In our modest contribution to tackle youth unemployment – one of many – we offer 50 youngsters from all over the world the chance to be “CEO for One Month” under our “Way to Work”. These young people get the opportunity to spend a month with our Adecco country managers and leadership teams. So far, the experience of sharing the day to day life of a CEO and seeing the job from inside has proved extremely effective in boosting successful candidates’ cvs and improving their job chances. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hawJPSxkEsI&feature=youtu.be)
I can hardly exaggerate the gravity of the challenge many of this year’s almost 55,000 applicants are facing. Youth unemployment has become an international scourge. Record numbers of youngsters are out of work in Europe, and there are now telling signs of similar trends in parts of Asia too. The 21.1% European average masks peaks of 51.4% in Greece and 45% in Spain. Even in the US, where the economy is doing better, more than 16% of youngsters are jobless. Around the world, over 73m are unemployed.
Bizarrely, though, there are millions of vacancies - including more than 8m in Europe and the US alone. According to a survey in 25 countries, almost 40% of employers say that the skills deficit is the main reason for entry-level vacancies (McKinsey Center for Government, Education to employment; Getting Europe’s Youth into Work, 2014).
I certainly recall, from my own first job search, the irony of employers favouring candidates with some relevant experience – and that being precisely what most of us lacked. As employers, we all have a responsibility and a way to tackle this vicious circle. We need to consider soft skills and be able to hire for attitude and train for skills.
Trying to deal with the “experience deficit” is an important step towards alleviating the unemployment/vacancy mismatch for youngsters. Sometimes, I ask myself what skills I’d emphasize if I turned the clock back and was applying for a first job today.
Academic and practical qualifications are important. But there’s more to successful job hunting than book learning and good grades. So I guess I’d need to demonstrate a mixture of hard and soft skills, emphasizing the latter. Of course business sense and ability to think strategically would be crucial. However flexibility, resilience, team spirit and accountability would be other desirable traits, along with empathy and communication skills too.
Those are among the attributes all the 10 millennials who made the final cut in last year’s “Group CEO for One Month” programme demonstrated so admirably. Five of them found jobs soon after the experience, while four continued in education or took up internships.
The eventual successful candidate, the Japanese Ayumi Kunori, at only 21 years old, demonstrated all those skills, with icing on the cake to boot. In the month I spent with her, I felt I wasn’t just able to improve her chances, but learned from her too (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOMkRtF8g3A&feature=youtu.be).
Among the key insights I gained was a reminder of millennials’ mobile and hyper connected attitudes, as well as their general tech savvy. But the importance of showing empathy, and winning people round came out too. Popularized by Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric in 1999, when he required 500 of his top executives to pair up with junior associates to learn how to use the internet, such “reverse mentoring” should really be implemented in every company that wants to keep its executives refreshed and in tune with what is driving young people today.
So what do we need to impart to those youngsters searching for their first job? How can we prepare them better to at least narrow those unaccountable gaps between job seekers and vacancies?
I’d start with soft factors, like authenticity, humility and empathy. I’d add a positive and enthusiastic attitude; a willingness to dream big and to take on big challenges; to perform high in whatever you do. If there’s one message I want to pass too them: don’t be afraid of failure, as it’s a way to learn; show the maturity to remain accountable and to take the most out of every experience; always be yourself and to continue to dream big, because you can do it.
KINGSMITH.
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