How do you curate engaging corporate skills-based volunteering programs that enable your employees to learn new knowledge and skills to apply to their work while giving back to society, such as by serving under-resourced communities? Foundation for Shared Impact (FSI)’s has what you may be looking for.
On 28 July, we held a Career Insights & Goal Setting Workshop to help 13 under-resourced ethnically-diverse youth reimagine their career prospects, overcome challenges, and set personal and professional goals.
With broad cross-sector collaboration being a core principle of our shared impact philosophy, we brought in 14 Goldman Sachs Community TeamWorks volunteers to talk about the technical and soft skills they utilize for their respective roles in the banking and finance industry, share practical tips and advice on job hunting and interviews, and provide one-on-one mentoring to help the youth prepare for career planning and job hunting.
Said one youth participant: “I learned more about an industry that I have always been interested in but have not had the opportunity to learn more about directly from professionals in it. I also had the opportunity to meet and get to know these professionals.”
And the Goldman Sachs volunteers found the workshop beneficial too. “I got to learn about the ethnically-diverse youth in Hong Kong and their backgrounds, personal interests, and desires career paths. I will remember the laughs, the candid revelations, and the youthful ambition,” said one volunteer.
Read on to find out more about this mutually-beneficial workshop!
Knowledge-sharing to Uplift Ethnically-diverse Youth
The workshop kicked off with the youth participating in a personality test to identify ways to align their career interests, before the Goldman Sachs volunteers shared career advice at the panel discussion and answered the youth’s questions at the Q&A session.
Key discussion points and advice shared include:
- You will carry the soft skills acquired through education, such as teamwork, throughout your career. You will gain most technical skills through on-the-job training, so it’s more important to build the ability to learn when you are a student.
- When researching for job opportunities, learn to understand your own passion and interest, as well as the nature of work you prefer to be involved in.
- Before going to any job interviews, make sure you research the firm and the role you are applying for ahead of time.
- Build the muscles for interviews and professional communication by attending more interviews. Be yourself during the interviews, there is no need to fake anything.
Corporate Mentoring to Help Youth With Career Planning
To ensure the ethnically-diverse youth could get more in-depth support on career planning, we matched them with the volunteers in a one-on-one mentoring session. Here, the Goldman Sachs volunteers helped the youth review and improve their CVs, offered advice on updating their LinkedIn profiles and nailing their self-introduction pitch.
Of the participating youth, 90% said that the workshop increased their level of understanding of the finance and banking industry, and 60% said the workshop boosted their level of confidence in professional communication and networking. As a conclusion to the workshop, the youth took turns to present their self-introduction, incorporating the knowledge and advice they gained from the corporate professionals.
Importantly, youth participants are not the only ones who benefited from the successful workshop. For example, all Goldman Sachs Community TeamWorks volunteers agreed that the workshop gave them a meaningful way to contribute to society while offering useful insights and information about Hong Kong’s ethnically-diverse community and the youth community.
Said Lisa Petrie, Co-captain of this Goldman Sachs Community TeamWorks session: “Listening to the stories and experiences of the students was the biggest takeaway, and the workshop was well-thought-out with great interactivity.”
The sentiment is echoed by another volunteer: “Sharing my personal experiences with the mentees and helping them navigate their challenges was very rewarding.”
Moreover, all Goldman Sachs volunteers said that the workshop gave them the opportunity to learn new knowledge and skills that they can apply to their work, and the skills-based volunteering opportunity is something that they would recommend to their peers and other corporate professionals.
Is your company looking for impactful corporate volunteering initiatives to develop and retain your talents while giving back to the community? Learn more about how we create skills-based volunteering programs that can get your employees excited about here, and contact us at info@shared-impact.com!
