Students get Suited and Booted

In a highly competitive market for jobs and university places, students need to stand out from the crowd and really sell themselves.  This year’s Suited & Booted College Conference at The Littlehampton Academy offered them an insight in to how one Sussex based company has turned an ‘ordinary’ product in to a premium market leader, how managers make judgements and decisions based on the application forms that they receive and how successful people use networking to get ahead.

James Foottit from Higgidy (see www.higgidy.co.uk) kick

started the conference, talking about the business that he and his wife created in 2004 after spotting a gap in the food market.  Higgidy starting selling to friends and family but now has annual sales exceeding £4m.  They set themselves high standards: ingredients come from Britain, meat is Freedom Food and all of the pies are handmade.  James described his unconventional career path and the journey to running his own company in Shoreham, inspiring students with his ‘can do’ attitude and his philosophy of taking nothing (including commercial success) for granted.
James invited students to suggest ideas for a new brand and logo design for a new branch of the company and competition entries are coming in. 

Students then took part in workshops which were led by teachers, kindly supported by volunteer business guests.  The focus was on ‘how to write a good application’, whether for work or university.  Business guests actively shared their experiences and helped to advise students on what makes a good or bad application, reinforcing the messages that the students had heard in their lessons.  Jacqui Scerri from the West Sussex Education Business Partnership ran a teacher training session and supplied the resources to host the application workshops.

The final challenge for students was to take part in speed networking. Based on the highly successful Arun Business Partnership networking meetings and hosted by Miriam Nicholls, students were joined by additional business guests from a wide variety of professions and sectors.

The event was rounded off by Ollie Heath from Drum Up Education (see www.drumupeducation.com).  Ollie is an inspiring music teacher who uses his unique skills in drumming, body percussion, singing and drama to help young people learn quickly, gain confidence, improve results and succeed.  Ollie has been running Drum Up Education for ten years, working with schools and organisations across the UK. He had everyone up on their feet, stamping and clapping in a fantastic display of rhythm and team work.