40 Employers attend Havant & South Downs College’s Careers and Apprenticeship Fair

Students from across both campuses were able to attend the event and talk to the wide range of employers and find out more information on Apprenticeship routes and career paths. Employers included Havant & East Hants Mind, Royal Navy, Saab Seaeye, Harwin and Hovertravel.

One employer who spoke about the benefit of the fair was recruitment engineering firm, Astute.

Sam Bradshaw, from Astute said: “We are heavily recruiting and growing hugely in 2019/20 so we need to bring some top talent in, so we are looking in the local area to bring them in. We also offer work experience, so we work in partnership with quite a few universities and colleges in the area.

“We do quite a lot of careers fair to get some of the best talent, these events are so beneficial to our company.”

Luke Marsh and Callum Rice also attended the event from Eurofins Hursley – a compliance company which tests products before they are put onto the general market.

Luke Marsh said: “We are here today looking for apprentices. I started as an apprentice at Eurofins five years ago and I personally think it is a far better route than a degree. I’m now fully qualified with no debt, it’s definitely the way to go.

“We are in a very niche industry where there aren’t many people who do what we do. We find it very hard to recruit so the Apprenticeship route is perfect because we can bring them in and train them exactly how we want.”

Engineering and technology company Ricardo were also exhibiting at the fair.

Mike Bates, from Ricardo, said: “We have some apprentices with HSDC who started this year, so we have just begun a partnership with the College. We’re interested in the new talent and potential apprentices that we can get access to through working with the College.

“As an engineering business we are very keen to build up our skills from the ground up. We find that young people definitely have an enthusiasm and a passion for engineering as we do. They care about the environment and they care about sustainability, which is what we are about as well.

“We have had plenty of students come by today and they seem really interested which is brilliant.”