LifeSkills work placement candidate strives to hyper-accelerate their career

Hyperoptic supports LifeSkills Work Week, created with Barclays, campaign to be broadcast on ITV1

When first moving into the workplace, school leavers can often face daunting barriers because of their lack of work-related skills, confidence and training. This week, one work experience student is being immersed at Hyperoptic, the UK's leading provider of fibre-to-the-home broadband technology, to tackle that challenge head-on.

Hyperoptic is participating in the recently launched LifeSkills programme and, throughout the course of the week, will be submerging a student into the hyperfast world of cutting-edge broadband technology and helping them to get the business skills to kick start their career. As part of the initiative, the student's experiences are also being shared with the nation in nearly real-time, through an advertising campaign for the LifeSkills programme in partnership with ITN.

Hyperoptic is one of only two companies participating in the campaign.Each day, a short video diary will be produced and broadcast during that evening's ITV ‘News at Ten' in a bespoke ad break, capturing the highlights of the student's experience and giving a sneak peek into the heart of Hyperoptic's operations. In addition to the prime-time ad broadcasts, the campaign also features a Facebook page filled with additional multi-media content.

LifeSkills, created with Barclays, was launched in March of this year. It is a free, curriculum-linked programme designed to give young people in the UK access to the skills, information and opportunities they need to help them towards getting the jobs they want. Aiming to make 50,000 work experience opportunities available this year, its ultimate goal is to equip up to one million young people with the skills they need by 2015.

Dana Tobak, Managing Director at Hyperoptic, comments:

"As the technology sector becomes ever more important to the UK economy, growth in the industry can only mean greater opportunity for young people as well. This is also true of small businesses – in any sector – who remain the lifeblood of UK growth and innovation, and who should absolutely be keen to help shape and recruit the next generation of talented youth.

"The importance of next-generation talents to the future of the UK cannot be understated, and we are absolutely thrilled to play a small part in supporting the ideals of the LifeSkills programme and the young people it will benefit. If we can utilise this enthusiasm and help better prepare school leavers for working life in the process, then everybody wins."