Young people take part in an employability day with the NatWest Group
12 March 2020
On Wednesday 19th February 2020 the NatWest Group welcomed a group of young people on our employability programme, Future Talent, into their offices for an employability day.
During half-term, 24 young people and their youth workers from Ebony Horse Club and The BayTree Centre in Lambeth, Goals4Girls in Newham and Leaders in the Community in Tower Hamlets made the journey into the heart of the city to visit the NatWest Group.
Having travelled down from Edinburgh at 5am, Phillip Bartlett, an Economist with the group, kicked off the day with an insightful intro to economics. This gave the young people present an excellent opportunity to ask more about the future of the British economy, how climate change will impact it and the changing job market.
After a brief break, the group was joined by over 20 volunteers from across the NatWest Group, from a range of departments with various job roles and at differing stages of their careers. Each young person was matched with one of the volunteers and received 1:1 guidance on their CV and interview techniques. This gave the young people real experience of what an interview would be like in a corporate environment and each received encouraging feedback on their performance, with one young person mentioning how much they had enjoyed, “learning how to succeed in an interview and giving good responses”.
Coming back fresh from lunch there were a range of talks and activities from 10 volunteer staff on the history of banking, the products that banks provide as well as new challenges and market trends. The tables were turned when Ebony Horse Club awarded the NatWest staff with chocolate digestives depending on their teaching skills!
The last talk of the day focused on ways the young people in the room could have a career in the banking sector with NatWest through the apprenticeship and graduate schemes. The session was filled with great hints and tips on how to go through the process. As one 15 year old young person put it, “I found out about the apprenticeship scheme and it is something I will want to consider”.
The day finished off with the much-awaited Dragon’s Den pitch event where the young people worked together with staff to create a banking product of the future.
Each group was given a set of deliverables, drawing on the information they had learnt earlier in the day and using their creativity to come up with what the future of banking might look like. It was great to hear the NatWest staff encouraging the young people to set no limits on their solutions and ideas – to dream big.
The day ended with the young people left inspired by the conversations they had had with NatWest staff and excited to start their first steps towards their future in finance.
On behalf of London Youth, I’d would like to say massive thank you to Riona MacLachlan, Dan Sethna & Juliette Chinal for organising the event and to all staff who took time out of their day to volunteer.
– Rebekah Keane, Employability Programme Officer
If you are an employer and would like to find out more about how you could collaborate on Future Talent, please get in touch with Rebekah.
Click here to find out more about our employability programmes.
