Success for student associates

Once again, here at London Works, we find ourselves winding down towards the end of another successful Student Associate recruitment campaign. The programme is designed for university students just beginning their second year, with the aim of providing a part-time work placement with a starting pro-rata salary of £28,000-£30,000pa whilst they continue their studies. This programme is one-of-a-kind, helping to increase the social mobility of the candidates and in turn, the diversity of our clients’ workforce. It also provides a great talent pipeline for our clients once the Student Associates graduate. The programme has grown in success since its inception in 2014; the uptake from one global investment bank has more than trebled since then!

The 2019 cohort has broken records; as with previous years’ cohorts, for the number of initial applications and the number of people we brought through to the training stage. We have once again been stunned at the ability and potential of the candidates alongside their motivation and determination to become a success; we strive to create opportunities that can provide people with the chance to achieve success and we live for the days when our candidates make their dreams a reality.

We know that this breadth and depth of talent is under-represented by most of the larger recruitment agencies, which means that capable and highly employable candidates often miss out. At London Works (LW), we don’t make assumptions about candidates based on their post code, class, face or their background. We look for talented people and when we find them, we place them in roles where they make an outstanding contribution from day one! We believe that initiatives such as this will transform the lives of not only those who are successful; to their communities and to all those involved in the process as it shows how possible it is to achieve success in today’s working environment, once given a fair opportunity.

Below is an excerpt from one of our successful Student Associate candidates:

“When I received an email from the university’s career centre about an opportunity provided by ELBA and London Works to work part-time in an investment bank during my second year of university, I immediately comprehended the rarity of such an opportunity. I applied. I must say that I have never found a person outside of my loved ones, let alone an organisation, who offered such a strong support and belief in my abilities. It felt like they wanted me to succeed. They helped me prepare for the assessment centre, interviews and psychometric tests. Multiple times, when I was preparing for the assessment centre I received calls from London Works genuinely asking me how I was doing and pushing me to give my best. Ultimately, I was able to showcase my skills and the teaching of ELBA and London Works: a few weeks after the interview, I received a phone call by London Works telling me that my application was successful.

As I said, I never considered myself to be unprivileged. I am blessed with the love of my family, an education and a dream. Objectively, opportunities for young individuals from lower income families or raised by single parents, for ethnic / religious minorities are very few and I, myself, have experienced that. We do not have a ready-made blueprint to follow to achieve success and often, the odds are against us. Many of us settle. Many give up. Many stray off the straight and narrow, simply because they did not have anyone to guide them through it. Personally, I am still far from achieving anything substantial in my life but I have noticed that the hardships and difficulties that I have encountered in my younger years have helped me exponentially in building the character and the spirit to undertake this journey. I hope to be able to make the most out of this opportunity with London Works and pave my own way to success.”

London Works will compliment local social regeneration strategies that focus on unemployment reduction, raising aspirations and providing access to careers, whilst satisfying at the same time employers’ needs for local staff and diversity.

If you’re interested in discussing this further, please contact Caz on Carolyn.simmonds@london-works.com or call us on 0203 376 8666.