Uptree

Noel is currently studying Land Economy at the University of Cambridge. He was introduced to Uptree via a school assembly around career opportunities and how to get your foot in the door.

“Uptree particularly stood out because of how simple it was to use. A lot of the other websites, which I don’t remember off the top of my head, were a bunch of sign ups and then you had to wait for certain things. The system and the interface wasn’t as easy or smooth to use whereas Uptree was relatively simple. With the opportunities…it was straight to the point which I appreciated. As a sixth form student where you are tied up with time that is the sort of approach that I think is best to target students.

I think my first event might have been an online event and I thought it was pretty cool. Then my next event was with Europa Capital which was in person. Then from there I thought this is a good platform. I now share it with all the people who ask me how to get work experience, I just share the Uptree link.”

Uptree pivoted Noel’s career aspirations early on after he attended an event with one of our Employer Partners.

“I feel like a young person that is into finance doesn’t know anything about finance and just thinks investment banking and that’s it. Whereas there’s so many different pillars within investment banking let alone finance. I remember applying for Europa Capital thinking this is pretty cool, let me see what's going on here. It was quite nerve wracking as it was my first time going to an event alone, sometimes you can go with friends or with people from your school. But here, I was alone and the only person from my school going. I went and I learnt so much more about finance. That’s when I delved into real estate and how that’s a sort of asset class that can be managed as opposed to just purely stocks or bonds. Then I met somebody later on, because I got pulled for their 1 week work experience for the year after, and I met somebody who did Land Economy at Cambridge and was talking a lot about it. At that time I didn’t think anything about Cambridge because my GCSEs aren’t the best, my average grade is a grade 6 which I think is a B and Cambridge was out the window, university was genuinely out of the window to be fair. I wanted to do a degree apprenticeship. And then he was talking about Cambridge and I didn’t think anything of it at the time but it registered in my brain and I remembered near the deadline of Cambridge and I thought I need to go for it because the course sounded interesting. I wouldn’t have done that if it wasn’t for Uptree because I wouldn’t have gone to the Europa Capital event, I wouldn’t have met all the great people that I met there that I still have relationships with.

It’s definitely also helped my network as well. I think a big thing about the industry today, and any industry really, is that it’s all about networks. I’m able to email people if I think I need some help or if I want to meet for coffee to discuss how to break into the industry or stuff that I should know about and that just gives me a competitive edge in terms of interviews, assessment centres etcetera.

So Uptree has definitely been pivotal in where I am now and hopefully where I am in the future. This is called a success story but I would say I am nowhere near successful so this is definitely a small step.“

Uptree events help you find like-minded people, to Noel this was inspiring and attending stood out as an influential moment.

“A particular moment that stood out to me that was quite influential I’d say was going to the Europa Capital event and seeing how many students were like me. I guess sometimes it’s quite difficult to find like-minded students and so when you go to a place where there are a bunch of them it can be quite inspiring. It lets you know that there are people that are just as interested in a certain element of finance as you and it’s pretty cool because you make connections and who knows, you might be working with that person in a couple of years time or you might end up in uni with them. I’m still in contact with the people that I met at the Europa event, they ended up being a friend of a friend. Stuff like that is really cool and I find it quite inspiring how many people are willing to go that extra mile, willing to reach out and start their career early.”

Noel’s advice to other young people is to keep going to events, say ‘why not?’, and do as many things as you can.

“I’d say keep going to different events. At first they can seem quite daunting and like I was saying, going to Europa by myself and going to all these events alone. I’d say just go. As soon as you talk to people, just a simple conversation, you never know what that could lead to. At first it can seem quite pointless, like ‘why am I doing this?’, because you don’t see the marginal effects, you don’t see the effects of you going to one networking event tomorrow. But as soon as you build up that network and then in a year's time, someone might post something and you see it because you connected with them. There is a chain of events that genuinely can be quite incidental.

Also, start saying ‘why not?’ to a lot of things. I applied to Cambridge on a ‘why not?’ basis and a lot of things that I do that put me in a good position is just asking myself ‘why not?’. When I can’t find a good enough reason to not do it, I just do it, like applying to Cambridge or starting my brand. Saying ‘why not?’ can be dangerous but I think can also be good.

Do as many things as you can, figure out what you like and what you don’t like. I guess doing that at such a young age can be so beneficial because it gives you that competitive advantage because some people at like 23 still don’t know what they want to do and whilst that’s normal, you can be different and at 16/17 know exactly what you want to do just by trying all sorts of different things. So definitely try things and go to different events even if you don’t think it’s orthodox like if you never thought about doing marketing then just go to a marketing event and see what’s there to be offered and you might genuinely like it.”