At hireful, we’re a youth friendly employer. And no, we aren’t talking about the fact that we let people wear trainers and hoodies in the office, or that our founders (who are not so young) have a youthful outlook on life. We’re really proud to have taken some real action to help young people start their careers.
We’re located in a tiny village called Strixton, Northamptonshire… and when we say tiny, we mean it – the village has roughly 14 houses and no through road. So, as you can imagine, the talent pool for experienced recruitment superstars is minimal (although, we have nabbed a few fab ones). Instead, we provide opportunities to people based more on talent and potential rather than experience. This often means that we’re welcoming school leavers and university graduates into our arms.
what we do to help…
Being able to help young people develop the skills they need to succeed in their career is really rewarding, especially because most of the apprentices and graduates we have taken on have now become part of the furniture – like Lester, who started as a Customer Experience Executive 8 years ago and is now our Head of Product. Which means he now makes all the important decisions on the direction that our recruitment software goes.
Not to mention our newest additions to the hireful crew. Our latest apprentices, Emily, Caitlin, Olivia and Will have been getting to grips with their new roles. As well as this, they have been taking part in the youth employment course – which is helping them ease into the working world and learn all the things they tend to forget to teach you in school. You know, like how tax works, confidence in the workplace and interview skills – although we’re hoping they won’t need that for a while now.
Here’s what a couple of them have said about the course:
“It’s very useful and has made me feel a lot more confident about taking on my new job roles” - Caitlin.
“They’re quite informative and I did learn several new things, the activities were fun to complete.”- Will.
If you haven’t crossed paths with our apprentices yet, we’re sure you will soon. Be sure to give them a special welcome – we can all remember how daunting our first professional job was!
extra info
If you’re looking for a few ways to become more of a Youth Friendly Employer, take a look at some of these resources:
Youth Employment UK – An independent, not–for–profit social enterprise founded in 2012 to tackle youth unemployment. A great place to start to see what you can be doing as an employer.
GOV UK: Kickstart Scheme – The Kickstart Scheme provides funding to employers to create jobs for 16 to 24 year olds on Universal Credit.
GOV UK: Employing an Apprentice – A good start to learning about what you and your apprentice needs.
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