To think businesses need to step up.

[wishiwasinbarbados]

• Or have my kids just been unlucky?

Both my kids have been let down/messed around by their jobs this year. Eldest secured a graduate job that should have started last Sept as he finished Uni, but during the summer, they Emailed him to say they'd pushed his start date back to Jan 26. No big deal we thought, but they then refused to give him a secure start date despite his best efforts in asking. He then got fed up and jumped ship and found himself another job to start this Sept. But he feels like he's wasted (he hasn't really) a year because of the first company.

Second child just finished Uni this summer and has been working part time for a company through her 3 years at Uni and was going to continue with them but full time for another year whilst she saved up to fund a Masters degree. However, a friend pointed out an advert published for her company with the pay significantly higher than what she is currently paid on a higher grade job! Kind of a worker role vs her team leader role.

Thinking about how many hoops the kids have to jump through to actually get a job these days, I think it's a pretty poor show to then treat people like this.
Me and Husband have always been self employed so don't know how common this sort of treatment is. Kids seem to think it's common to get pissed around. Is it?? Why can't people treat other people respectfully?

Sorry, long post. Thank you for reading!

It does sound poor about the first company. With the second I find it a bit hard to believe that if you did some further digging that you would not find out that the roles and responsibilities were not exactly comparable which might explain things.

But one background fact that is often overlooked is that the government have made it a lot more expensive to employ people increasing the minimum wage by more than inflation and increasing the tax employers pay on their employees can sound popular but the reality is that it deters employers from employing more people and the costs just get passed on to consumers through higher prices!

Child two has just been promoted from worker role to team leader role with a pay rise. The role advertised appeared to be basically for her old job, but being paid more than her new pay rise.

The second scenario is pretty common - attracting new talent often costs more than retaining talent. DD should ask for a raise. The first I have never heard of happening… that would leave many adults unable to pay their rent etc

I agree OP, the employment market it’s very difficult in general but particularly hard for young people starting out. There has been lots of stories similar to your experience in the media this week. What I find most difficult is the hoops they have to jump through even for the most basic entry level part time jobs. These days a student part time job requires a series of steps including online questionnaires annd tests before you ever get an interview. Don’t get me started on AI interviews to screen people out.

I know, it's been a real eye-opening experience seeing them vie for jobs. They've both said many companies just don't even bother to acknowledge an application.
Oh, also, DD has not been paid correctly for the last two months. All this whilst telling her in person how valued and a good asset she is. Luckily she works in SN childcare so jobs are more abundant for her. She's actively contacting other companies at the moment as she's pissed off.

And fingers crossed DC1's job will actually start this time. (He's had communication from them throughout the year to keep touching base.) His jobs were really hard fought for.

I've missed all the media stories, but will look some up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czx2qll4rlyo?app-referrer=deep-link

https://www.ft.com/content/16e2d97b-29e0-4a16-805e-f79ec2b15a5f?syn-25a6b1a6=1

Fingers crossed for your DCs OP, even getting an interview is an achievement these days so if they have secured employment that is a positive.

My DS spent dozens if not hundreds of hours when he started his final year at Uni and started applying for graduate scheme jobs. They were mostly so long drawn out and convoluted that he set up his own home-made database to track applications, stages, completion deadlines for each stage, etc. otherwise he was afraid he'd miss a deadline for some online quiz or task or pre-recorded interview, or pre-recorded presentation. It became an all-encompassing job in itself. Trouble is the bigger firms use recruitment consultancies - he did notice that sometimes different employers were using the same tests/quizzes etc the only difference being the background colours and logos were using the employer's marketing as the only tangible difference - obviously using the same recruitment agency. Some of the online tasks were utterly ludicrous and clearly designed just to test resilience, i.e. record how long and how many times they tried to do a task which turned out was impossible to gauge whether they were the kind to give up easily or doggedly carry on. He utterly hated it all, until he started getting to the final stages where the system transferred him to the respective firm's own HR/recruitment depts which was when he finally got real person-to-person contact in real time online interviews. They just use it all as a way of "weeding out" to get the best candidates and don't waste time on the others. He got so demoralised by the whole thing, I'm surprised he didn't give it up. But when he did short listed at the final stages, he actually really enjoyed proper live online meetings with the HR dept staff and managers etc. I actually wonder if those firms realised just how bad were the recruitment firms procedures? It does seem to be more a test of resilience and stamina rather than their qualifications, experience, personality, aptitude etc.

Gah, the FT article is behind a paywall. But the other stories are pretty grim aren't they.

Well I think my kids have been fairly lucky then. DD has worked or volunteered since she was 15, and DS has done well to get the offers he's got.

It would all be a lot better if the Government made it easier for small firms to employ youngsters, reduced the cost of employing them, set up a grant/support scheme that was easy to use, reduce a lot of the burden of dealing with the apprentice scheme and/or colleges etc. I'd say we should introduce a modern version of the YTS,JTS and ETS schemes of the 1980s where small firms could easily take on a young or unemployed member of staff paid for initially by the Government for x number of months. Small firms employ more than any other sector, yet they're the ones who've typically stopped recruiting. Bigger firms are better able to cope with the admin and bureaucracy of the apprenticeships and other support schemes that are "bureaucracy" heavy.

I'm a small business accountant, and literally none of my current small business clients (100 or so) either employ a youngster/trainee nor have any plans to do so. It's never been so bad. Back in the 80s when I started, it was typical for small firms to have a trainee/youngster, even sole traders/self employed often had one, who they'd train up, but back then it was simpler, less bureaucratic, less expensive etc., and of course, there wasn't the risk of being sued for compensation for some kind of "ism" if they were let go!

Was your ds first job accountancy/consultancy type as I've heard of many doing this...in 2008, covid era and now as AI is starting to bite.

Did he dump the first job and then look for another company...could he have held onto the job offer in case it did start in January?

Well done on him on getting another job as it is tough out there. There are too many Grads for not enough jobs, yet it seems the Uni sector are still over offering just to get revenue

In terms of graduate starts, they may have “over-recruited” expecting that one or more might drop out, and then when they didn’t happen, deferred the start of your DC to Jan hoping someone else will have left/they could afford the extra role. It’s a shitty practice, but in the past probably worked out quite well - now with so many looking for jobs, the turnover is more static.

Your second paragraph is a disingenuous excuse, given that salaries have dropped massively in real terms since 2008. Yes the minimum wage has gone up but they are paying much less generally.

Salaries in the UK average £8000 a year less than German salaries after tax,

UK employers are greedy (and too lazy to train people).

Yes, DS said applying for Graduate jobs was like a full-time job, whilst studying for your final year at uni at the same time.

Yes, his first job was in consultancy (Engineering). It sounds like the over recruiting thing happened then.

I'm not unsympathetic - for any individual it is a rotten process - but the combination of many applicants using AI themselves and the sheer number of applicants due to the dire jobs market that it is genuinely hard to know the right way to sift through and find who is really suited.

I recently advertised an early career position. It got over 200 applicants within a week, around 80% of whom met the basic essential requirements. Because I think our applicants deserve the courtesy of a human assessing their application, I have gone through them all myself, on top of my existing full time workload. I stuck to my principle, but honestly there were points I wished I had just used an agency and/or AI screening! I can see why companies do it, which isn't something I expected to say - after all, resilience and determination are important qualities in themselves.

If you are receiving UC you are expected to spend 30 odd hours a week looking for work. Also apply for numerous jobs a week. So sounds just like what people on UC are expected to do, it’s shit.
Also my DD did numerous hour and hours of unpaid work trails. Then they still couldn’t be arsed to say you didn’t get job or even give feedback!

@Magicalgqueen That's awful. This is why I think companies should step up and treat people with a bit of dignity and respect.

This - I'm at that awkward stage where I really need an extra pair of hands to take on all the work I'm offered but the risk is just too high.

I am outsourcing what I can but it's not an ideal solution. I really do need a trainee/apprentice

In today's bbc story, 'Tailor your CV to the job description' was one top tip. Talk about stating the bleedin' obvious. Do graduates with masters; degrees, as this young woman is, really not know that? I was applying for hundreds of jobs - this tip helped me get one - BBC News

Also today:
Marks and Spencer is launching a new training scheme for young people trying to get on the career ladder in a bid to tackle what it called the "growing youth unemployment challenge". Aimed at 16 to 24-year olds, it will create 1,000 training places in the UK and Ireland over the next 18 months. M&S launches new traineeship for 1,000 young people - BBC News

I find everyone says tailor your CV, but no one shows or tells you how. I showed a bunch of social work graduates how to tailor one of their cvs to a role that was advertised and they all sat there in stunned silence.

I think the issue is that companies are making a lot more cuts and evaluating roles, which explains the first example. Maybe the job was seen as a viable offer when first made, but then got pushed back purely as the company became uncertain whether they could actually offer the position anymore.

The second example is rubbish, and you mention it being childcare. I'm a TA and one of my colleagues only found out when a job advert went out that she was being paid at the lower MTA rate for all her hours as a TA when she moved into that role, rather than the TA band. She had asked at the time of being given the TA role if the pay band was the same and had been told yes! On seeing the advert she went straight to complain and did manage to get out onto the correct band and got some back pay (but once taxed lost out and didn't apply it right from the start of her contract either!).
I think so many places want to cut costs they will do anything they can now.

Not to mention any surplus tax would soon be swallowed up by increased benefits bill to the unemployed..

And five minutes later there will be a thread about how so many working people being on Universal Credit while working as wages have not kept up with the cost of living. Any attempt to raise salaries and employers are fucking howling.