Covid restrictions have meant that we have all had to re-think how we do things, including providing careers advice. Here at the ECP, we are continually striving to provide the best possible experience for our students and so we are becoming even more inventive.
ECP Community
The pandemic has shown how supportive the wider ECP community is. Our alumni have always been very willing to advise current students. Normally, we are able to offer sessions with graduates who regularly come into school to talk about their journeys from leaving the ECP to where they are now. Careers talks have ranged from the Diplomatic Service and the medical and legal professions to business and finance and interpreting.
Using Technology
However, Covid has meant that we have had to suspend these live lectures for the time being. But we have thought of a way to use the technology we are all now so familiar with to ensure that students can still receive careers advice from our graduates.
So we have just launched the ECP Careers Video Library.
We asked graduates to record a video, giving a talk about their careers. We were not looking for slick, corporate-style motivational videos. What we want to provide for our students is the authentic voice of ECP graduates, providing a mixture of factual information, a bit of advice and something that will show students what they themselves could be doing in ten or twenty years’ time.
Helping Students
So we are very grateful to the graduates who volunteered to produce the first videos. We have more in the pipeline and hope this will become an expanding, permanent resource for students in the future. So if you are an ECP graduate who would be willing to record a video for the library, we would love to hear from you. As one graduate said “Not only is it helping current students, it is helping my country.”