Imperial College Bright Futures society is one of the careers-orientated societies on campus offering opportunities across a range of sectors including Finance, Consultancy and Engineering. Therefore, exposure to an extensive range of employers is their unique selling point. With a 400% increase in membership last year, they are one of the fastest growing careers-orientated societies on campus. In fact, Bright Futures have exceeded last year’s membership figure already with over 450 members and counting!
Regardless of whether you are a first or second year exploring an insight week, a penultimate student looking for an internship or a finalist securing a graduate position your interests will be catered for.
Bright Futures’ campus affiliates include Imperial College Business School, City & Guilds College Union (Faculty of Engineering), Royal College of Science Union (Faculty of Natural Sciences), IC Startup, Physics Society and Bioengineering Society. Our sponsors for this year are Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Deloitte, Shell, IBM, CSC and Rolls Royce.
Events hosted centre around increasing employability for their members through CV workshops, case studies and networking sessions with graduate recruiters throughout the year. An initiative this year is the Bloomberg Assessment Test. Once candidates complete the financial aptitude test, their score will be uploaded to Bloomberg Terminal, a financial data feed platform used by over 20,000 financial professionals worldwide on a day to day basis, to enter into the Talent Search database to be headhunted.
Over 450 members and counting!
Due to popular demand the flagship Dinner with Industry and networking event returned, co-hosted in partnership with CGCU on 15 November 2012. Companies in attendance included Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Deloitte, Shell, IBM, CSC and Centrica. Turnout was impressive with over 100 guests followed by overwhelmingly positive feedback from both students and company representatives alike.
Bright Futures were honoured to have Professor Peter Head CBE FREng FRSA (an Imperial College London Civil Engineering alumnus) as our guest speaker for the evening. Having graduated in 1968, he has since championed the field of sustainable development to be cited by the Guardian as one of the 50 people that could “save the planet”. He was awarded the Sir Frank Whittle medal of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2009 and is currently the Executive Chair of Ecological Sequestration Trust and Director of ARUP.
Student guests' own words in response to their reasons for attending the event included: "For connection to various companies" and "Presence of a company I have applied to." When asked whether the companies in attendance constituted a good representation of a mixture of industries one quoted: "Yes, during the evening I spoke with representatives from the gas, banking and consultancy sectors." Finally, on how this networking event faired with others: "This is the networking event I have found most useful so far. I actually had the chance to speak to company reps and their attitude was surprisingly friendly."
Company guests' own words in response to what stood out to them at the event included: "The chance to exchange contact details with 15-20 students" and "The calibre, preparation and interest levels shown by the students was excellent. I liked the table rotation scheme." When asked about the table rotational system employed: "Great way of maximising coverage in the room - enabled students to strike up conversation. However, I did lose my wine/water glasses a number of times!" Finally, on how this networking event faired with others: "Better than most. The moving around helped and those attending were clearly engaged."
Membership to Bright Futures is free with a simple registration process as detailed on the society website. If any of this sounds interesting to you please do not hesitate to get it touch to find out more by dropping us an email. Thank you for being part of our ongoing success and we look forward to get you hired in 2012/13!
