Charity which works closely with Queen Mary University of London awarded for employer engagement

Phoenix Education Trust (PET) was announced as the winner of the excellence in career and employability engagement category at the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) Graduate Recruitment Awards at Grosvenor House in Park Lane.

PET is a small charity with four staff which has embraced QProjects, QMUL’s work experience programme, to such an extent that they have taken on 40 project leaders over the past three years.

The charity aims to focus its resources on providing the research, training and information needed to promote the campaign for democratic education.

Emily Huns, Head of Careers and Enterprise at QMUL, said: "This award reflects the extraordinary commitment of the Phoenix Education Trust to our QProjects programme, which provides project-based early work experience to QMUL students. Not only has PET, a small London charity, hosted 40 students over three years, they have also looked after all of these students extremely well, ensuring they make maximum use of their project to improve their employability and can present this persuasively to future employers."

The other award nominees were commercial businesses but the panel stated they had chosen PET because of their exceptional contribution to giving quality early work experience to so many students given their size.

Rachel Roberts, Director of PET, added: “The Phoenix Education Trust has worked with QProjects for almost three years, hosting students on a wide range of projects. We have applied our ethos and values to these placements, giving students autonomy and the ability to have a real impact on our work. It has been amazing to see how the students developed their skills during their time with us and to hear about how they have gone on to use their experiences. It was an absolute honour to have been nominated for this award and an incredible achievement to have won it. It is a pleasure to work with a careers service which values partners large and small and heartening to have TargetJobs recognise our contribution.”