Whitgift's annual Careers Convention

The Performing Arts Centre and surrounding venues were transformed into a hive of activity for the annual Careers Convention on the evening of Tuesday 7 November. Lower Sixth students accompanied by their parents were in attendance, along with many from the Fifth and Upper Sixth Forms.  

Over 60 professionals from a broad range of sectors volunteered their time for dozens of focused one-to-one micro-conversations. Alongside this, a programme of 20 talks covered careers including Medicine, Law, Media, the Civil Service, Artificial Intelligence, Cyber-security, International Development and Accounting. New additions to the programme included talks on Apprenticeships and advice on finding Work Experience.  

This event was organised by the newly created Students Future team.  Student Futures is about ensuring that Whitgift students have the time to consider what career paths after Whitgift could look like, and to ensure support in this area continues beyond their time at school. The team, led by Ms Goldberg (Assistant Head, Student Futures), planned various other events around this year’s convention. She commented “As chatting with high-flying professionals doesn’t come easily to most 16-year-olds, this year’s Lower Sixth Form students were invited to an event in the week before on effective networking to maximise the impact of the Convention.”  

Feedback from those who attended was very positive with students saying that the session run by Opportunity Central helped them be more intentional and focused about their conversations. Ms Goldberg added “With the relaunch of our networking platform Whitgift Connect, and a General Studies session on the importance of Digital Networking, we were able to leverage the Careers Convention this year as the start of journeys that will continue to develop.”