Oli Stockford Delivers Career Talk to 150 Students at Cardinal Newman College

Stockford Recruitment founder Oli Stockford visited Cardinal Newman College in Preston this week, speaking to around 150 second-year Business students across two sessions.

The visit marked the start of a series of talks and workshops Oli is planning with local colleges, aimed at helping students prepare for life after education and giving them practical advice based on what employers are actually looking for.

Rather than focusing solely on CVs and interview techniques, Oli used the session to share his own career journey, including the parts that didn't necessarily go to plan.

You don't need to have it all figured out

One of the main messages Oli wanted students to take away from the session was that they don't need to have their entire career mapped out at 17 or 18.

Oli spoke openly about his own experience at college. He originally started studying AS Levels but failed two subjects during his first year - Business and IT.

Considering he now runs a recruitment business specialising predominantly in Technology and Digital, the irony wasn't lost on him.

After deciding that his original route wasn't working, Oli changed direction and moved onto BTEC Business, meaning he stayed at college longer than originally planned.

At the time, watching friends progress while effectively starting again felt like a setback. Looking back, Oli explained that it became one of the most important decisions he made.

He told students:

"Changing direction isn't the same as going backwards. Sometimes recognising that something isn't working and doing something about it is actually progress."

From college to starting Stockford Recruitment

Oli talked students through a career journey that, looking backwards, can appear relatively straightforward:

College - Debenhams - Enterprise - Recruitment - Stockford Recruitment.

The reality was very different.

Oli explained that there was never a master plan connecting each stage. After college, his immediate priority was simply finding full-time work and earning money.

His time at Debenhams developed his customer service, communication and people skills. A later move to Enterprise introduced sales, targets, management, responsibility and commercial awareness. Recruitment then brought many of those skills together and eventually led to Oli launching Stockford Recruitment in June 2024.

Oli explained that while the journey makes sense looking backwards, he couldn't have predicted any of it while sitting at college.

That formed another key message from the session - students don't necessarily need to know what they want to do for the next 20 years. They need to start thinking about their next step.

What do you actually want from work?

Rather than asking students simply what job they want, Oli encouraged them to think about what they want from their future career.

Do they enjoy working with people? Is earning potential important? Do they want progression? Stability? Creativity? Responsibility? Do they enjoy technology? Are they competitive? Would they eventually like to lead people?

Oli explained that he had never dreamed of becoming a recruitment consultant. At that age, he didn't really know recruitment was a career.

What he did know was that he enjoyed working with people, was competitive, wanted progression and wanted his performance to have an impact on what he could earn.

Eventually, he found a career that matched those things.

What employers are actually looking for

As the founder of a recruitment business, Oli now spends his working week speaking to founders, CEOs and hiring managers about the people they want to employ.

He shared some of those conversations with the students.

While qualifications, skills and experience remain important, Oli explained that employers regularly ask Stockford Recruitment to find people who are reliable, communicate well, want to learn, take feedback, show initiative and genuinely want the opportunity.

For students who may feel they have limited professional experience, Oli also encouraged them not to underestimate what they have already learned through part-time jobs, sport, volunteering and other responsibilities.

Someone who has worked every Saturday for two years, dealt with customers, played competitive sport or balanced work alongside education already has experiences they can talk about.

The important part is learning how to communicate what those experiences have taught them.

Standing out in a world of Easy Apply and AI

The session also looked at how technology has changed the way young people apply for jobs.

With online applications making it possible to apply for dozens of positions quickly, Oli encouraged students to focus on quality rather than quantity.

His advice was simple - ten properly researched applications are likely to be more valuable than sending the same CV to 100 different businesses.

That means researching the company, understanding what it does, looking at the people who work there, tailoring an application and, where appropriate, being proactive enough to contact somebody directly.

AI was another important part of the conversation.

Oli encouraged students to use tools such as ChatGPT to prepare for interviews, research employers, practise difficult questions and challenge their answers.

However, he also warned against allowing AI to create a completely different version of themselves through overly generated CVs, applications and interview answers.

As Oli put it:

"Use AI to make you better. Don't use it to create somebody who isn't you."

Building confidence through doing uncomfortable things

Resilience and confidence were recurring themes throughout the talk.

Oli shared how working in recruitment had taught him to become comfortable hearing "no", whether that was from a prospective client, candidate or following weeks of work on an opportunity that ultimately fell apart.

He encouraged students not to see rejection as a reason to stop trying.

Oli also challenged them to deliberately become more comfortable doing things that initially feel uncomfortable - sending the LinkedIn message, picking up the phone, asking a question, attending an interview or applying for something they aren't completely certain they'll get.

His message was that confidence often comes after doing something, rather than before it.

The start of something bigger

The visit to Cardinal Newman College isn't intended to be a one-off.

Oli will return to deliver smaller practical sessions for students who want additional support preparing for their next steps.

The first workshop, Get Yourself Ready, will focus on CVs, LinkedIn, finding suitable opportunities, researching businesses and communicating limited experience effectively.

The second, Get Yourself Hired, will focus on interviews, confidence, preparation, difficult questions and practical interview experience.

The Cardinal Newman visit is also the beginning of Stockford Recruitment's plans to work more closely with colleges in the local area, using the company's day-to-day experience of the employment market to give students practical insight into what happens when they leave education.

You just need to start moving

Oli finished the session by returning to the message he had started with.

At 17 or 18, he didn't know he would become a recruiter.

He didn't know he would eventually start his own business.

His career involved changes of direction, unexpected opportunities, mistakes and plenty of rejection along the way.

And that was exactly the point.

Oli told the students:

"You don't need to know exactly where you're going. But you do need to start moving." College Talk Script

Stockford Recruitment would like to thank Cardinal Newman College for the invitation and all 150 students across both sessions for getting involved.

The next step will be returning to Preston for the practical workshops - and continuing the programme with more local colleges.