Kim Connor Streich
2017 has been a year chock-full of moments. Queen Beyoncé gave birth to twins, Jeremy Corbyn did the unthinkable and a South London roadman named Big Shaq emerged from nowhere to dominate the charts. It truly has been a whirlwind, and Debut’s 2017 was no different.
As another huge recruitment season draws to a close, the time has come for a little bit of reflection on our progress. Looking back now, it’s amazing to see how far we’ve come. We’ve helped hundred of students secure career opportunities, welcomed new faces and said goodbye to old friends, and built Debut into the fabulous careers resource it is now. There were plenty of pivotal moments that made this possible, here are just a few of our faves:
January: We closed ВЈ1.7 million in seed funding
Kicking off the year with a bang, we secured a massive ВЈ1.7 million in seed funding to help turn Debut into the swiss-army careers supertool we knew it could be. That’s a total of ВЈ2.2 million raised in total, for anyone keeping score at home. With the new investment, we changed offices, grew our team and brought a whole load of dreamy new features to life in the app.
All in all, a great start to the year, but this would only be the beginning…
March: International Women’s Day
In March we celebrated International Women’s Day with a sequel to our awesome Women In Tech event in 2016. This time representatives from EY, Fujitsu, Capgemini. FDM and Cisco came by to share insights on being a woman in their respective industries.
The result was a night that was both insightful and empowering, with many of our amazing female Debutants leaving enriched afterwards.
April: We launched our new website and Charlie is featured in Forbes’ “30 Under 30”
April marked the launch of our fancy new website, making it faster, stronger and sleeker than ever before. It was the culmination of several months’ worth of work, so understandably our hearts did a little back-flip when we saw the finished product.
As well as telling you all the amazing features on the app, it’s also a fitting home for the Insight blog and our brand new Guides. Check out our round-up of Debut’s killer content from 2017 here.
Meanwhile, a huge personal achievement for our CEO Charlie Taylor also happened in April, when he was recognised on Forbes’ prestigious “30 Under 30” list for technology. Only the minds behind the most cutting edge innovations made the list, and Charlie had some great company.
We’ve always thought Debut could change the world – to see our CEO be recognised for his vision, alongside the hottest prospects in business, only confirmed that we are moving in the right direction.
May: Breaking Barriers: Encouraging Diversity in Law
In May, we had our first ever all-law careers event, specifically designed to encourage more BAME students to pursue and excel in this career path. We were honoured to be joined by expert panellists Joseph Hutchinson and Faria Ali from Shearman and Sterling and Herbert Smith Freehills respectively.
Together, they told our riveted audience why they should never accept a lack of diversity, the importance of self-care and how to stay focused in the face of adversity.
September: Speed interviewing
After a quiet summer vaycaying and getting ready for the brand new recruitment season, the madness started again in September with our bustling Speed Interviewing event. Madonna once talked about having four minutes to save the world – our Debutants had just four minutes to impress an army of recruiters from Vodafone, L’Oréal, O2, giffgaff, Siemens, Arcadia, Capgemini, Willis Towers Watson and Fidelity.
Their reward was one-on-one time with nine of the best employers in the UK and a lucky 80 attendees were fast-tracked straight into the application process.
October: Debut turns two
In October, Debut had its second birthday, and we celebrated in grand fashion. It was another time be reflective and grateful for our journey to this point and we spoke to Charlie and our COO Michele to get a true scope of how far we’ve come.
We also crunched some numbers and came up with a few interesting stats on Debut’s two years of existence. Then we cut some cake and popped some bubbly, but yeah… there’s no article about that part.
November: The Future Is Female, The Apprentice winner Tim Campbell comes to DebutLive & The Fight For Feedback goes to Westminster
We closed out the year strong with a whole host of big moments happening just as recruitment season hotted up. At the start of the month, we got the good news that our white paper on the Fight For Feedback campaign was officially in the hands of Damian Hinds, the Secretary of State for Employment. Now, we eagerly await what the Department of Work and Pensions has to say about our advice to make feedback after a face-to-face interview mandatory for all employers.
Then we had a another huge boon for the campaign as Tim Campbell, the winner of the first series of The Apprentice, made a star-studded appearance on DebutLive. Lord Sugar’s former mentee has made quite the name for himself in business since appearing on the show, and he had plenty of constructive things to say about interview feedback. It’s an honour to have him support our Fight for Feedback movement!
Finally, we rounded up 2017 in grand fashion by hosting our third women-only careers event. Debut Presents: The Future Is Female was attended by EY, BT and Shell as well as the best and brightest female Debutants around. It was a great evening of brave questions and passionate insights, which summed up our 2017 perfectly.
2017 has been a mad year all over, but Debut’s 2017 was one especially wild ride. Defined by sweeping change and growth, it’s been a roller-coaster with plenty of highs and lows.
But here we are at the end of it all, better and stronger, and it wouldn’t be possible without our Debutants to inspire us to keep pushing the envelope. Thank you all for an amazing year, and let’s hope 2018 brings you the graduate career you’ve been waiting for.
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