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On Monday 21st November twelve year 10 Business Studies students had the opportunity to travel into London City Centre to the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Head Offices to participate in a recruitment workshop held by RBS. The aim of the workshop was to focus on developing the students’ interviewing skills as this will be a key attribute when they are applying for jobs in the future. The workshop began with the Harris Academy students pairing up with students from another secondary school in Peckham. After introducing themselves, they then had to answer a specific question which had been asked in an interview before, such as “is a jaffa cake a biscuit or a cake?” and “what do you think you will dislike most about this session?” This was a great icebreaker activity which started to get the students to be able to think on the spot and answer questions which may be cause them to feel out of their comfort zones. After this they were split into four groups and asks to brainstorm their ideas about a particular group of workers in the city. The groups included accountancy, investment banking and corporate law. The students had to use whatever prior knowledge to write down as much as they could about this particular group.
 
The next part of the afternoon moved back to focussing on the students’ individual interview skills. Working in pairs again, the students had to say three words that would describe them, and then three words that someone else would use to describe them. The main point of the task was to see whether the same three words were used to see whether the students were perceived in the way that they were thinking that they were being perceived. The next activity split the students into five groups where they had the opportunity to individually pitch their answers at professionals who work for RBS. The professionals then gave them meaningful, individual feedback on how they could improve the way they interview. The professionals rotated around the group and each time the students had to answer a different question so that they were familiar with the kind of questions they would likely to be asked when interviewed. The students really enjoyed this aspect of the workshop and they were able to try out new strategies, such as the STAR strategy, that would improve the quality of their answers and the perception that they were giving off. They were also shown how they could improve their CV and email writing skills.
 
The final session was a trading game where students again worked in teams on behalf of a bank. They were given £20,000 to use to buy shares over a period of six trading days. After each trading day they could sell or buy shares depending on whether they thought the share value was going to increase or decrease for that particular business after news stories were released about them. The aim of the game was to not run out of cash but to instead have the most valuable portfolio. The winning team consisted of Sedricka, Jacob and Tahira. The students worked really well throughout the whole session and all of the students contributed in the discussion. Particular praise can be given to Sedricka, Siobhan, Tyrone and Bashir who made some superb suggestions throughout the activities.
 
Overall, the trip was highly successful and feedback from the students confirmed that they enjoyed the whole experience but also learnt a lot of new skills that would help them both in Business Studies and in their future careers.
 
Miss A Jennings
Business Studies Teacher