Youth unemployment is a growing problem while, at the same time, leaders in business and industry complain that school leavers and graduates are ill-equipped for the world of work. CareerStart aims to help young people take that vital first step on the employment ladder by providing them with some significant and meaningful work experience.
HR consultant Sue Gibson, who has been helping to develop Cambridge Network’s online recruitment portal, Recruitment Gateway, has had discussions with both employer organisations and jobseekers. These led to the belief that Cambridge Network was well placed to create and run a new work experience programme to address current issues.
“The concept of CareerStart came to light about three months ago and Cambridge Network’s combined abilities in recruitment and training (Learning Collaboration), as well as its non-profit status, made it the ideal facilitator for such a programme,” she said.
“This is not about the privileged and well connected few, or the unmissable and obviously well qualified. This is about everyone else – the young people who often struggle to take the first steps to becoming productive and useful,” added Sue.
“CareerStart brings together our experience of connecting both jobseekers and employers and our unique knowledge of the local business environment,” explains the Network’s COO, Hilary Laing.
“Our members constitute the majority of companies in and around Cambridge, and several of them have already responded enthusiastically. We’re asking for additional companies to take part in the trial – due to start in early February – by committing to host one or more young people on the scheme.
“We’re also looking for young people to join the programme. We will be at the Cambridge News Job Fair on Wednesday this week, where we’ll be asking interested people about their skills and ambitions, with a view to matching them with opportunities at host companies.”
The programme aims to:
• Offer placements to 18–24 year olds (possibly 16-24) who have no significant previous work experience
• Provide (ideally) 3 - 6 months’ work experience
• Require host companies to undertake:
- to pay young people at least the applicable minimum wage,
- to provide some off-job training during the placement.
“There isn’t a budget within Cambridge Network to cover this initiative on any significant continuing basis,” Hilary added, “so we are looking for voluntary donations to put into a ring-fenced fund to kick-off this exciting programme. We are confident that we will be able to secure more formal funding for CareerStart once we have shown that it works.”
Please contact careerstart@cambridgenetwork.co.uk if:
- you have a business that could offer a placement
- you are a young jobseeker looking to gain some valuable work experience
- you would like to offer some financial support to the programme
- you just want to find out more.