Jan 9, 2013.
Yes! We have survived 2012 and its extraordinarily soggy swellings, Olympic overexcitement and cataclysmic curiosities. SO…to celebrate the start to a fantastic year, WEXO has made some natty New Year’s resolutions.

Following a survey that we sent out in December to our entire database, in which we sought to understand what it is that you are looking for from your job boards – these are our promises to you. (Winner of the Kindle Fire HD announced below)

‘What do you want to see more of in terms of recruitment companies helping you?’

(Bearing in mind that you were able to tick any and all of the boxes, so the percentages may seem a little confusing at first glance)

1.As above demonstrates, 81.8% of those who responded to the survey wanted recruitment companies to have a more personal touch.

Using our matching algorithms, we not only endeavor to notify every applicant we believe would fit each role posted, but we are also aiming to give every unsuccessful applicant some feedback on why they didn’t make it to interview or beyond that stage within 14 days.

It might be generic feedback on what qualifications and attributes they are missing but we hope that’s a start. Where possible, we also try and take as much time out of our day to speak and meet candidates as well as using our University Ambassadors as a sounding board for what you are all after.

2.The second most important attribute, according to our members, at 63.6% is that, as a recruiter, our responsibility should be to ‘clamp down on unpaid internships and therefore discrimination’.

Our WEXO directors are doing their best – they have previously tried to unite all internship companies into an alliance with such focuses, and have addressed audiences at locations ranging from 10 Downing Street to London Universities. We are also a committed partner and regular attendee of the initiatives and meetings instigated by Martin Bright and his team at The Creative Society. WEXO is always encouraging its clients to pay interns for reasons both legal and moral , yet our stance remains that encouraging and incentivizing our companies to pay is more proactive than naming and shaming those that don’t.

3.The next 2 most popular requirements addressed the need for more jobs. At the end of last year, WEXO was in final round discussions for a paid internship programme with a very large media organization, which represents 250 of the most exciting creative companies in London, but unfortunately this time round, this has not come to anything.

We are however still in discussions with various other types of organizations and are particularly excited about the potential surrounding our ‘How I Made It In’ recruitment events that worked so well for WEXO and Rightster last year. We’re also encouraged to see lots of interest already from companies looking to hire in 2013 and we’re looking forward to increasing what we have on offer for you. It should of course be noted that WEXO continues to believe in its niche within the creative industries and surrounding SMEs, for this reason we have no intention of simply listing graduate schemes and deadlines for all the big-corporates. (Unless that is what you really want !?!)

Interestingly, the least popular option in our survey was the need for careers advice. Initially we found this statistic a little surprising especially given that Tray and Bella (our Recruitment Directors) run a careers mentoring business on the side! On reflection, we feel that candidates often overlook how they are going to get to their destination in the excitement about the destination itself. All too often people fluff applications and interviews when they could have been better prepared – we’re looking forward to doing a Careers Advice session at KCL in a few weeks and this is perhaps something to think about for YOUR NY’s resolutions!

…Aaaannnddd fiiinnnaaaalllly…. the winner is Georgina Ireland – congratulations! (Please message us your address so we can send you your new Kindle Fire HD!)

Ailsa Renton – Marketing Intern at WEXO & University of Leeds graduate.

Last week I was invited to attend a breakfast and ‘opinion-former panel event’ at the BIS Conference Centre. It was titled as above – apparently a coincidental duplication of the book of the same name (which I’m now struggling to ‘get in to’) by Ross Perlin – who sadly wasn’t able to attend.

If you’re interested, you can hear the whole event podcast here or read Psychology Magazine’s well written summary of what was discussed here

It was brilliant that Editorial Intelligence brought together many other parties with an interest in answering the question of how we should skill up young people to get jobs.

But I came away feeling disheartened. The panel were certainly accomplished and the talk was well attended but any opportunity to unite opinion and take real action was missed. When given the opportunity, skilling up young people to get jobs will best be achieved by Education and Inspiration on 3 levels. Sadly, the weaknesses of this event lay partly in the title and partly in the make-up of the panel.

1. EDUCATING YOUNG PEOPLE:. Simon Waugh, Executive Chairman of the National Apprenticeship Service is clearly a successful, hard working kind of guy who has probably sacrificed the pecuniary gains of executive level roles in the private sector to try and make a difference and help others in public. So no disrespect to him, but calling an event ‘Intern Nation’ and then including someone on the panel who runs an apprenticeship service only perpetuates the semantic confusion as to what an internship is – and more importantly isn’t. In case you haven’t read my rants before, here is my take on the distinction between work experience, internships and apprenticeships. Without clarification (and education), interns, ‘workies’ and apprentices will never really understand their rights and government will continue to fuel the fire with inconsistent policies:

   * Work experience: Short placements (generally 1-2 weeks) which are usually for younger people (16-18) to get a ‘taste’ of the working world and typically unpaid though we encourage companies to pay expenses.

   * 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.

   * Apprenticeships: Apprenticeships as we see them are long term (1-2 year) paid training programmes which leave you with a vocational qualification usually in a craft or a skill. We believe they should be seen as an equal alternative to higher education. We do not believe that ‘The Apprentice’ on BBC 1 helps the classification quandry. Realistically, we would have called it ‘The Accomplice’ or more appropriately, the ‘The Attention Seeker’.

   * Jobs: What all the above should eventually result in.

2. COMPANIES NEED TO BE EDUCATED AND INCENTIVISE:. It’s a shame that someone as influential and expressive as Laurie Penny (Journalist, author and activist )seems to see the stick as the only solution to the ill justice of unpaid internships. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you?” Along with many others, she is overtly focused on naming and shaming companies that might not know any better. It would be a real shame if such companies close their doors to young people all together for fear of falling foul of bureaucracy. As I explained to ‘Jilted Generation’ author, Shiv Malik, afterwards, WEXO would far rather we all focus on the carrot of incentivising companies to offer paid internships (via the STEP schemes, proposals for recouping costs of internships from VAT etc) rather than antagonise companies with the stick and choke the supply pipeline? We might also want to remind them that the average Return on Investment of a Graduate is 500% over 3 years.
3. IMPROVING EDUCATION PER SE:. It’s The education system is this country IS partly to blame for not skilling people up to get jobs. This is as much the case as it was for the chair of the event, Brian Groom of the FT, failing to break up the childish confrontation between Citibank Head of Graduate Recruitment, Gemma Lines (I hope she concedes that the City owes the country a debt of gratitude and should sponsor other internships as well as inflating their own remuneration even at this level) and Laurie Penney (in fairness it was driven by the latter). The UK’s education system has got worse and this is successively shown to be the case by numeracy and literacy statistics. Moreover, higher education (especially now that it’s paid for) should give its pupils far better careers education and include vocational experience as part of some degrees.

Strangely, the 2 panel members who were least controversial, focused least on the question in hand. This said, Martin Bright , former journalist and founder of New Deal of the Mind (who we work with on BITC’s Work Inspiration campaign) and Faye Wenman, from theTaylor Bennett Foundation, were both entertaining and informative about the good work that they do in trying to create a more meritocratic and productive society. We applaud their work (and the social enterprise, Talent to Work, that this event was ultimately launching) but look to companies and organisations with the reach and resources that we do not currently have to unite the rest of us in effecting real change.

Robin Kennedy