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Stephen Adeoye, Advisory Analyst from Lawson Conner, officially launched Beyond Education in Q1 of 2020, a start-up dedicated to helping individuals’ access and navigate the corporate world. Beyond Education will be launching their online career consultation platform, BE Connect on August 2nd to connect job searching candidates to industry professionals. We spoke to Stephen about what prompted him to start the business, the challenges of a start-up and the impact of Covid.
What prompted you to start this business? I graduated from university with 3+ job offers, which I thought was standard. Speaking to friends, however, I noticed they didn’t receive that much reception from employers, which annoyed me given the cost of going to University and the debt incurred. So, I started helping my friends with their CVs and providing general insight into the working world. I wanted to continue to do this on a larger scale so I partnered up with my friend to consult more individuals and create resources to help people with their job search. I realised that there was commercial viability for a business like this and formally incorporated Beyond Education in March 2020 shortly after COVID! Although I started with my friend, she did not want to be formally involved in the business and I ended up being the sole Founder. This was fine at the start, although the dynamic of having a Co-founder to bounce ideas off was lacking and in the early days Beyond Education was very much narrowed down to my ideas. However, we are now a team of 8.
What has been the most difficult/unexpected/rewarding part of setting up the business?
The most difficult part of setting up a business is feeling like you are not doing enough. You can have so many ideas but there’s just not enough time. Whilst also working full time at IQ-EQ and working on Beyond Education first tech MVP for launch in August it has been a very challenging journey. It’s also mentally draining sometimes spending a lot of time outside work to create something to help others. It is also difficult as you always feel like the business deserves more support however I am always grateful for the small wins.
The most unexpected part of setting up the business is that I am already managing a team of 8 people who organically gravitated towards the cause. What is really cool is that they really believe in the vision of Beyond Education (sometimes more than me!) and that is really motivating. One of the team members/professionals who will be offering career consultations on the BE Connect platform requested that 50% of what he makes be reinvested in the business. It’s nice to know so many people are motivated and actively connected in what we are trying to achieve.
The most rewarding part is getting people jobs and facilitating connections with industry professionals! To date, we have helped 30+ individuals get one step closer to their careers via professional introductions and securing job opportunities. Our aspirations are only getting bigger and we would like to significantly improve employment for early career professionals on a larger sustainable scale.
How has it been trying to get professionals to offer career consultation sessions on BE Connect?
We initially piloted the BE Connect concept with the support of IQEQ’s HR department and few industry professionals where we facilitated a total of 16 career consultation sessions with 8 of our members as a reward for volunteering to work on some Beyond Education projects. The feedback from the pilot was quite positive and we concluded that there is an appetite for this kind of platform.
It has been very easy to get professionals to sign up to the platform as I have a very helpful and willing network made up of early career and senior professionals. For job searching candidates on the other hand it's slightly challenging as you have to build a community that trusts you. To date, we have a community of 1500+ members across our online platforms and we are confident that the launch of BE Connect will grow the community further due to the value add support they can access from the professionals on the platform.
How do you keep the structure in your day?
I keep structure in my day by trying to understand the purpose of what I am doing and taking each day as it comes. During the weekdays, I try to stick to a routine, work until around 7 pm then spend a couple of hours on Beyond Education and head of to the gym around 9 pm and repeat! I have to be fairly organised and structured in allocating tasks to the team in order to make the most of my time.
How do you stay motivated?
If I feel unmotivated, I speak to people in the team and lay it all out, it's best to motivate each other. It’s also good to take a break. At the start of Beyond Education, we posted content on our social media platforms consistently every day for about 8 months and I burnt out because I inflicted all this pressure and expectation to keep up. It is important to know when to chill out as it allows you to gain perspective. Now we barely post content, but we have a sense of clarity on the direction of our business and what we actually want to achieve, and we are avidly working on it!
Has Covid affected your business at all?
Coronavirus has amplified the importance of the mission and given a greater opportunity to see people’s struggles first-hand. It gave us more flexibility i.e. WFH, less time on travel to really focus on our ideas and bring them to life.
Final thoughts?
“We should all make the conscious effort to help people in any way we can “– Stephen Adeoye
Thank you, Stephen Adeoye, for taking the time to talk about Beyond Education, and we look forward to the launch of the BE Connect platform on the 2nd of August!
Sign up via the following links below to access and offer career consultation sessions on the BE Connect platform:
Book a session: https://www.beyondeducation.uk/search
Sign up as a professional partner: https://www.beyondeducation.uk/partner