The Black in Business careers event that took place on Tuesday 24th October at the University of Westminster’s Regent street Campus was a great collaborative effort that was designed to share the experiences of six successful panelists in a way that informed and encouraged black students on how to successfully navigate through the professional world.
Iram Sial, Careers Consultant at the University, hosting the panel said “it was truly inspiring to hear the panelists share their career journey into their respective fields, the challenges they faced and how they overcame them. They each provided invaluable advice and practical tips on how to transition into the job market and how to break the barriers. Tips such as how to research and prepare for a job, personal branding, building relationships with recruiters and the importance of seeking mentorship were discussed”.
Harry Ife, Project Manager at Countryside Partnerships, who co-hosted the panel and had the initial idea to hold an event with the University of Westminster, said “The passion behind bringing this insight to the students was to prep their minds for the challenges people face along their career journey, present real life examples of issues that are happening in the Labour Market today (I.e. gender inequality, ethnic pay gap etc) and help equip their minds with strategies to adopt ahead of graduation and before they fully venture into their respective career paths.” He also went on to comment on how the University of Westminster have done so well to remain proactive in bridging the gap between academia and Professional world.
The panel gave their views and insights into the importance of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and what it means in the workplace alongside the issues disadvantaged students face from climbing the career ladder.
Anthony Opoku-Owusu, Construction Manager Phillips 66 stated “EDI to me is about creating environments where people from different walks of life have a voice that is heard, adequate representation and opportunities to a levelled playing field.”
Anthony went on to state: “Within many environments such as the workplace, any lack of diversity creates an opening for systematic biases to go unchallenged and unchanged. And simple ways for companies to overcome this challenge is to reach out to underrepresented communities to expand their candidate pool, remove names and personal information on CVs (I.e. gender, ethnicity, d.o.b) in order to remove biases etc..”
Students also heard about amazing employability programmes and initiatives including 10,000 Black Interns and Equity City. Iram went on to say “It was a truly engaging, interesting and very energetic careers discussion with a real positive vibe, really great engagement from the students, excellent follow up questions and networking at the end.”
The panel featured: Anthony Opoku-Owusu, Construction Manager Phillips 66 Phillips 66 UK; Julie Quist-Therson LLM Dip Trans. Community Engagement Manager The 10,000 Interns Foundation; Shinel Crichlow, Founder of U.K. Entertainment Awards; Aaron Gavin, Manager Equity City and Jason Buwanabala, Senior Manager – Inclusion and Diversity at PwC.
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Many thanks to Iram, one of our careers consultants, for writing this article! Well done to everyone involved, including the panel members and all attended; and especially to Zakia Khan, from the Recruiter Engagement Team in the Careers and Employability Service, for arranging this event.
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