Turning graduates into successful business women – HERA case study update

Having supported a number of my children’s friends to get into university (when they’d been told they’d have to wait for clearing – I got them unconditional offers within a week!) or to get a paid internship (when they’d applied for over 50 and not even had a reply and within 2 days we rewrote their personal statement and online presence and they were offered 5 top internships and worked for a top Magic Circle Law firm (and have already been offered a job!) I know that to get heard and people’s positive attention you have to stand out, own who you are, communicate with power and expect great results.

So I launched HERA to offer that as a formal programme to those that want their dream career but feel like they’ve not got the support or solutions to get there.

Elena is an amazing woman and a friend of my daughters. We were chatting over coffee and Elena told me about how she put herself through university, working a night shift, never missing a lecture AND even set up her own business when the pandemic robbed her of her income. Not only is she hardworking she has also shown true skills in social media marketing and can get 300,000 likes on her TikTok account, yes 300,000! Something any business owner would love to achieve!

Add to that the Korean unknown Rap star that Elena casually helped to get to 13,000 followers, the woman is a power house and the business world is missing out!

So as you can see, I’m on a mission!

Here Elena who is working with me around her 50 hour night shift job and her hobby of Kpop (we both love Kpop and it’s a great community to get involved – all about empowering all and accepting who you are) talks about her progress with me so far.

This is just the start in my view. I won’t be happy until someone in the business world realises they are missing out on this amazing young graduate. She is hungry for success, hard working and like a sponge at applying professional skills to her already extensive knowledge. I even sent her networking and she did it! You can read more about that here.

She mirrors every young adult I’ve helped to date – we need to open more doors to these people!

Coming out of university with very little idea of where to start in the working world, HERA – Her Advantage has not only helped me to start networking, but it has also begun helping me to build my confidence. 

As someone who struggles with how to talk highly about myself in order to advertise how I can be a good asset to a team/ company, Mandie at Hera mentally shook me out of that mindset very early on. I was even shown how much my uncertainty about myself was showing in my CV and how I write about myself and was helped to correct my resume to sound much more convincing. 

And Mandie Holgate definitely does not beat around the bush when it comes to giving advice and extending knowledge. I get told things exactly how they are and that kind of trustworthy and honest opinion has been the best guidance that I could ask for. Whenever I have worries, I get an in-depth video/ recording addressing all of my concerns in detail and I am extremely grateful… Mandie definitely has got more than enough advice to go around. 

I look forward to continue being a member of HERA – her advantage and finally feeling like I am a part of a group of like minded women who are set on helping each other succeed in obtaining our career goals and dreams.

To meet Elena, you can click on her LinkedIn profile here and find her on Instagram and Tik Tok too. Do say hi and let Elena know how you found her.

Can you help?
I’m in discussions with various educational bodies and will do my very best to work to any budget to support your young adults. I do have bills to pay and already work at maximum capacity for INsiders so we need to find some funding to make this a reality on a national level. We require very little time from the educational body as all of our training and support is remote and works around the students/graduates busy lives.

I feel strongly that many employers don’t have the best employees – they have those that felt entitled to be there. Those that had the confidence to knock on the door in the first place. As a country we are missing out on exceptional talent as a result and all that comes with that outcome. For many confidence does not improve until they are in their 30’s!

We can do better.

1 idea we have is that successful HERA candidates will pay a small fee after their first months pay to say thank you. This can be donation based. It costs us £25 per delegate per month. We would welcome all successful HERA delegates to stay as members to support the following cohorts of amazing young women we will be supporting to success.