beyondoxbridge.com caught up with Will Stadlen of Holland Park Tuition….

What did you think you wanted to do when you left university?

I had no idea but I did know that I never wanted to work for anyone else. Consequently, I gave the whole ‘Milkround’ experience a wide birth and concentrated on getting my degree. I had decided to take up my place at Brasenose only after I had closed down my first business for family reasons. I knew that running a business was something that interested me and I had been tutoring children locally for a while so starting up Holland Park Tuition on graduation emerged as the natural alternative to conventional employment.

Why did you decide against a conventional career in the city or law?

My feeling was that if I was to give running a business a go, now would be the optimal time. I had no dependents and would not be gambling a secure position with a big firm in order to start up on my own. It seemed best to try my hand at entrepreneurial activity whilst I was still young. I could, I reasoned, turn my thoughts back to job hunting at any stage if the business failed.

What is your company called and what does it do?

My company is called Holland Park Tuition. We are now the leading recruiter, trainer and provider of professional private academic tutors in London, the South East and around the world. We offer those fresh out of university the chance to gain some valuable teaching experience whilst they figure out what it is they want to do with their lives. We also recruit professional teachers and those undertaking the PGCE who want the experience of teaching on a one to one basis.

Our clients tend to be families in Central and West London who need a little extra support for their children at whatever level of the UK education system they find themselves at. We have exam experts who prepare children specifically for everything from 11+, GCSE, A level, IB and even university level studies. You can find us on www.hollandparktuition.com or call 020 7034 0800.

How did you come up with the idea?

As I said, I had been tutoring English at 11+ and GCSE to children in my local area for a while. I had had tutors to help me during my time at school and my experience of them had been mixed to say the least. Some fairly unsavoury characters were advertising themselves in the backs of magazines. This was the only source of private tutors available to my parents. My thought was that London needed a reliable source of private tutors so we established Holland Park Tuition. What sets us apart from the other ‘cowboy’ organizations in the field is that we run a CRB Enhanced Disclosure on all our tutors, we interview candidates stringently and run a full day comprehensive training course in order to prepare each new tutor fully for what to expect from their prospective students and their parents. We gather feed back on every hour a tutor does with one of our clients in order to counter-balance the extremely high academic and pedagogical standards we set at recruitment level.

Do you wish you had received formal business training or professional experience before you started?

Sometimes I feel I could have benefited from some formal training on the financial and economic side of things. However, I spoke recently to someone from my school who had gone on to do an MBA. When I described what I had learned on the job, as it were; P&Ls, cash-flows, VAT budgeting, employment procedure, for example, his estimation was that beyond what I had described there would have been little of real value to doing such a course. That is not to say that I would not recommend an MBA to other people. It just may not have been suitable for me.

Would you ever consider going back to employment?

Not even if you paid me.