As part of Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School recent careers fair, I got to take part in the Tech industry panel discussion. With contributors from Tech giants such as Google and IBM, I was there to champion a smaller player in the industry: the start-up.

Working at a Tech start-up means you get plenty of responsibility and opportunities to share your ideas. You also have to be prepared to help out in different areas of the business. At ToucanTech, I’ve been tasked with conducting training webinars, attending conferences and writing blog posts. I really enjoy the flexibility of the job – some days I get to travel around the country meeting clients, other days I can work at home (in my pyjamas if I wish!).

It was a pleasure to meet the other speakers on the Tech industry panel. Most were Old Veseyans, back at school to share their experience – I was impressed by the level of goodwill from past pupils to help current students, many of whom return repeatedly to careers and networking events organised by BVGS’s energetic Development Director, Brian Davies 

It was clear from attending the careers fair that Tech is an increasingly popular career path among students at Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School. My top tip for attendees was that there are great opportunities for career progression at a start-up – you just need to research the potential companies as they won’t have a big HR team or a recruitment page. Joining a small, energetic team and growing with them can be exciting and rewarding – a very different experience to joining a big company where decisions and change tend to be slower.

We ran a survey with 20 students attending the event and interestingly 52% said they don’t have a clear idea of what career they’d like to pursue and the other 48% were interested in computing, technology, astronomy, maths and medicine.

John is a Community Manager at ToucanTech – he works with ToucanTech clients to help populate their alumni websites with interesting news, events and resources, to build community engagement. John is a Film Studies graduate from King’s College London and drank three cups of Yorkshire Tea writing this