Last month, our Head of Futures had the opportunity to present at the COBIS University & Careers Counsellor Conference, hosted at The British School of the Netherlands, exploring the theme “First Impressions Count.” At The British School of Paris, we treat this as a multi-year exercise that prepares our students for the confident first steps in their futures journey. From Year 8, through Futures PSHE classes, students start to build a bespoke Futures Profile, shaped by their academic pursuits and wider interests.
Students are introduced early to interview techniques, interpersonal communication and professional writing within a supportive environment. The aim is not simply to rehearse answers, but to develop genuine self-awareness: to recognise their skills, evidence them, and articulate them with clarity. In a landscape increasingly defined by recorded responses, digital interactions and algorithmic filtering, the ability to present a coherent personal narrative, one’s own ‘brand’ has become both more complex and more necessary.
