At Sewell & Gardner it has always been of exceptional importance for us to engage with our community and build long lasting relationships with local people. Recently we have started to put more of a focus on young people as after all they are the future!
Joe Rylett and Reagan Bradley recently attended a careers talk for Year 12 students at Rickmansworth School, located just down the road from our flagship offices.
After the nerves of going back to school and feeling like they were going to get in trouble with teachers, they thoroughly enjoyed the talk and were impressed with how much the pupils engaged with them and the curiosity expressed. They presented to a group of pupils who were all actively interested in the possibility of pursuing a career in estate agency. They spoke about different fields of work available, from traditional sales & lettings negotiators, property management, new homes sales to office administration, marketing, photography & video specialisation. They talked openly about their experience working in the estate agency world and with Sewell & Gardner as a company.
Joe is a local boy who studied at Watford Boys Grammar school before attending University to study Leisure Management and after a short stint in the police force, he decided to try his hand at sales negotiation and worked up through the ranks to Branch Manager. Joe now runs a very successful office, one of the most recognisable brands in the town and has a dedicated team of negotiators and valuers looking up to him.
Reagan left Nottingham Trent University with a degree in Criminal Psychology, perfect for assessing the best tenants as a lettings negotiator! In the last 4 years she has worked as a lettings negotiator, passed her Level 3 technical award in Residential Lettings and Property Management, covered maternity leave as Director’s PA, passed exams in Block Management, Inventory Preparation and Deposit Disputes, been promoted to Head of Property Management and she has won the UK Property Manager of the Year Awards (Times & Sunday Times Newspapers) for 2 years on the trot. Pretty impressive careers for both Joe and Reagan and it just goes to show that dedication and work hard do pay off. Both Joe & Reagan found it really refreshing to meet young people with such a passion for the property industry and also rather fascinating to hear their thoughts on what we do for a living… In addition to one or two being pretty good at assessing property values at our little ‘guess the price’ competition.
The idea of inspiring young people to pursue a career in the industry and also being able to explain the values that make Sewell & Gardner so unique is something we believe is incredibly worthwhile and rewarding. From a business perspective, it is a valuable method of spreading the word about our brand and our industry, not only to school children but also to parents and teachers, a brilliant networking opportunity.
We would like to say a big thank you to the Rickmansworth School for giving us this opportunity to attend their event and also for their hospitality. We are very very fortunate to have a fantatsic school network in our local area and many of these schools have careers deaprtments who are keen to support local businesses, such as ourselves. We have more careers talks planned at local schools for the rest of this year so watch this space for more news on our team inspiring young people with their passion for Estate Agency!
If you would like to know more about a career at Sewell & Gardner, check out our website www.sewellgardner.com.

Hannah Matthews, Marketing Assistant