Wealth manager St James’s Place is offering 'virtual' work experience to 1,000 young people in July to provide a financial services career taster.

SJP’s Virtual Work Experience Week - called Financial Services Explained - will take place over five days from 11-15 July. 

The company, which has over 4,000 advisers, says the scheme will offer young people aged 17-21 insights into jobs in financial services and give them a chance to talk to practitioners from a dozen different disciplines. 

The programme is for students aged 17 (Year 12 & 13) to 20 and who have completed their first year at university and are considering a career in Financial Services. 

There will be training sessions covering topics including: ‘Winning your dream job – personal branding, CV writing and winning in an interview’, through to ‘Generating a personal development plan’. 

Virtual classroom teaching sessions will cover topics such as ‘Harnessing social media’ and ‘Presenting to win.’

The scheme will also offer the opportunity to work with others on a dedicated project, where the winning team will take home £500. At the end they will be presented with a certificate to mark their attendance and participation. 

Places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis and there is a dedicated registration website with an application form for those interested:  Early Careers 

SJP says the virtual work experience programme was first developed during the pandemic in response to the lack of in-person opportunities and has been run on three previous occasions, in October 2020, April 2021 and October 2021. 

More than 5,000 young people have used the programme and the intention is that it provides a ‘feeder programme’ to attract candidates to careers in financial services generally and SJP in particular. 

Andy Payne, head of the SJP Academy, said: “At a time when work experience opportunities have been hard to come by, this is a great chance for those from all backgrounds, educational qualifications, geographical areas and more to take part in an interactive work experience programme." 

“This is a comprehensive taster of what working in financial services looks like. Having a virtual work experience programme that is accessible and flexible means that we are removing barriers to participation and opening up the opportunity to all.”