What makes you brilliant?

What's your expertise? What do you know inside out? Perhaps your field of academic study? Maybe something you do every day as part of your job? Or something you're always advising and recommending to clients?

In a couple of hours, you can translate your wisdom into a virtual work experience task that students across the UK can try out for themselves.

When you add a task to the BESS Virtual Work Experience, students can get an insight into the type of work you do and the sort of challenges you solve in the world.

They can:

• Learn about your organisation and your specialisms
• Undertake a 45-minute task that you create using our scripts and templates
• Complete the task with an assignment or quiz set by you
• Broaden their understanding of the construction industry and your part within it
• Watch videos and download information about your projects
• Read profiles of your core job roles
• Apply for apprenticeships, internships or real-world work experience with you
• Invite you to deliver careers activities for their school

All you need to do is follow the scripts and templates we provide to create the six sections of your task, and we'll add it to the on-demand Virtual Work Experience platform. We'll even announce your task on the Virtual Work Experience site so students can go straight to it. In no time, students will be enrolled onto your task and learning all about you and your skills.

So, where do you start?

1. If you haven't already seen the BESS on-demand Virtual Work Experience, jump over to the platform now and have a little look around.
2. Grab some paper or a blank Word document or a colleague, and start listing the things that you're brilliant at. The things clients pay you for. The things your organisation is known and trusted for.
3. Now highlight the items on that list that can be done at a computer with software that's free to use (or has a free version).
4. Is there an activity (or a combination of activities) that would take about 45-minutes to complete? Move that to the top of the shortlist.
5. Give some thought to how you would assess the task. Is it a series of definitive answers that could be tested in a quiz? Is it a business document that needs to be completed like an email, a report or some presentation slides? Is it public-facing content like a social media post or a residents' survey? Or perhaps it's a professional voicemail you would leave for your client?
6. Now it's time to add the context of the project and the client. Is this task linked to an exciting, unusual, challenging project? Or a client you have a great relationship with? Some poetic licence is absolutely fine here. Just make sure that you have the client's permission to reference their project, even if this task wasn't a part of your work with them in reality. For simplicity, it makes sense if this is a completed project as current projects always have the potential to change scope.
7. Get in touch with BESS and we'll talk you through the rest!

Our Virtual Work Experience is promoted to a network of over 4,000 UK schools, responsible for more than 3 million pupils. Together, we can change perceptions of careers in construction and tackle the skills shortage.