This October, in celebration of Ada Lovelace Day, Blis partnered with Workfinder to provide work experience for four female sixth form students studying STEM subjects from schools across London. The Blis work experience programme included induction sessions with departments across the business, including Marketing, Sales, Engineering, Product, Finance, Insights and Client Services, tasks with each of the departments and an overall project.
Workfinder is an award-winning service that enables young people, irrespective of background or geography, to find, apply and track placement opportunities of varying types and duration in their local area. This programme, powered by Founders4Schools, aimed to get young women thinking and talking about the variety and vast potential of STEM-based careers and to provide a taste of what work experience could look like for them in a range of companies.
Work experience is a vital bridge between the worlds of education and employment, with one student explaining how she “found it particularly interesting to learn about concepts we wouldn’t normally touch upon during the school day, such as the advertising ‘ecosystem’ – which depicts how companies work in relation to each other to place an advert onto your screen within 200 milliseconds of opening a page.”
As an equal opportunity employer, Blis celebrates and cares deeply about diversity and inclusion. The more diverse we are, the more ideas and perspectives we can bring into the mix to help people succeed. We recognise the importance of developing young talent and this work experience programme provided a unique opportunity to meaningfully connect with students and offer a practical means of figuring out what is important for them in a future career.
Blis is a place where all staff are encouraged to live the Blis values and are rewarded for doing so. These values were embedded into the work experience programme where the students were encouraged to ‘collaborate to elevate’ and build ‘trust to transform’. As the students worked together in an environment encouraging high performance they adopted a ‘deliver to win’ attitude.
As part of the initiative, the students broke into teams to take on projects aimed at developing new skills and challenging them to approach problems from different perspectives. Along with gaining technical insight the students developed presentation skills and demonstrated critical thinking.
“The highlight of the week was our project. I chose to work on the Trends and Insights product development task in which we were asked to develop features to be included on Blis’ data Platform”
It wasn’t only the students that learned something new throughout the week. The young women brought a fresh perspective on the business and industry, asking intelligent and considered questions. Their outlook also benefited the projects as they produced interesting insights and potential solutions.
On completion of the programme, one of our students summed up her week up saying, “This week of work experience was invaluable to me as I have had the opportunity to enhance my own skills, whilst also being provided with first-hand knowledge from industry specialists explaining the once-obscure concepts surrounding advertising and technology.”
Seeking out globally diverse talent ensures the highest level of creativity, innovation and insight. Blis is proud to address the diversity gap by promoting a female workforce in the tech industry. We embraced the opportunity to develop and provide guidance to young students who are just beginning to discover the many different career avenues available to them.