After completing my part 1 in Architectural Design, I decided it was time for a career change. I was lucky enough to work for a year abroad in Spain as an interior designer but had always has a passion for other sectors within of the design industry such as graphics, film and photography. In my spare time I travelled and worked with friends on small design projects, furthering my personal experience and advancing my design abilities.

Having decided to move to London, I found out about WEXO and decided to sign up. The process was simple, quick and easy and within a matter of days, one of the team called me with multiple opportunities. One particular opportunity stood out the most – the chance to gain experience working within the music industry for a well-known music artist as a Creative Assistant.

Currently based in SW London, I am lucky enough to living right next to work. I have been working at the studio for 2 months now and it has proved fantastic in furthering my career ambitions. The role has involved working with a multitude of different professions in a close environment – sound engineers, PA’s, music artists, graphic designers, managers, stylists and musicians. Everyone does a little bit of everything, whether its sorting out visas for the band to perform abroad, or working on the design and contents of lyric books.

I currently spend much of my time in the archive/design room that I helped to tidy and organise in order to maximise the potential selling of merchandise (t-shirts/poster etc). Working with so many talented people in their own field has encouraged me to learn new programs in my spare time, such as Final Cut Pro, as video editing has become of huge interest to me. I have also spent a great deal of time advancing my knowledge of programs that I was already familiar with such as Photoshop and Illustration.

Fun perks have also included attending backstage events, witnessing how both the crew and band combine to create a successful performance – and how vey hectic and exciting it all can be!

Sally

I had previously been working in an office job in Slough and was looking for a new challenge. I wanted a role which involved lots of interaction with different people and allowed me to move about rather than being stuck in an office all day. My friend saw the Olympics DVLM role on the WEXO website and advised this would be right up my street. I have currently only been in the role for 2 weeks but have already had some great experiences.

I am based in the Olympic village in Stratford which is currently still a building site as the village looks to be completed in early April. However the buildings are already erected and thus the site already looks very impressive. Finishing touches are being put on the surrounding land as trees are installed and rooms are being furnished and decorated. It is a refreshing change to travel into Stratford everyday, an area completely rejuvenated by the Olympics, soaking up the atmosphere of Westfield and the buzz of the Olympic spirit at the athletes’ village. This is enough to get me motivated for work every day on its own!

The role itself has currently involved overseeing operations of the site. The main challenge of this so far has been to motivate and gain the respect of workers who are the same age as me or older and more experienced. I have found the best way to do this is to lead by example and muck in, as well as showing them respect by asking them for the best advice on how to complete a task.

The UPS Olympics team is based in Canary Wharf and I have also had the chance to visit the offices here and partake in training. The highlight of this was the staff meeting held recently. This was a chance to meet really important people responsible at the highest level for logistics at the Olympics. Even though many people are employed by different companies, there is a real sense of one team spirit as everyone is excited to pull together and deliver the best Olympics possible for London! Everyone is really down to earth and a lot of fun, interested in you and your story, no matter how high a level they operate at! We all went out afterwards around Canary Wharf for a couple of drinks and to exchange stories.

I envisage my role evolving a lot in the coming months as the building on the site is completed and athletes start to arrive, which is really exciting as I am not sure what challenges and surprises will be around the corner. However it is great to know that whatever happens there is a whole team of people behind me willing to help any way they can!

Matthew Hill

Yesterday, I was asked to speak at the ‘Winning Internships’ event hosted by the London Careers Group (the careers advisory service for almost every university in London). There were an impressive selection of over 300 employers there ranging from BSkyB to Morgan Stanley and the intriguingly named MyChocolate to the flamboyant philanthropic millionaire, Felix Dennis’s self named publishing company. The latter even sent both a director and a highly entertaining intern to talk about their positive experiences of working with paid internship schemes using the STEP programmes that we are proud to have been running for over 2 years.

The other speakers at the event included STEP’s CEO, Phil Donnelly and Jon Heuvel, (Chair of The Skills and Employment Forum, London Chamber of Commerce and Industry) who took us through the legal angle on internships which largely dovetailed with our own perspective. I was actually filling in for the Universities Minister David Willets and noted the disappointment that most of the audience must have felt, expecting a politician who studies universities and getting someone who simply studied politics at university. I’m grateful for the positive feedback I received though for talking about the theory of internships, the issues surrounding them and using our work with UPS and the Olympics as a case study for how internships can work in practice. For those of you asking or interested, the slides are here.

As I am always stressing, the critical issue for me is distinguishing internships from work experience and understanding who derives the value which dictates remuneration. In ‘Intern Nation’ author Ross Perlin’s words, through unpaid internships,“all of us – employers, parents, schools, government agencies, and interns themselves – are complicit [albeit subconsciously] in the devaluing of work, the exacerbation of social inequality, and the disillusionment of young people in the workplace”. In the absence of the government prioritizing graduate employment as a policy or investment focus, it is up to all of us to work together to address this. We should not be regulating, naming and shaming those that don’t pay their interns, we should we educating, incentivising and encouraging them to change their approach.

Having done the first WEXO Summer Fete at UCL and our first ever event at the Guardian London Graduate Fair (run by The Careers Group) it was fitting to be involved. What struck me most was the enthusiasm from employers for doing the right things by graduates whether it be for moral or legal reasons. My thanks to The London Careers Group for involving us.

Robin Kennedy

Looking for a job in the music business is incredibly intimidating and can be a soul destroying process. Six Months into a colossal search I came across WEXO.

After applying to a Music synching company I visited ‘WEXO Towers’ to have a good old fashioned informal chat with Robin. In my experience, the average recruitment consultant just wants his commission even i f you end up in a tortuous role. Robin actually seemed more concerned that I followed my ‘dream’.

I went away with much more clarity and continued to crack on and whittle down my options.

Six months later I’m sitting in a cool, spacious office overlooking the Strand, working as Robin’s assistant. I’ve organised an album launch for Mano de Dios, am putting together a 2012 gig schedule and am overseeing the shooting of a music video. To add another string to my bow I’ve been helping recruit 90 Deputy Logistics Managers (most of them graduates) for UPS at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Sometimes talking to graduates and people looking to build their careers in something exciting and innovative is surreal – because it was me last year, and now I’m helping them (with the assistance of the WEXO team’s guidance and their vast network and knowledge).

There is never a dull moment, not with such variety. One day I can be in the office finding suitable candidates for fresh roles, the next I can be checking out a picking up a ham for our office lunch from shop in Battersea. My favourite part is the learning and the company.

There are some incredible opportunities out there but you have to dig deep. Sometimes you have to take the ‘scenic route’ but there is nothing better than actually ending up somewhere you look forward to going to each day.

I’ll wrap it up there, I have some ham to eat.

Dominique Edmonds

As often as the media writes about how hard the current generation of school and university leavers are finding it to build valuable and rewarding careers, employers complain just as much about something broken in our education system. They see a lack of preparedness for the work of world – the wrong skill sets and attitudes, low ‘employability’. Valid feedback perhaps but it is among the current crop of business owners that the concept of the ‘unpaid internship’ has developed, and the habit of rarely replying to online job applications become the norm.

Stressed employers, under-prepared young people, a barely hidden culture of exploitation that more than occasionally leads to a dysfunctional system that serves no-one. Yet at the same time two truths remain:

1. In these tough times business owners need “stars” and “A-players” more than ever.

2. There is an incredible pool talent waiting to work with entrepreneurs and business owners. This new generation are more often than not talented, driven by values beyond money, fascinated by entrepreneurs and probably the most ambitious yet in terms of what they believe they can do. (7 of my colleagues at The Bridge remind me of this daily)

Just as Rushanara Ali, MP for Bethnal Green, saw for herself with the successful Fastlaners project in her constituency, great results can be achieved. The challenge is finding the win-win commercial model to provide something that lasts.

Which is what the team of entrepreneurs, business school faculty and leadership specialists behind The Bridge have come together to do. Our model is to build an eco-system of growing businesses, ambitious young people and The Bridge team. Everyone puts in, everyone takes out and no-one pollutes. Real paid work; the most personalised, modern training and development; young people delivering tangible commercial results. Our ‘Enterprise Community’ provides its population with ongoing support.

Our programmes strip away the theory and focus on what really counts:

* a high personalised learning experience – every Bridge associate has a performance coach throughout their 6 months with us
* the precise skills entrepreneurs need in their team members to help their business grow – taught by people who do this in their day job
* learn by doing – live business challenges replace bums on seats in the lecture theatre
* large doses of inspiration from people who have done incredible things
* micro class sizes, continual personalised assessment and feedback
* a focus on deepening an individual’s strength, confidence, and communication

And there is no better place to talk about this than here at WEXO with Robin and his team, who continue to do great things in this space.

Come along to our Open Wednesdays events to find out more…

Tom Hickman
Founder & Managing Director
www.bridge21c.com

The clans united yesterday in the name of increasing the number of apprenticeships in Central London. Lord and Lady Flight kindly hosted a diverse group of individuals and organisations (list below) committed to improving youth employment prospects in Westminster and beyond. We were fortunate enough to have John Hayes, the Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Simon Waugh, the Chief Executive of National Apprenticeship Service to hear us out.

I was introduced to Lady Flight, a Westminster Councillor, a couple of months ago. Through her involvement with the Sir Simon Milton Foundation she has been championing both the wellbeing of older people – through a day in the national calendar, Silver Sunday, to celebrate them – and the empowerment of young people through increased employment prospects largely via apprenticeships. Most of Lady Flight’s team are VOLUNTEERS:

“Volunteers do not have any contract of employment or contract to perform work or provide services. They are not workers and therefore are not covered by the National Minimum Wage Act 1998. This means they do not qualify for the national minimum wage (NMW)” http://tinyurl.com/BizLinkNMW

Volunteering is both necessary and commendable but as I have consistently argued in former blogs (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), even if it was ever justified for ‘interns’, in an economy where youth unemployment is at record highs (22% in the UK – even WITH the 457,200 new apprentices) and companies are using internships as a vehicle to test out potential employees (who are increasingly saddled with debt), graduates cannot be expected to be unpaid volunteers. Today we seemed to agree that social mobility is highly desirable but unpaid internships discriminate against people who simply can’t afford to work for free. For me, this is more of a moral issue. I wouldn’t feel comfortable not paying my interns (why should they earn any less than my cleaner?) and I don’t think they’d work as hard if I didn’t. And if we have to take it this far, ‘Internships’ might not have a legal status (www.tinyurl.com/DirectGovDef) but unpaid internships are illegal! (www.tinyurl.com/BizLinkNMW)

To make any significant impact on youth unemployment we need to define our terms. Only in doing so will the 33,000 companies in Westminster be able to better engage the 3,200 NEETs. The same is true nationwide. Companies need clear and concise guidelines as to their options and obligations when taking on young people. These should be defined by who they are for, how long the engagements last, who derives the value and so how much needs to be paid. We suggest that the following definitions are adhered to:

1. WORK EXPERIENCE: Short placements (generally 1-2 weeks), usually for younger people (16-18), to get a ‘taste’ of the working world but not involving manual labour. They do not need to be paid (because the young people derive the lion’s share of the value) though companies should be encouraged to pay expenses.
2. INTERNSHIPS: 1-3 month placements, largely for undergraduates and increasingly graduates, which should be paid for legal AND moral reasons given that the company derives financial value which should be shared. (Some argue that internships should be abolished all together but their flexibility makes them useful for both employers and young people and if paid they are valid employment vehicles).
3. APPRENTICESHIPS: 1-4 year employment and training schemes for those over the age of 16 who choose not to continue their studies either at school or university. The host company derives approximately half the value of interns (as half the time is training) so the NMW is approximately half (£2.60). Employers should be encouraged to pay more and often do. Where possible travel should be subsidised to help apprentices (those in Full Time Education have their bus travel subsidised but not those in apprentices?)

If guidelines like these are subscribed to and brokered by all, then I believe companies will become increasingly more inclined to open their doors to young people. I am not in favour of further regulation just encouragement, education and incentives from government. We are not in the business of naming and shaming those that don’t pay interns (others are), rather we are in favour of persuading companies that it is the right thing to do. If Europe is prepared to invest EUR 22Bn into young people and the DWP (Department for Work & Pensions) Work Programme is picking up some of the funding from the disbanded Future Jobs Fund, at the very least why can’t the government invest in a marketing programme that will educate the masses? Mishaps like the Poundland scandal could be avoided if genuine work experience was defined, understood and undertaken (work experience should be subsidised by the JSA, manual labour should not). As well as focusing on apprenticeships, the government can’t afford to ignore the plight of graduates who are either in unpaid internships or unemployed. According to HESA 28% of graduates who left UK Universities in 2006 were still unemployed 3 years later and perhaps 38% of graduates today are on the dole. So to address youth unemployment in Westminster or anywhere else, internships and graduate jobs need to be fostered as much as apprenticeships.

We will leave it to those better placed to document the proactive discussion yesterday on apprenticeships per se. We understand that in countries like Switzerland only 16% of young people go to university. We understand that the earning power of those remaining in apprenticeship schemes could exceed those going to university. That this country once encouraged 50% of young people to go to university however requires that now it also needs to help them find employment – paid employment. We understand that there is a deficit reduction strategy and acknowledge that the UK is blessed with low interest rates and a strong credit rating but with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) falling in the last quarter, we are on the brink of recession when the US (which IS investing in recovery – perhaps too readily) saw its GDP rise 2.8% in the last quarter. The point is that there could be clever ways to invest in helping a potentially lost generation. As yesterday demonstrated, collective discussion can generate ideas, produce partnerships (Big Society or otherwise) and potentially improve the status quo. We are particularly looking forward to the ‘2012 Opportunities’ lunch on 15th March with The Westminster Council & Westminster Kingsway College.

It was discussions like these that generated our partnership with STEP. Their programmes make it more financially efficient for companies to take on graduates (first using paid internships but 50% of these have turned into full time jobs). They have delivered more than 23,000 paid projects since they started in 1986 and for the last 2 years we have been helping deliver them. Recently they have helped us and UPS find 90 young people (largely graduates) to work at the London 2012 Olympic Games and we hope some of these roles will turn permanent or at least give the the skills to acquire jobs elsewhere. We are proud to have been selected to lead this initiative and are talking to other companies about working with us in similar ways. If the government was to revert back to incentivising companies to offer paid internships (as it did when we first started working with STEP) then even more progress could be made. We have suggested that companies (of a certain size) paying VAT should be able to recoup the cost of a paid intern (£3,600 + VAT) for 3 months from it. If the ROI (Return on Investment) of a graduate over 3 years is 500% (as has been suggested), then this would be an investment and from an accounting perspective, it would be funded from future receipts. More companies would then be in a position to chip in and mentor the next generation.

With the right thinking and collaboration, we can get young people back into work. We are looking into launching the Youth Employment Syndicate (YES) for those committed to this. Both interns and apprentices have a role to play in the economy but Dylan was right again, they should ‘do it for pay’.

Robin Kennedy

Our thanks to Lord and Lady Flight for including us in the discussions. Other organisations invited or represented at today’s meeting included: Westminster City Council, The London Apprenticeship Company, New Deal of the Mind/The Creative Society, The London College of Beauty Therapy, Westminster Kingsway College, De Vere Academy, London Early Years Foundation, The Centre for Social Justice, Cardinal Hume Centre, The Department for Work & Pensions, The London Mayor’s Office, The Volunteer Centre at the LSE, VAW

WEXO are delighted to support the Student Film Festival London

From the 3rd to the 5th of February, SFFLondon 2012 will transform the capital into a hub of global filmmaking talent with an array screenings, workshops and networking film-inspired parties. With over 80 films showing over three days and some of our competition films selected for prestigious awards such as the Grierson (Caring for Calum – winner), BAFTA (Abuelas – nominated) and Academy Awards (The Road Home – longlisted) there is no saying what hidden treasures our international premieres will reveal.

Filmmakers will have their pick with a range of industry events from an interview with Music Video producer director Trudy Bellinger, a masterclass with BAFTA award-winner documentary film-maker Brian Woods and Emmy award winner journalist and film-makerSorious Samura, a Pinewood Studios’ post-production seminar, a Rushes short films monetizing and distribution class, to a TV and Film award winning writer director Nick Reed’s Acting live workshop and many more.

Finally, from the opening night Shortwave film competition launch and London Short Film Festival’s ‘Student Film Award’screening and party to the closing night Wong Kar Wai themed gala at the Apollo Picadilly with live improvised film scores, as well as Midnight Madness Quizz and drinks, the Friday night fusion film events celebration with the cinematic band Making Tracks and Gorilla Film Magazine’s wild wild games; there will be plenty of cause for merriment and opportunities to network, rekindle a film lover romance or take a walk on the wild side.

THE FESTIVAL

Student Film Festival is London’s first international film festival solely for student films, a platform for young filmmakers to showcase their work and to meet established industry professionals. Founded by enterprising young people for young people, Student Film Festival aims to support aspiring filmmakers, set designers, actors –cast and crew alike, to bring their colours to the future of cinema. SFFLondon 2012 will run for three days, and will be held across the 6 campuses of University of the Arts, London (UAL). The festival will screen feature film nominees and a selection of shorts representing the best student work from both British and world cinema judged by experts such as Simon Pegg, Kevin Loader, Barry Purves, Trudy Bellinger and many more… One of WEXO’s film clients will be offering the Best Director an internship with them.

For more information on the festival visit www.sfflondon.org