We ran our first successful training workshop with employers thanks to the support of Talent Match Leicester and the East Midlands Chambers of Commerce.

The half day workshop at the Docks venue in Leicester gave us the opportunity to share insights gained through our youth employment accessibility research. We were able to talk about the do’s and don’ts of the three main parts of our research the candidate journey, supportive content and employer brand.

Before we shared the findings we got the employers to do a group exercise which saw them put themselves in the candidates shoes and relate some of the own recruitment experiences.

This was a really interesting exercise because they were able to compare their responses to those of the young people who were involved in our research, workshops and focus groups.

In the second group exercise, the employers again were faced with a challenge to put themselves in the shoes of candidates and to come up with their own criteria for choosing an employer.

We found there was a substantial gap between what employers thought young people valued and what we found that they do in reality. We then shared what young people look for when choosing an employer.

Going through this process enabled the participants to adjust their thinking and better understand and empathise with a inexperienced young person.

Many of the participants said they came away realising that a young candidate should be treated as a customer. In addition, they found out what was required to attract a young person to their company or organisation and what level of support was necessary throughout the recruitment process.

Feedback from the day

“I wanted to attend to gain a perspective from other employers on attraction and recruitment. I got some really interesting ideas on what young people want from an employer/job and what challenges they face.”

“I will now be reviewing our job section on the website from the perspective of a young person.”

“I’m going to go back to the office to look at our website and think of the young person as a customer.”

Access Generation comment

“It was great to see so much engagement between everyone on the day. Not only did the participants learn from our research, they were also able to learn from each others experience too.

“We were very pleased to hear that participants came away with a commitment to act on what they learnt.”

We will be running a further training workshop which will be supported by the East Midlands Chambers of Commerce. The date will be Tuesday, 24 April. Details to follow soon. Register your interest for this free half day training workshop by emailing Jemma or Chris.

Look out for tweets about the event #Attract2Recruit

We would like to thank our supporters at Talent Match Leicester and all the young people involved in our research.