courtesy of Chu Ting Ng at The Qualifiedblog.

Clearly WEXO welcomes the recent Conservative Party initiatives that will pay independent organisations to get 18-21 year-olds ‘work experience’ as announced recently. It is hoped that such moves will “encourage them not to fall back on benefits or crime”. With the protracted debate over government stances on knife crime this can only be of benefit. As ever though, actions speak louder than words: The World of Learning 2007 Survey last November found that 86% of employers believe that a week’s work experience should be compulsory in the school curriculum for all pupils before they start work but little of substance has come from this. Furthermore, Gordon Brown’s own apprenticeship ideas have as yet proved half baked. We await the forthcoming Green Paper ‘Building Skills, Transforming Lives’ with anticipation.

Government plans to raise the compusory schooling age to 18 also seem way off the mark. As Matt Hackett wrote recently in his Telegraph blog: “Work experience schemes are a good way of giving school students a taste of working life early in their teens. Briefly divorced from the institutional, academic environment to which they are accustomed, they are able to form clearer ideas about their own ambitions and the skills that they will need to attain”.

Keeping children at school is not the answer. The way to bridge the skills gap in the UK is to offer exciting alternatives to traditional forms of education. And for once (I understand) my 17 year old cousin, Poppy, agrees – maybe it’s time she was introduced to Pink Floyd…