5 minute read
RedSeven Back to School
Debunking the stereotype of self-employment and inspiring the next generation of talent with local Swindon Colleges.
i t h W traditional methods of recruitment f a l l i n g by the w a y s i d e , and social m e d i a platforms paving the way for a vast array of new talent to be discovered, there are a variety of ways in which one might find themselves working in the Sales industry. Nina Collis from Redseven has been widening the recruitment pool for years now, and one of the ways in which they ensure that they are meeting a wide demographic of people is by going into local colleges in Swindon, (where their company is based). I caught up with her to find out how this initiative began and why it is so important to engage with the student community.
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The initiative began back in 2015. Recruitment wasn’t as high as they initially thought it would be, so they started looking into alternative ways in which they could start introducing their brand to the talent in their area. Nina explains that ‘It’s one thing just spreading awareness, but to really get people interested, it’s about providing some value’, so they set up some workshops with various colleges and start getting involved with careers fairs. She soon realised that the attendance rate from businesses at these careers fairs was surprisingly low, probably due to companies thinking, ‘oh these kids are too young, there’s not much point being there’, so they decided to take the opportunity to really invest in establishing a long-standing relationship with the colleges, where others hadn’t - ‘It's been really lovely for us to put some effort into the local community of schools and it’s been met with such gratitude. The schools have just been so thrilled to have an organisation that’s so engaged and willing to put some effort in that our relationship with them has developed really quickly, it’s been great’.
So how did they get the ball rolling? One day, Nina and her colleague simply turned up to a college and asked to speak to the career’s advisor. They explained what their business was about, the sort of skills that they teach members of their team, asked if there were any events they could attend and it was as simple as that! That year they attended two careers fairs as a company and on one of the visits they were asked by a teacher if they’d be willing to speak to a group of students directly - ‘As you can imagine, I thought it was going to absolutely flop - students are a notoriously tough crowd, especially 16-18 year olds! But I wanted to make a great first impression so I said yes’. Ironically, Nina actually ended up doing the actual presentation on ‘First Impressions’; she spoke about body language, how to make someone like you in 7 seconds, what to avoid etc - ‘I tried to make it funny and relevant. I remember I used a picture of Kanye West and said you know ‘this is someone who doesn’t know how to make a good first impression’ which got a laugh’. The presentation went down well with the students and from that point onwards, the RedSeven team started to run workshops and talks, mock interviews and work exchanges on a regular basis.
This soon led to Nina meeting with a woman from The Careers and Enterprise Company (who cover the South West) and she was offered a role as an Enterprise Advisor for Swindon New College. It transpired that it had become a requirement for children to have access to workplace engagements throughout their education - be that a tour of a business, work experience or a talk from an employer - in order to better equip them with the necessary skills for pursuing a career. Part of her role now is to go into the college along with other advisors and decipher - from a business perspective - which of these skills are missing from the student’s education. ‘It’s so important to bridge the gap between your education and the real world before you leave school, otherwise you can feel totally misguided and out on a limb. It’s not the responsibility of a teacher to give you sound career advice across the board. It’s much more beneficial for them to bring in someone from that specific industry and for the students to be able to ask questions and gain a direct insight into the workings of a company’.
As a result of this further engagement with the careers department, RedSeven started offering tours of their office - ‘At one point we had 15 x 15 year olds come in to speak to Rob about how he started the company and to see how the organisation operates which was fantastic. The kids were really engaged and the teacher was really grateful that they were given a first-hand insight into the industry’. The whole point of the Government incentive is that children get a much broader insight into what careers are on offer. One of the big problems is that there simply aren’t enough women going into STEM roles (science, tech, engineering and mathematics), so that’s why initiatives such as this are so important, to inform the students of a vast array of career opportunities so that they are able to choose which avenue to follow. Again, it’s about providing them with a sense of agency and not quashing their potential before it’s had a chance to be fully explored. Nina, for example, ‘never knew (she) wanted to do sales or that it would suit (her) personality - I was just lucky in that I fell into it’, proving the importance of educating students on the wide array of potential careers that are out there waiting for them.
Another aspect of this initiative is to inform students about the benefits of going selfemployed. More and more people are now choosing to be freelance, opting for a more flexible career path as opposed to simply settling for the standard 9-5 salary job. Nina explains how the term ‘side-hustle’ has been so overused as of late, because freelancing is becoming such a trend, and so to involve students in this conversation before they find themselves having to complete their first tax-return is something that we should be doing more of! Congratulations to Nina and the team at RedSeven for their continued work in local colleges and for inspiring the next generation of talent in the field.
