Last Tuesday 15th September, I attended a 'Get Hired' event at The Prince's Trust. Before the event, I attended a session that MassChallenge had organised with the Trust. Here I learnt what great opportunities The Prince's Trust gives to hundreds of young people looking for jobs, internships, apprenticeships and even just work experience. For any startup with a lot going on and only a few pairs of hands, their programmes provide a brilliant opportunity to get the help of talented young people, without burning a hole in your pocket!
When I arrived I was surprised to see so many well known larger companies taking part in interviewing these young people. Such as, Costain, National Theatre, HSBC, Primark and more.
It got me thinking, why isn't there more startups attending events like these? There are so many large comercial enterprises who are jumping at opportunities such as these. Young adults going through The Prince's Trust programme could learn a tremendous amount from Startups, and vise versa. Startups are often creative, exciting and fast paced. There are many ways the smaller business could benefit from a passionate, enthusiastic and knowledgable young adult with fresh ideas. Maybe many startups see it as an unnecessary risk, explaining why there are less startups hiring apprentices and interns. Alternatively many do say hiring an apprentice is the way forward. It's cost effective, saves time, and engaging young people in fast growing projects which will influence their generation is always a great idea. That's why we are interested at Stickyworld, since we have plenty of ways for organisations to engage young people using our platform, such as the Twitter walkabouts.
Talking to the young people at The Prince's Trust event really surprised me - in a positive way. I had attended with an open and flexible mind, fully aware of the backgrounds these young people have come from, meaning finding somebody perfect for the role we had in mind may be very difficult. I was taken back by how much knowledge and experience they had; some even had degrees in forensic science! Bright, hardworking and skillfull young adults which have found themselves in a difficult situation unable to find work.
I've been working at Stickyworld for over a year and now based in the start up space provided by MassChallenge in Tobacco Dock. I'm sitting amongst 90 other amazing startups, and I feel many more of these companies need to grab these opportunities with both hands and absorb the total brilliance these young people have to offer.
But whatever the size of your organisation, if you are interested in hiring a young person, read my blog on National Apprenticeship Week and feel free to comment below. You can connect with me on twitter @laurenherman02 or if you want the employer's perspective ask @MAKohn.Thanks for reading this far. If you are an organisation that is already engaging young people in projects or within your company, then you might like to look at Stickyworld as an online engagement platform that could help you host clearer conversations about your projects.
If you are happy to put the coats on and do walkabouts this autumn, we are giving away a FREE portal for anyone working on young person engagement projects. To find out more, take a look at our webinar on how you can easily do this with minimum effort - it takes just 10 minutes of your time.
