Students get Career Ready

On Thursday the 9th of March 2017, Citi Belfast hosted a meet and greet session between Career Ready students from the South Eastern Regional College (SERC) and their partner in business mentors from local companies (including Citi, HMRC, Oomph, Danske Bank, MNV Ltd, Emergency Fire and Safety Ltd and several other SME’s).

Feedback on the session was extremely positive; Tony Madden, Career Ready representative in Northern Ireland, and Peter Lavery from SERC thanked Citi for a very rewarding event.

Career Ready is a UK wide charity linking employers with schools and colleges to open up the world of work to young people. They have worked with experts in education and business to develop high quality, employer-endorsed materials, which deliver a set of Skills for Career Success to help our students compete with the best in the country.

Citi supports Career Ready through the Pathways to Progress initiative and Citi Belfast supports provides direct support to local colleges by providing Internships, Mentoring, Lecturing and Site Visits. This initiative is likely to unlock an untapped resource pool and build a recruitment pipeline for the future.

Mark Hawkins, Career Ready coordinator for Citi Belfast, presented an overview the Citi Belfast Service Center, outlining the types of job roles in Citi Belfast and describing how the site plays an integral role in delivering Citi’s Mission and Value Proposition. One of our recent graduates, Micheala Kelly, from Citi’s Global Client Infrastructure Services team, outlined her career path, and provided advice to the students based on her experiences.

Ben Ong, Citi’s Email & Collaboration Product Manager, joined the session remotely via video link from Singapore. Ben described his role and how his products are benefitting from Technology advances which in turn drives business benefits for the firm.

Special thanks to Gregory Balogh, Conor Nugent, Alison Neate, Ryan Sneddon, James Allen who have volunteered to mentor SERC students this year. Thanks also to Ben and Micheala for sharing their Citi experiences with the students and to Sarah Ferguson for providing some Citi-branded merchandise for the students.