Based on a work experience day hosted by AA Thornton and attended by sixth-form students (plus teachers) from a London secondary school, the pack provides suggestions for both format and content, sample case studies and basic guidance on presenting to students who may initially have little awareness of the IP system. It incorporates the Careers in Ideas materials (there’s an information booklet, poster, “opportunities map” and Powerpoint® presentation on the Careers in Ideas website, all of them free for anyone to use in promoting careers in IP), but it also, importantly, shows you how to begin by stimulating interest in IP itself, using workshop exercises and discussions.
You can download the components of the new resource pack here; they include:
- Guidance notes, including thoughts on running a work experience day and a sample timetable
- Sample feedback form
- Introductory presentation
- Materials for workshop exercises:
- Pharma workstation notes and worksheets (blank and completed)
- iPhone® workstation notes and annex
- LEGO® workstation notes and annexes + “FairPlay” brochure
- KITKAT® workstation notes
- Careers in Ideas booklet
- Careers in Ideas poster
“Outreach” is of course more than just providing information to people who express an interest in IP-related careers. It’s about reaching people who wouldn’t otherwise know about these opportunities. It means talking to students in the early stages of their higher or further education, to sixth-form students, and even further back to school children who are only just embarking on – or perhaps still deciding about – their GCSE studies. Engaging with these types of audience requires a different approach to the normal IP professional presentation style, so we hope that our resource pack will help you tailor your event for the students you meet.
Work experience days are an opportunity not only to raise awareness of IP, but also to identify potential future employees, build relationships with local schools and colleges and promote your own organisation. They can also help to develop your employees’ communication, presentation and team-building skills, and provide a huge sense of fulfilment.
And the simple truth is, the more widely we can disseminate the Careers in Ideas materials, the more effective they will be in bringing new recruits into our professions. So please use them whenever you visit schools, universities or careers fairs, as well as in your in-house events.
​Our thanks go to Chris Burnett and his AA Thornton colleagues James Anani-Isaac, Julie Barrett-Major, Karen Genuardi, Lucy O’Brien and Suzanne Power for putting the resource pack together. Thank you as well to the firm itself for so generously sharing its ideas and experiences so that others in the profession can provide similarly engaging outreach events.