Will Gordo's news be good for you?

AT WEXO we think it’s important to keep you guys up to date with what the government, (or anyone else for that matter) are doing to help young people looking for work. So…

The government just announced The Young Person’s Guarantee. According to the Government, the guarantee will offer up to 470,000 training or work experience opportunities over the next 15 months, benefiting almost 100,000 youngsters straight away. It offers the chance of work through the Future Jobs Fund, work-focused training, a place on a community task force, help with self-employment and internships. Young people will still receive JSA (Job Seeker’s Allowance) while on the schemes. If they do not take up the offer, young people’s benefits will be affected.

It means a bit more freedom and funding to help develop your career. BUT we think they don’t go quite far enough and have one reservation about the plans: The government should be offering more incentives for businesses to pay their interns at least minimum wage. A graduate on Job Seekers Allowance for 6 months could legally be taken on for an internship and paid £46.85 per week? That could be even less than the travel and expenses bills met by some 14 year olds that we send on work experience placements. WEXO would like to see more action being taken to incentivise companies to recruit graduates in particular and pay them a respectable wage. Otherwise talk of a ‘lost generation’ could still become a reality.


More info on Young Person’s Guarantee – Press Association Coverage


Tell us what you think of the situation. Is the Young Person’s Guarantee Good news?

It’s much easier to be reactive than revolutionary and critiques by definition tend to be more critical than complementary. And so it seems today with the reviews of a new government guide – Parent Motivators: A parent’s guide to helping graduates find work.

It effectively encourages parents to show ‘tough love’ towards their graduate offspring and the most rational review I have read was by Graeme Paton in yesterday’s Telegraph but today the Telegraph are on the attack via Philip Johnstone. It is a very well written article. (I myself am spending the next few days working from home and oddly my mother seems to agree with its sentiment!). Johnstone is clearly well read (and as per a previous blog I agree with him on higher education policy) but surely the report is merely a guide – not a directive – and I suspect that some parents outside of the home counties (and even some within judging by my experiences) might find it useful.

I also stumbled upon the ‘Dude Where’s My Career ‘ (DWMC) blog response which is very amusing but like today’s Telegraph article it assumes that Peter Mandelson wrote it and that he should be concentrating on other things and wasting less money (NB: I am no fan of the government but let’s not forget that neither the Tories nor Mandy have ruled out working together when Labour are evicted from power on 25th March).

I confess, I haven’t read the report cover to cover and it might seem a little patronising but it was written by Denise Taylor (Award winning career coach and author of ‘How to get a job in a recession’) and not Mandy (though his Business Innovation and Skills department did produce it). Denise’s credentials as a chartered psychologist and MBA are substantiated by her experiences working with organisations ranging from Vodafone to Christian Aid. All this and from her Tweets (@amazingpeople), it would appear that she even reads NME so she can’t be all bad. In fact she’s probably better qualified than most to write such a guide and I suspect that BIS are merely endorsing it and giving her a platform.

The glaring omission from the report itself was obviously not to mention WEXO in the Useful links section. Joking apart though, the government’s shortcomings are better demonstrated by their failure to research and support private sector initiative and their tendency to try to do things (badly) themselves. We are actively promoting their BIS and LDA programmes to subsidise companies taking on interns and promote paid graduate endeavour (email info@wexo.co.uk for more details). But their own vehicle for promoting it probably cost the tax payer unnecessarily. As DWMC says “First up, we had the much-slated Graduate Talent Pool (“Wow, a load of unpaid internships – that’ll help pay off my £15k of debt…”). This is the very vehicle that could simply have combined private sector initiatives and reduced graduate unemployment with the investment allocated to incentivising companies to open their doors and remunerate them.


Robin Kennedy

There’s been a bit of debate recently on BBC etc on ‘Intern Abuse’. The discussion seems to focus on a) Job-hunting university leavers being warned against paying for services to help get them internships and b) Companies not paying their interns.

The BBC didn’t get round to publishing our feedback so here it is:

We operate on the basis of a ‘Freemium’ model where users can create profiles and search for opportunities for FREE but pay a one-off £10 membership fee which gives them a number of membership benefits (discounts, access to events etc) as well as the ability to identify the names of companies and make applications. In our view this does not constitute anything more than a very reasonable admin fee. Without some form of hurdle like this, companies would be inundated with speculative applications – one of the issues we seek to address. As it is, we find that there is a correlation between the quality (or relevance) of profiles/applications and those that are prepared to pay to join the network.

With advertising rates low, we have had to find ways to make our business model work – we are not yet profitable! To increase supply, companies can post opportunities for free on WEXO but pay us to help them find the right people.

With regard to unpaid internships, we encourage our companies to pay their graduate interns at least the national minimum wage (as legally required and as we have done ourselves) but we do not enforce it. This is a grey area though. I understand that a lot of the internships available on the Graduate Talent Pool are unpaid and that there are unpaid interns at both the BBC and in parliament! Exploitation is wrong but ultimately I would argue that market economics should dictate and if someone wants to work for free to gain valuable experience then they should be allowed to. We are however lobbying the government to subsidise paid internships to encourage companies to offer them.

Robin Kennedy

After graduating from university in August 2008 with a research masters in archaeology, I was fairly confident – despite the recession – that I would be able to find some kind of work, even if it wasn’t my dream job. Sixth months down the line, after numerous failed job applications, unreturned email enquiries, and useless job agencies, a friend suggested that I join WEXO.


After joining and applying for a few jobs, I quickly obtained some work experience working for WEXO itself, and out of this I obtained the internship I am currently doing: working for Intelligence Squared (IQ2), London’s premier debating forum. I am currently working in a small team, helping to build their new website. Not only do I have the chance to put to use the skills I gained at university, but I am also constantly adding new skills to my CV. In addition to helping source content for the website, I carry out research for the background information on the written articles and videos that will appear on the site, and provide input about its layout and style. But the main new skill I have learnt is how to use the software that allows us to add content to the site, and the associated testing and editing. This job was not something I had ever thought of doing when I graduated, but this internship has opened up a whole new career path for me.


What I would recommend about WEO is that it is more personalised than other websites that offer jobs or internships. When I first joined WEXO I was already tired of other websites emailing me details of jobs that were entirely unsuited to me and which seemed to have been chosen at random. Within weeks of joining WEXO I had gained a few days’ work experience there. Shortly after that they arranged for me to have an informal interview (a drink in a pub!) with someone from IQ2, and the next week I started working there. I am hugely grateful to WEXO for this. Although I have only been at IQ2 for two months, I already feel that I have greatly increased my chances for obtaining future employment in a range of roles.


Mark Roberts

The three-weeks of work experience I did with Quintessentially Escape this September (through WEXO) were just brilliant!

Having done a couple of internships before, I’d prepared myself for a bit of slave-labour, some coffee-tray-carrying and manic filing of dusty old documents, but it turned out to be the exact opposite. The application process was incredibly simple, just a click and an optional cover letter, and then, after a casual interview, I was away… Subsequent emails from the guys at Quintessentially showed me that they actually wanted me to come, and that I would in fact be useful to them (which is what any intern hopes for!) and on my arrival, having been greeted by an office filled with friendly faces, I was told to pull up a chair at my own desk, and presented with a list of interesting tasks to perform; letters, research, phone calls, website work….everything! Therefore, by the end of the work experience I’d been given a real insight into most aspects of the company.

The problem with work experience is that you usually feel like a bit of a waste of space; you’ve written to a company in the hope of an internship, they’ve begrudgingly agreed, and they make it pretty clear throughout that you’re a hindrance rather than a help. But Quintessentially, like any company advertising for interns on WEXO, really wanted help, so I was constantly busy and felt useful throughout. Moreover, they talked me through anything I didn’t understand, and by the end of the three weeks I really felt I’d had a proper taste of company-life.

Some people view unpaid work experiences as a bit of a chore that you have to struggle through in order to decorate your CV, but this certainly wasn’t; though it involved a lot of work, it was fun and has definitely helped me to work out which career-path I’d like to head down in the future… Thank you WEXO!

Nell Fane

I came out of university in the summer of 2008 thinking that I would walk into a job. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I had a nightmare for the next 6 months trying to find one. Interview after interview and reaching the final stages I was unable to stand out.


What WEXO has given me is a fighting chance to get one. It has allowed me the opportunity to show what I have got. I now am now in my seventh month and I have some crucial experience behind me. I am working in a small commercial team helping to sell video content to entertainment sites. I have already had small success directly bringing two large online retailers to trial which will hopefully go into contract.


Hopefully my Christmas present will be a job at this company. If not I will be in a much stronger situation to gain employment.


Greg Bailey