Industry Q&As
During the middle part of Essex 2020: Talent >> Forward there were five 25 minute long Q&A sessions with industry professionals. These sessions were not recorded to give young people the privacy and confidence to feel comfortable to ask questions.
TELEDYNE E2V >> Ole Kock, Product Development Manager (Quantum) gave a fascinating insight into the cutting edge work of Teledyne e2v. Apprentice Engineers Rhea Jackson and Lucy Moore talked us through the day to day working life of an apprentice; how and why they both chose that path over going to university and what it’s like to work in a traditionally male dominated industry (spoiler - it’s no different to working in any industry; people are people!). Find out about the apprenticeship scheme.
CITY FIBRE >> Fibre Manager Luke Phillip is responsible for the fibre optic technology that is underpinning the fastest broadband speeds. Luke talked us through his varied career from celebrity PR, to a builder to engineer. He clearly demonstrated that it is OK to come at a career from a non-conformist point of view and that the adages of being hard-working, diligent and making yourself indispensable carry across any industry. Find out more about careers with City Fibre.
INTO GAMES >> CEO Declan Cassidy spoke about Into Games’ work supporting young people to find rewarding careers in the games industry. Into Games connects education and industry with various major projects and industry mentoring schemes. Declan described various roles within the industry and the skills, knowledge and qualifications that are required. Did you know that Into Games has the largest games careers resource anywhere on the internet?
AMAZON >> Head of Business Development Nikhil Amin talked us through different roles within Amazon’s departments and we discussed the ways in which Amazon constantly evolves and innovates to keep ‘ahead of the curve’ and stay successful. Did you know that each month teams from all departments are encouraged to put their creativity into action and ‘dream big’ in order to come up with an innovative idea to pitch to senior decision-makers? Winning ideas are developed and implemented. Nikhil started his working life as an engineer in the RAF, reinforcing the point from earlier that whatever you choose now doesn’t have to define your whole working life - it’s never to late to reskill and change your career path. Find out about Amazon jobs and apprenticeships.
HAYNARD LTD >> Dr. Julie Winnard is a sustainability and transport consultant and gave some insight into what the relatively new concept of sustainable development means in practice and how you can use a passion for sustainability to carve out a career within pretty much any industry. Unknowingly picking up on a theme from the previous sessions, when asked about her career path Julie revealed that she’d had a varied working life and had started out as an engineer in the motor industry.