Paying to find young person a first job

[mothersdaywoe]

Has anyone tried this, its not expensive £500 for coaching, CV analysis, career advice BUT no guarantee of employment at the end.
Its been a year now, DC is depressed and failing further and further behind

What about considering a short term role as a Learning Support Assistant in a secondary school? it gives you a taste of teaching as a career. Most sec schools really want well qualified graduates with recent experience of GCSE exams. Middle aged women with no recent school experience don't offer much in a secondary setting whereas young grads are brilliant. We took on a young grad as a TA in his first job. He is now a Deputy Head in a large Comp. There are generally lots of young teachers in a Sec school and the social life is good. Lots of ideas in an educational setting for careers too.

Totally understand op, it took my 18yo 9 months and hundreds of applications to finally get a job in a shop. It's worlds away from when we were younger and you could click your fingers and get a job in McDonald's or a cafe. For some reason no one is employing young people and its so disheartening for them.

Highly academic DD - RG uni etc is working on min wage as a PA in a large multi national law firm - started on a 6mth contract, now extended by another 12 months. Her part time job (local corner shop) where she was trained on the Post Office seemed to impress them!

Starting in any job with a company where there might be future opportunities- even as a temp, might be better rather than seeking a straight career path.

Her university might offer careers advice for free - lots offer careers advice for life now.

Before I was parting with any money I would want to check that the qualifications and experience - that is quite pricey for that kind of support. Are they a qualified career guidance practitioner?

Well no because there's no guarantee of a job which means there won't be a job which means it's a rip off. Join an agency and they won't charge the job seeker. This firm is dodgy AF.

Plus £500 is a lot to cough up for an unemployed person who's never worked. Maybe not for you but you'd be better off flushing it down the toilet.

Are they on LinkedIn?

@mothersdaywoe
What is her degree in? did she do an internship during her degree?
You need to provide information and not be snipping at ppl offering help.
Most students build up contacts whilst still at uni, my DD is doing a civil service internship this summer between 3rd and 4th year. She works pt and volunteers with a homeless community group ad hoc.
Im getting the impression that you and your DD thought the degree was a shoo in to a career.
And no I would not spend £500 in what sounds like a scam.

If they were guaranteeing a job that would be more of a red flag because nobody can actually do that can they?
Recruitment agencies are paid by employers to find niche skills that the employers can’t find themselves
They can definitely find her and thousands like her themselves

The job centre staff aren’t qualified. Either a friend worked for Dwp during the pandemic as a job coach and had zero experience in that field.

Applying for jobs (cv creation, personal statement writing, pre-contact with a company, through to interviews and presentations, etc.) is a skill in itself.

Especially nowadays when the process is more and more set up to protect potential employers from accusations of things like unconscious bias. And so questions are set, things are based on scoring criteria (ticking certain boxes in answers and such).

While the aim there is (or once was) wholly good as it’s about fairness, sadly the reality is that it shuts down any real ability for interviews to become conversations and for employers to look beyond the scoring criteria. And means that those who have the skills suited to job applications stand a better chance of employment (and certainly in being more successful at getting into the later interview stages) than those less good at that self promotion and playing the game.

Ultimately it’s a disadvantage for all. I’ve known some people who are completely useless in the actual role having great success in getting jobs, and others who are and could be completely brilliant in a role fall in the early stages because they lack the skills to play the job application game. Sadly being good at interviews and self promotion doesn’t equal talent. (Just look at so many of our MPs).

So as sad as it is that we need to play these games - and so do things like pay a company to help with cvs and interview techniques - it’s probably worth doing to get on to a good footing.

Have you looked at the offerings from
your Council? Ours do careers fairs fairly regularly and they are actually helpful - incl.
CV reviews and coaching.

If you give more details about field and types of jobs she is seeking you might get better answers.

So is she still working for Tesco? Your posts are a bit confusing.

Don’t wholly dismiss recruitment agencies.

I work in a field where we recruit heavily from the same few agencies.

As I said, it would help if you gave a bit more info about what quals she has, what field etc

If she joins Linkedin Premium there are lots of free workshops on there which might help too.

Agree with making sure LinkedIn up to date and attending networking events. Local law society events are often open to all. My husband was speaking at an event recently and there were only 2 or 3 students there (it was coincidentally held in an uni building so easy for students to get to) and they got 1-1 time with lots of people in the profession. Other professions will have similar networking opportunities.
The problem with graduating a year ago and then gap on cv is employers look at this and form a view. No service offering an introduction can override this.

@MumbleBumbleAppleCrumble

”Especially nowadays when the process is more and more set up to protect potential employers from accusations of things like unconscious bias.”

Are you saying removal of unconscious bias from the process is a bad thing?

Is she actually working at the moment? Or did she work at Tesco for six years previously? If she's not working now I would strongly suggest she does - it looks much better on a CV. Bar work, cleaning, whatever.

Asking how a young person gets into a career is very different to asking how they get a job (any job). You'll need to give us an idea of what she wants to do - what's her degree in? What does she think she'd like to do? Does she want a graduate scheme (in which case Tesco would be an obvious starting point), or does she want to do an actual job?

Why have you not responded to the comments asking what sector she's looking for work in/what she studied? I mean, if you're legitimately looking for advice here, this would be the most relevant information to share.

@mothersdaywoe "Recruitment agencies are paid by employers to find niche skills that the employers can’t find themselves
They can definitely find her and thousands like her themselves"

Not so. Employers use recruitment agencies as outsourced suppliers because they don't have (and often don't need) the capability to create and manage job advertisments, manage the initial response stages in a structured way, sort through hundreds or thousands of initial applications and draw up long-lists and short-lists. Employers also use recruitment agencies in order to remain anonymous, at least at the early stages of recruitment, so that they're not swamped by unsolicited applications.

Unsolicited applications like it was suggested that she was to dedicate her energies to by earlier posters, they want protecting from those do they?
Understandably it’s so contradictory and confusing for young people

She also needs to consider whether it’s realistic to get an entry level job in her chosen career without a Masters.

Depends on the sector

Um no. Did you read everything I wrote? I think I used the term ‘wholly good’ when talking about the original intentions behind it…

I’m saying that the ability to ‘think’ has been removed from the process and so rather than creating a process that is actually fair for all, we now have a process which is set up to reward those with a singular skill: being good at job applications.

That means that the nervous, those that might have great thoughts but aren’t so good at articulating them or using the buzz words, those that have great skills and qualifications in slightly different areas, are all disadvantaged by a process that is set up to be about ticking certain boxes. It’s inflexible.

And it’s edging towards bonkers. For instance, I’ve sat in many an interview (on both sides of things) when a question is answered that goes beyond the question and actually answers the next question, and yet the next question is still asked. And know of potentially brilliant people not even making it to interview because their skills or qualifications don’t quite match up. My partner was recently mortified that the team couldn’t find a way to give someone (they knew from another team) an interview because they ticked so few boxes in the application. They all knew this person would have been incredible. The HR machine said no.

If she’s low confidence and depressed that will come across in her applications.
What are her hobbies and interests?
Rather than focusing just on career related experience I’d encourage her to look at anything to boost her confidence.
My dd is 20 but has been a guide young leader and worked two summers at American summer camp. She has no intention of working with children for her career but the experience has been great for her confidence and skills.

I did read everything you said which is why I asked you a question? I wanted to understand your thinking. Not sure why that upset you, if it has.

That’s precisely the kind of support that this company is offering, Direction focus accountability networking events to build confidence going with them to the networking events holding their hands.
The much more expensive package which can be upgraded if the cheaper package is working for the young person they will quite literally go with them to the interview and sit and wait for them outside to debrief and I guess hype them up before they go in