Building a community of work-ready young people
Regardless of the pandemic – it is still a fundamental requirement that we build a community of work-ready young people. Find out how we are doing this in a COVID/post-COVID world.
For over 25 years, C+K has been the essential link between young people and the workplace. Every year, over 6,500 young people in Calderdale and Kirklees leave school. By the age of 19, 43% of young people will be in employment. Almost all of these will have had at least one careers session with our advisers which will have had a significant impact on their future decision making.
At C+K we are committed to improving the lives of young people and through our careers services, we seek to inspire teens and young adults to acquire the skills and aspirations to maximise their own potential.
A key component in this, is our engagement with local employers and organisations, involving them in shaping of our services. It is essential that we understand the local labour market so that we can manage the expectations of young people and ensure that they have the skills that employers require. Feedback that we receive from employers goes straight to our frontline careers advisers to pass directly on to young people accessing our services.
Work experience was traditionally one of the main opportunities that young people had, to get themselves ‘work-ready’. Unfortunately, this has been curtailed by the pandemic and, whilst we are unsure when it will resume, we haven’t sat on our laurels. We have recently launched a virtual work experience service, where pupils can gain an experience of the workplace via their computer. A number of employers have worked with us to provide video and other content. We don’t expect this to replace work experience in the future, but we fully expect it to be a complementary service that can be accessed 365 days a year.
As we continue to improve our services going forward, we want to bring employers and young people together as much as possible. Whilst many young people are aware of the multiple job sectors that exist, they are less aware of the companies and organisations that operate within them. In Summer 2021, we will be launching an exciting online careers platform where young people will be able to gain individual personalised careers information. Within the platform, we have built extensive capacity and opportunities for employers to showcase their opportunities and promote themselves to potential employees. In addition to editorial content, we will also be improving our Recruitline service which will enable the promotion of vacancies to thousands of job hunters.
We are keen to strengthen our links with all employers who share our commitment to improving the lives of young people. By working together, we can ensure their prospective employees have the right skills and aspirations, a good knowledge of the local labour market and easy access to appropriate vacancies.
