Youth unemployment rears its ugly head – Part 2/2

<Disclaimer: This is part 2 of ‘Youth Unemployment Rears Its Ugly Head”. For part 1 click here>

Companies

Corporations and businesses are often portrayed as the boogeyman in this story, and it’s easy to see why. They need the right people for their job openings and are not afraid to turn someone down if they don’t meet the requirements. It’s a case of the bad overshadowing the good.

A lot of companies, such as the one where I work, give people (both young and old) plenty of opportunities and chances to develop their skills or gain more experience. When they hired me a couple of months ago, I was fresh out of school with no experience but they still gave me a chance and it has been great so far. My temporary contract is ending soon and I’m looking at opportunities for me to keep working for them.

That doesn’t take away the fact that a lot of companies can do more though. There is a basis of truth when people say that graduates without experience never get a chance. I believe that manager are starting to realize that they have to offer chances to young adults without experience. The mentality of ‘hiring skills’ is slowly fading away to make room for the ‘hire behavior’-mentality. Yes, hiring people without experience or the exact right set of skills for the job might cost you more but you’ll get so much more in return if you choose to invest in new (and old) human capital. Offering training programs will increase retention and motivate your workers.

Look, there isn’t a collective hive mind in the world of business that can instruct every manager and CEO to look into hiring and training adults, but I believe we could all benefit from having our noses pointed in that direction. Either way, I’m hopeful for the future.

Unemployment man!

Applicants

Of course, there are certain things job seekers can do that help increase their chances on today’s labour market. It would be wrong of me to only point the finger at the society, companies and government. I don’t want to blame anyone or point out faults, it’s just that recent graduates really have no idea how to behave on the labour market or in professional life. That is something they can change through a few simple actions.

First of all, a lot of resumes I see are just plain bad. Graduates often have a nice amount of skills and competences to build on through their years of education and traineeships, but they lack the finesse to write it down on paper and make a killer resume. Typos and a poor lay-out are all too common. Pair that with missing or incomplete information and you have all the ingredients needed to make a bad first impression. It’s essential to have all the right information on your resume and still have it look great, professional. It needs to stand out from the rest of them, or else you won’t get noticed so easily. Now, I’m not saying people should make weird, over-the-top video resumes like Barney Stinson from CBS’ ‘How I Met Your Mother’:

Nonetheless, more attention should be paid to a resume. Let’s segway into my next point (which ties back to employment agencies and schools). There should be a mandatory job application training, whether in school or through one of the related employment services. Job application training will teach you the most basic skills needed to help you with your first steps onto the labour market.

There’s a lot of things applicants can do themselves to find a job more easily, I’m not going to (and I can’t) sum them all up but just know that if you’re a job seeker that has trouble finding a job, look to yourself first instead of blaming it on someone else.

My own suggestions

Now that I’ve summed up some initiatives and actions taken by the major players in today’s job market it’s time to highlight some of my own ideas on how to tackle youth unemployment.

First of all, take risks. I see a lot of my peers applying for a job in their own field of education. That’s only natural, but when you’ve been unemployed for months and haven’t even come close to landing a job it’s time to be bolder. In the words of Jean-Luc Picard: “To boldly go where no one has gone before”. That’s a bit of an overstatement of course, but it gets my point across. And remember, your first job doesn’t have to be your dream job. It’s meant as a stepping stone to what you want out of your (professional) life.

Secondly, companies should offer more chances to young graduates like I’ve mentioned before. Yes, it might cost more, but you still have an unspoken duty to society and your company. Not giving young adults a chance is bad for business in the long run. So don’t always hire the skills you need, hire the right behavior and teach them the skills they need. There’s plenty of financial support to do that here in Belgium (and in other countries).

Whatever you might think of HR, I believe it is and always will be a team effort. It’s a joint effort both on a ‘small’ scale like in a company or on a large-scale between various actors (such as governments, companies, schools and work agencies) in a country, state or region. It would benefit all stakeholders if we could all try to work together more. Like a well-oiled machine, every cog has to do its job so that the next cog can do theirs. If every little wheel in the machine tries to do its own thing thinking that they are operating in a vacuum it won’t work properly. It’s not different, in my opinion, for tackling (youth) unemployment.

Conclusion

I realize that I might sound like an elitist jerk who criticizes everything, but I’m only trying to open your eyes to make you see that changes have to be made now.

 If you think about it, most of the measures I summed up in part 1 and part 2 of this article actually take steps in the direction of a more cooperative and flexible environment for job seekers of all ages and backgrounds. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is something to admire and strive for. We all just have to work on it some more.

Do you know of any initiatives that your company, organisation, region or country is taking to tackle (youth) unemployment? Comment below and let me know.