A New Model For Graduate Training Schemes
BT’s announcement that it is to discontinue its graduate training scheme is the latest blow to what is becoming known as the ‘lost generation’. The number of young people (18-24 year olds) not in work or education is now 835,000, one hundred thousand more than even a year ago.
There are inherent flaws in graduate training schemes, from the point of view of both the employer and the graduate. But there is a model which would address these flaws, and which if implemented would help reduce the number of unemployed young people.
From the employer’s perspective graduate training schemes are an expensive way of recruiting talent. When economic times are good they do provide a pool of future managers for the company, but when times are hard and companies do not need extra talent, the costs outweigh the benefits. This no doubt is one of the main reasons why BT is closing its scheme.
From the graduate’s perspective, training schemes threaten to pigeonhole them into a career before they are ready. In our work at Career Energy we meet many people in their late twenties or early thirties who find themselves stuck in careers they do not want because a training scheme in their early twenties corralled them into making enduring decisions long before they were ready.
So if employers do not want to commit to employing their graduate trainees, and if recent graduates are not ready to make a long term career decision, a solution needs to be found which gives both sides greater flexibility.
The answer is to take graduate training schemes back to the drawing board. Rather than each company running its own scheme, a consortium of companies drawn from different industries would jointly train a pool of graduates. This would enable the young people to experience a range of different working environments over the four or five years of the scheme and make a much more informed decision as to their future career direction.
At the same time each company in the consortium would be free to cherry pick talented trainees who they saw as having potential and offer them the opportunity to leave the scheme and work full time for the company. There would be no compulsion on either side and were the scheme to be underpinned by government funding then cost-benefit balance would be achieved.
This is just one of many possible solutions to youth unemployment. Sadly, the biggest problem unemployed young people face is a lack of creativity on the part of the policy makers.
Related posts:
- Radical Solutions For Youth Unemployment The tragedy of one in six young people being unemployed...
- The Sorcerer’s Apprentice The apprenticeship scheme, created by government and fronted by Alan...
- A Great Opportunity We have reached the point, common to all recessions, at...
- A Good Idea For Gap Year Graduates The new government funded gap years for graduates are to...
- The Trouble With The CBI’s Apprenticeship Proposal The CBI have called on the government to spend £125m...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Tags: Career Advice, Career Change, Career Energy, Career Planning, Graduate Training Scheme, graduates, job, job search, Redundancy, Training, unemployment, Youth Unemployment
Harry Freedman's new book How To Get A Job In A Recession is available now. Click here to buy.
Have the Career Energy blog sent to your inbox daily. Click on the Entries RSS link on the right of the page or set up a feed in your e-mail programme
Take our 10 minute career advice FaceBook quiz and find the right career for you. Click here.