Unifrog Next Steps Fair round-up

We had an engaged and lively crowd at our annual Next Steps Fair with thousands of students joining us online for this event during National Careers Week!

The event

This event brought together 60 universities and employers and apprenticeship providers to help students compare post-school options and pathways. Our employers and university partners led a total of 16 sessions on topics including what it’s like to study law and linguistics, how to find the right apprenticeships for you, and what it’s like to work in marketing, banking, engineering, and healthcare.

Sophie Pender opened the event with an inspiring talk about her journey from growing up on a council estate and creating a Facebook page to connect students from a similar background at university, to creating the 93% club—the largest members club for state school students at university in the U.K. Sophie, now a lawyer, has even been recognised internationally on the Forbes’ ‘30 Under 30’ list for Social Impact!

The highlights

• There were over 6,400 visits to the university and employer booths.
• Our most popular live session was ‘How to ace your CV and written applications’ with over 350 student attendees. Dominique Whitefoot from Edwards Vacuum explained how employers spend just seven seconds on average looking at CVs, and together Dominique and Shereen Benjamin from Experian, shared helpful tips to make students’ CVs more concise and impactful.
• Ayushi Khetani—a current Level 6 Digital and Technology Solutions Apprentice at Professional Services firm, KPMG— shared her apprenticeship journey. She explained that she’s already been part of creating an online banking app, and that now she’s working in cyber security as part of the incident response team!
• Ashurst Trainee Solicitor, Banu Hammad, gave a helpful overview about the difference between competency-based, commercial awareness-based, and logic-based questions during interviews. And this was followed up with practical advice from David Ramsay, recruiter for Armstrong Watson, on how to implement the STAR technique.
• Last but not least, Shoshanna Davis, founder of the Fairy Job Mother Platform gave students her ‘Careers advice you haven’t heard but need to know’. Her insights on networking and how to use LinkedIn to land the job you want are well worth checking out!

The feedback

From students:

“The Next Steps Fair was really effective and it helped a lot hearing the opinions of people who had gone through the experience of applying to apprenticeships and universities.”

“It was really good to hear from Sophie Pender; her story is really inspiring and motivating.”

“I appreciated the wide variety of career paths that the fair had to offer. The fair was extremely helpful, thank you.”

“ I really enjoyed the fair and was very happy to hear lots of useful information and being able to talk with universities.”

“Gemma from Queen Margaret University helped me get a broader insight into business studies and useful skills to start developing.”

“The Personal Statement session was really helpful as I'm currently writing mine now.”

“I found the fair really useful and well-planned!”

“I really liked the fair and the concept of it was really easy to access and navigate the site.”

From universities and employers:

“Thanks for hosting a fantastic event! The webinar was well attended and we got lots of questions at the NHS booth” - NHS

“The sessions were great. Short and punchy which seemed to hold the audience's attention without being too long.” - University of Chichester 

“The event went well and we found it useful.” - Hyperoptic

Missed out on the Next Steps Fair this year? Don’t worry; you can join us next year! If you’re a current partner, talk to your Area or Account Manager.

If you’re not one of our school, college, employer, or university partners,

• Request a demo here (we'll then set up a meeting with you), or
• Call us on +4420 3372 5991 or email us at info@unifrog.org

You can also find out more about our work with our HE partners here and our employer partners here.