Employers are finding it more and more difficult to get in front of potential entry-level recruits. This is because young adults are not always made aware of the opportunities available to them if they decide not to go to University. However, there are things employers can do to widen the reach of their recruitment away from traditional pathways.
This article shares highlights from the session where guest speakers, listed below, joined Gareth John to talk about:
Speakers and panellists
- Daryl Keyworth, Regional Lead East at the Careers and Enterprise Company – (0:41 in the recording)
- Dan Miller, Founder and CEO of Young Professionals – (12:25 in the recording)
- Laura Morris, Head of Engagement at Speakers for Schools – (22:08 in the recording)
- Christos Orthodoxou, Roundtable Host & Director of Innovation & Insights at The Talent People/GetMyFirstJob – (35:26 in the recording)
- Rebecca Dunne, Partnerships Manager at Not Going To Uni – (40:37 in the recording)
- Lindsay Conroy, National Programme Lead at UCAS – (57:43 in the recording)
- Dave Payne on Rise and Access Accountancy – (01:16:01 in the recording)
You can watch the recording of the session by clicking the button below:
Please find the key points from the session below.
Careers and Enterprise Company
(0:41 in the recording)
- The Careers and Enterprise Company work with schools, colleges and employers to help every young person find their best next step. They are a national body for careers and education and a local careers hub.
- 90% of secondary schools and colleges are a part of their careers hubs network
- They work with schools in how they can support businesses, as well as with businesses for how they can support schools
- Share practical digital tools and resources
- Impact: Bringing educators and employers together through the Careers Hub
- Inclusion: National data to measure provision, gather student feedback, and target support
- Leadership: Training Careers and Education Leaders
The benefits of Cornerstone Employers:
- Opportunity to inspire students and tell them about your industry, collaborate with other businesses, and fill skills gaps
- Opportunity to come into schools and promote/ raise awareness about your sector/ industries students may not be so familiar with
- Personal benefits for employers – give back to the community, meet new people, improve personal skills
- The opportunity to develop future pipelines
www.careersandenterprise.co.uk
Young Professionals
(12:25 in the recording)
- Created for the engaged and career-driven student to go into depth on what it’s like to work in different sectors and discover which career path is right
- Young Professionals work with brands and businesses who want to hire school leavers onto their apprenticeship programmes
- Actively engaged with 4,500 schools and colleges across the UK
- Pick 5-6 most engaged students from schools and colleges and put them into apprenticeship programmes
- Supply an apprenticeship and school leaver job board
- Offer information on where to apply to apprenticeship programmes
- Offer school leaver events
- Connect students and businesses with work experience opportunities – both in-face and virtual
- Job support – apprenticeship advertising and recruiting
- Create individual careers sites and creative content for employers to help engage with students
www.young-professionals.uk
Speakers for Schools
(22:08 in the recording)
- Their aim is to end educational inequality by giving all young people access to the same prestigious networks available to the top fee-paying schools in the UK
- National charity
- Empowering young people from state schools and colleges to find out more and provide them with opportunities to see what job opportunities are out there/ find out more about work
- Offer talks from today’s influential figures via the Inspiration Programme about different industries/ sectors – encourage employers to get involved and talk to young adults
- Speakers for Schools encourage work experience, linking state school students to industry-leading companies and networked support partners to help level the playing field for young people of all backgrounds
- Employers can:
- Offer students taster sessions for a short overview of different careers
- In-person placements – invite young people to spend a few days on the job
- Virtual work experience – host live and interactive online placements
- Advertise job opportunities where young people can apply directly
- Speakers for schools can help businesses tailor what they offer to the students they want to target
- Aimed at 14-19yr olds
- Particularly good for increasing employers’ reach to state schools and contributes to the talent pipeline piece
www.speakersforschools.org
The Talent People/GetMyFirstJob
(35:26 in the recording)
- GetMyFirstJob and The Talent People were established to help companies access the talent they need, when they need it. They use a wide range of technologies to help candidates become better informed about the opportunities that are open to them so that when they start in a new role
- Help to break down the existing barriers; from challenging the stereotyping of apprenticeships based on age, sector, gender or background to sharing the many new opportunities available to all through apprenticeships. Through this work, employers large and small can access better, more informed candidates who become the talent of the future
- Offering an end to end recruitment service for employers in the industry
- Key insights from their database include:
- Up to 70% of candidates are using iPhones in their job hunt
- 50% of candidates have no CV
- Renege rates at a record high
- Some employers in accountancy are currently having problems recruiting but GetMyFirstJob is seeing that a lot of students want jobs in that space so there is clearly some disconnect between the two
www.thetalentpeople.co.uk/ www.getmyfirstjob.co.uk
Not Going To Uni
(40:37 in the recording)
- A Gen Z recruitment and marketing company – the opportunity for employers to get in front of Gen Z talent
- A job board for apprenticeships and other roles that are alternatives to going to University
- Used to be a website and platform to advertise opportunities to students, now employers can have company profiles, and post job/work-related opportunities
- Employers can pay for targeted campaigns, including targeted emails and social media posts which will get them in front of new audiences of young people
- Not Going To Uni now also offer a creative arm, including an in-house content production team, NGTU ambassadors, and content creators who create content to help employers engage with Gen Z. These include a day in the life of videos, live streams, photography shoots, social media, videos and podcasts
www.notgoingtouni.co.uk
UCAS
(57:43 in the recording)
- UCAS is the most recognised brand in the education sector, with large brand trust and a huge student audience
- UCAS has a network of 4,500 UCAS school and college advisors, 250,000 attendees at Discovery Events, 1.5 million new registrants on the UCAS Hub each year, and 60 million visits to the UCAS website
- An independent charity that responds to what students want, as a result, UCAS has just introduced information on apprenticeships alongside university options, including vacancies and profiles, as a lot of students don’t know they can do an apprenticeship to lead to the job they want
- Students aren’t always getting the information they need, teachers don’t always know how to help students through the apprenticeship pathway as they didn’t take it themselves
- Less than half of students who apply for apprenticeships don’t have a positive experience doing so due to a lack of information, help, and support
- UCAS is working to change the image of apprenticeships
- The website now has a career finder/ apprenticeship search tool, presented next to undergraduate opportunities, taking away barriers for students to not know about apprenticeship opportunities
- Employers can also pay for personalised and featured campaigns, including brand awareness and placement opportunities, through email campaigns, paid social media and ads, and sponsored social and live shows
- UCAS host Discovery Exhibitions – face-to-face events for students where they can learn about different jobs, sectors, and industries and where employers can get in front of students (mostly year 12’s)
- From 2024 there will be an application service for apprenticeships done with the Department of Education, including apprenticeships in the UCAS Hub and an apprenticeship application service
- Their employer talent finder works with social mobility so employers can support students from more deprived backgrounds
www.ucas.com
Rise and Access Accountancy
(01:16:01 in the recording)
- Rise and Access Accountancy are programmes in partnership with the ICAEW that aims to widen engagement with schools
- Schools are generally more sceptical and time-poor than Universities. There is no standard setup and operations are more fragmented, schools also demand more value from employers who are engaging with them
- Employers need to take a flexible approach and fit their time around the school, demonstrate trust, focus on a longer-term relationship, bring in different expertise, and be thoughtful about who they need to reach – who is likely to already be aware of your industry and where to focus to widen talent pipeline and pool
- Rise is a UK-wide initiative aimed at offering students, aged between 14 and 16 from low socio-economic backgrounds, an opportunity to participate and gain skills in the workplace
- Work to equip the hardest-to-reach people with the skills they need to work – going to locations that don’t otherwise get employer engagement
- Rise wants employers to get involved to have more coverage across the UK to help increase EDI and social mobility
- Access Accountancy is a charity working towards everyone having an equal chance of accessing, and progressing within, the accountancy sector based on merit, not background
- Currently involves 25 professional bodies and accountancy firms, supporting employers to be able to reach and support talent
- Get involved as an employer; Access Accountancy offer data analysis and benchmarking about applications and who is progressing. They can identify what is needed and how things are performing
- Events and working groups about how to help the recruitment process
- Outreach – collective campaigns, lead generation, advice and guidance, promotion opportunities
- Advocacy – wider engagement and collective impact
www.rise-initiative.co.uk and www.accessaccountancy.org
Additional Resources
TheTalentPeople – Employer Roundtable
UCAS Apprenticeship vacancies search
