Wiltshire business develops course to help young people Kickstart their career.
Chippenham based business Purpol Marketing has recently been providing 50 remote kickstart placements to 16 to 24 year olds on Universal Credit across the UK who are at risk of long term unemployment. As part of the innovative remote Digital Marketing Internship Scheme the students have created a career development course to help other young people.
‘Kickstart My Career’ is an online course created by young jobseekers for young jobseekers. Aimed at 16-24-year-olds who are looking to start their career, the course is perfect for those who have completed their education, are seeking new employment opportunities, or are simply looking to improve their employability.
The students researched, created, filmed, edited and uploaded all the content themselves, developed a marketing plan, agreed the pricing and are now proud to have launched this course.
The course is easy to navigate with specific chapters that help the viewer feel more prepared for the world of work, by helping them recognise and evidence their skillset to employers, understanding their future career prospects and employability and developing and practicing job application skills.
By taking the ‘Kickstart My Career’ course, they will gain employability skills, IT skills, research skills;
Knowledge on CV and cover letter writing, and personal brand building; Build confidence for face-to-face interviews, handling rejection, mental health awareness; and gain insight on the process involved in starting a career.
Purpol Marketing founder Denise O’Leary commented:
“The pandemic has resulted in a severe lack of opportunity for young talent in the UK, many brilliant students are leaving education with no jobs to go to. Purpol is so proud of the work the students have done to deliver this course – they all filmed it remotely in their own homes and as a team created, edited and developed graphics and quizzes to support the learning content.”
This is an amazing piece of work that will truly benefit students up and down the country who have missed out on so much education as well as career development advice.”
The Kickstart my Career Course is divided into the following chapters:
Getting Started
• Finding the right career
• Finding a company suitable for you
• SWOT Analysis
• Understanding your identity: Personal strengths and weaknesses
• Personal branding: Building an online presence
Professional Profile
• Understanding skill set
• Hard and soft skills
• Portfolio
• CV: Writing skills and formatting
• Cover Letter: tailoring it with each application
• Composing business emails
Applications
• Job sites
• Applications
• Internships
• Graduate jobs
• Cover Letters
• Mental health and dealing with rejection
• Understanding skill sets
Interviews
• Preparation of questions
• Dress and verbal etiquette
• STAR technique
• Knowing your CV and experience
• Types of interviews
• Post-interview actions
Next Steps
• Receiving feedback and handling rejection
• Developing any skills learned
• How to thrive when successful
• Volunteering
• Further reading
Some of the students commented:
“I was pretty lost when it came to landing a job before the Kickstart my Career course, but now I feel much more confident about the whole process. There’s so much information and it’s so clearly laid out. It’s reassuring to feel like a have a strong grasp on job searching now.”
“Kickstart My Career is a wonderful course that provides help in all areas of achieving your dream career path. From choosing what career you want, walking you through the recruitment process and advice on what to do once you are successful, the course has it all. The content is put across clearly through several different medias, including video, text, images, fun graphics and infographics and interactive worksheets and quizzes. The fact that the course is created by kickstarters themselves gave it real authenticity and I felt could relate more to their advice. I will definitely be using the top tips given throughout the course. Overall, I think this is a really well-made course and I would recommend to anyone who is looking to kickstart their career!”
Students can buy the course for £29 as a special launch price here https://purpol-marketing-academy.thinkific.com/courses/Kickstart-my-career
Purpol Marketing is also soon launch a corporate version of the course containing additional resources, and can provide bulk purchases for organisations that wish to grant access to their employees or students,
There is also a website the students have themselves created to explain more about the course
https://www.kickstartmycareer.co.uk/
Denise commented “We truly think this is a great resource and want it to help as many young people as possible, I am delighted we could use the time to create a resource that will be useful for so many people.”
