Bucks students take part in business challenge

This year's big Bucks sales challenge saw seven participating schools teamed up with entrepreneurial businesses to develop essential employability skills.

The schools from Aylesbury Vale that took part were Bucks College Group, which is based in Aylesbury, John Colet School in Wendover and The Buckingham School.

The first round of the challenge saw each participating school run a competition within the year group.

The winning teams from each school then went to visit their supporting business and spent the day seeing for themselves what happens behind the scenes of a business.

In the final, it was the students’ job to now sell their supporting business to prospective young recruits as a great place to work.

The winning team was Highcrest Academy in High Wycombe and Rob Evans, careers leader at the academy said: "I’m very proud of the students - they worked really hard and delivered an excellent presentation.

"Thanks to the Bucks Skills Hub for organising it and to ANT Telecom for their excellent support.”

Marina Jackson, careers hub lead for Bucks Skills Hub, who organised the competition said: "Everyone gets something out of it: students get practical experience of skills vital for all jobs, and employers get the opportunity to develop their talent pipeline.”

The organisations that mentored the teams were Align JV, Serious Brands, ANT Telecom, June Medical, Career Workshops and Recruitment, Verizon and Thomas International.

Paul Owen, managing director of sales talent recruitment firm and author of the best-selling book ‘Secret Skill, Hidden Career’, was a keynote speaker and one of the judges.

He said: “There is no job in the world that doesn’t need sales.

"Sales is all about the ability to deal with people and no robot will ever replace human interaction.

"I was hugely impressed with the talent I witnessed at the Big Bucks Challenge and hope the students seriously think about considering sales as a career.”