Career Compass

Who we are

Career Compass is an educational charity dedicated to empower state-educated students in London by bridging the gap between secondary education, higher learning, and the workforce. There remains a disparity in disadvantaged students across the UK having access to the knowledge and tools needed to understand and pursue the career of their dreams. For this reason, our mission is to equip diverse, ambitious, state-educated students in sixth-form with the necessary tools and knowledge to explore and achieve their dream careers. By providing access to learning not being offered in schools due to lack of capacity, Career Compass empowers students so they can figure out what the most suited career is for them and how they can succeed in it in the future. Since our establishment in May 2019, Career Compass has achieved significant social impact by engaging directly with over 7000 6th Form students. 88% of students helped come from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. 67% of students helped are female. We’ve forged partnerships with over 160 6th Form departments in state-schools, delivering tailored career support, including orchestrating 120+ programmes, designed to improve the students’ employability and personalised CV reviews for over 1000 students. Through operating in London, Career Compass supports a higher percentage of pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds than the national average, London schools also having a high proportion of students whose first language isn't English. Our Founder & Chairman, Arsalan Khalique, was inspired by his own lived experience as a successful minority-ethnic professional leader, working to break into the property sector in East London. Our Board is balanced and diverse, representing a range of professional skills to support governance of the charity. We have an active base of 25 volunteer professional mentors, many of whom are from a minority ethnic background and seek to inspire the next generation of young people. Our initiatives concentrate on several crucial areas: - Providing insights into a wide range of industries, career pathways, and modern work environments, creating a collaborative Career Compass network of industry professionals, work place partners and schools all to better access for young people. - Developing essential soft skills like interview techniques and professional communication. - Exposing students to a structured, professional work culture and expectations of an office environment. - Offering mentorship opportunities and arranging work placements to offer real-world work experience. We actively measure the social impact and effectiveness of our programmes. Participants' confidence having the tools they need to succeed in the workplace has grown from 15% to 88%. Students reported a substantial increase in their knowledge about their desired industry, from 48% to 80%, after attending industry overview sessions. Importantly, students gain understanding of core professional skills, how to further develop these abilities, conduct themselves with confidence and practically advance career objectives following work placement experiences, with confidence in these areas increasing from 21% to 87%. By focusing on educational support and youth development, Career Compass is committed to ensuring that every state-educated student has the guidance and resources needed to navigate the beginnings of their professional journey and enter the workforce equipped with both skills and confidence. Career Compass actively involves young people in the development of our programmes. Many students have re-committed to support Career Compass by acting as Student Volunteers and Ambassadors. Feedback from students is very positive: “I liked how simple and organised the presentation was as I could clearly follow what the speaker was saying and I became more aware of the opportunities within the financial sector. I liked the fact that there were anecdotes of individuals who currently work at different companies and it was very interesting to see how different each of their journeys were. It made me think more about my own future and filled in gaps that are not taught at school.”