Building Skills and Recruiting the Best

Sarah Taylor joined OSL as our Resourcing Manager in 2014. Since then she has been increasing and focusing our involvement at careers fairs, university events and industry lectures. Whilst expanding our presence, an important part of the role is to also solidify our collaboration with numerous professional bodies, helping to provide students, graduates and prospective engineers with a variety of career options and a clear route for entering the industry.

Last month, Sarah visited Hull University to support the Energy Institute during Freshers Week. The day included the EI explaining the benefits of membership, with Ed Walker, Vice-Chair of the EI’s North Eastern Young Professionals Network, encouraging students to take action through work experience, placements and personal development. Following that was a careers evening at Caistor Grammar School, where Sarah and Graduate Mechanical Engineer Mark Evans (pictured) gave presentations to GCSE students on careers and opportunities in engineering, the qualifications required to pursue a relevant degree, and the option of studying through an apprenticeship.

Coming up

Sarah’s event calendar is always busy. Thursday 15 October sees another visit to Hull University, this time to present to final year students of Chemical, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering courses. The session has been organised with Tony Taylor of Hull University’s Careers and Employability Service, with Sarah covering the topics of writing an effective CV, interview skills, using feedback to your advantage, and long-term self-development. After the presentation, students can have a one-to-one talk with Sarah about anything related to careers and the energy industry, as well as find out more about placements and secondments at OSL.

On the evening of Thursday 15 October from 6pm-7pm, an additional event will take place in Hull University’s Robert Blackburn Building. Organised in conjunction with the Humber branch of the IChemE, Sarah will deliver a seminar that covers a range of areas, such as making a good impression, selling yourself with confidence, and creating your own position through unsolicited applications. You can book a place on this Job Hunting and CV Writing seminar by visiting the IChemE website. 

To finish off our event programme designed for the beginning of term, Sarah will run a stall as part of Hull University’s Graduate Recruitment Fair, taking place on Tuesday 27 October from 11am until 2:30pm in Staff House. This event attracts over 1,000 students and graduates each year, giving more than fifty companies the ability to talk to people on a face-to-face basis about opportunities on all levels, from work experience to postgraduate roles. Visitors can ask Sarah questions, pick up a brochure and become inspired over a career at OSL.

More events are yet to come, all of which will be promoted on here as well as the OSL LinkedIn page. You can also connect with Sarah directly through LinkedIn.