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First Show is a Premier League Hit 2010-03-09 First Show is a Premier League Hit The first ever national show for career guidance professionals was a resounding success with 2,000 people networking, learning and sharing best practice from across the industry.

Prospects and the Institute of Career Guidance worked in partnership to deliver the event. It welcomed 100 exhibitors covering different career opportunities and over 30 different seminars giving inspirational insights into the latest developments in career guidance and IAG.

Visitors and exhibitors were thrilled by the prestigious location, Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, with the event taking place overlooking the pitch. The mix of learning opportunities provided by the seminars and networking prospects gave everyone involved a clear shot at achieving future goals.

Many of the visitors found the range of 30 free CPD seminars gave them a real challenge as they struggled to decide which ones to attend. The seminars covered topics as diverse as demystifying graduate employability to how to write engaging careers information with some fantastic insights into careers in the NHS, careers with languages or how an aging population will impact on job opportunities and how employers and educators need to engage to create a future workforce.

The free seminars were complemented by an exhibition that provided visitors with the latest up-to-date information from employers, industry leaders, education organisations and suppliers to the career guidance industry.

Serena El-Jamal from WorldSkills London 2011 was delighted to be at the show. WorldSkills gave out over 150 dvds and many people signed up to find out more, with advisers working with young offenders really interested in what WorldSkils London 2011 and the skills competitions can offer their clients. WorldSkills brings together the best young skills talent the country has to offer to compete against competitors from over 50 countries in 45 skill categories. The whole event is coming to London in 2011. Getting more career professionals interested will make sure London puts on a world-class event.

Many of the UK’s sector skills councils were represented at The National Career Guidance Show and Lantra found they “had no time to flag” at the event!

Their floral stand attracted a lot of attention and Lantra were able to tackle the image problem they find their sector – working in the land based industries – suffers from, they were able to showcase the diversity of careers available to advisers who will be able to cascade the message to their contacts.

The opportunity to meet with careers advisers was echoed by Stacey Gale at Bournemouth University and Ian Palmer at Careers at Sea. Both organisations had good quality conversations and were able to promote awareness of what they had to offer.

Ian Palmer commented: “It is good to meet so many advisers in one place. There is a surprising amount of ignorance about merchant navy careers and what we can offer, this event has helped us address that.”

This opportunity to promote a specific industry was reiterated by Alan Edmunds from the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board. There are skills shortages across their sector and the event has given them an opportunity to explain the opportunities available for young people and the 750 apprenticeship vacancies each year supported by ECITB. Their industry which deals with massive construction projects is responsible for much of the infra-structure of the UK, yet when many people think of the construction industry they think of house building. “We are definitely not house builders” laughed Alan “think more power station!”

But it wasn’t just the exhibitors who benefited from attending The National Career Guidance Show, visitors were thrilled with their day. “A superb information gathering exercise”, “ Excellent talks about blogs and a useful range of organisations”, “The Twitter seminar was brilliant” “Please run the show again - annually”, “Accessible, well-presented – very much enjoyed it” were some of the comments shared on feedback forms.

Following the success of The National Career Guidance Show further events are planned to take place. To find out the latest on when and where visit www.nationalcareerguidanceshow.com.  
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Press Contacts

All media enquiries should be directed to media@nationalcareerguidanceshow.co.uk or call 01823 362800.

Media are invited to attend at any time during the open hours, please report to the Organisers Office on site for a media pack or tour of the event.

An official reception will be held for VIPs and press. Further details will be available at a later date.