Our reporter road tests the Barclays LifeSkills programme

One of many enduring questions younger folks like myself battle with is what to do with our lives. Coming from a London council property the place few folks held down skilled jobs, I discovered it troublesome to marry my passions and expertise to a viable profession path – I merely did not see many choices round me.

Despite a deprived background, I made it into journalism the place I’ve been within the business for a bit over two years and now report for The Unbiased. Previous to testing Barclays LifeSkills, I didn’t know a lot about it. The height of my profession improvement perception rising up was being advised I needed to discover work expertise in 12 months 10 or I’d be in hassle, which landed me in a Tesco pharmacy receiving prescriptions and arranging fragrance shows.

Fortunately, Barclays LifeSkills was easy sufficient to get going for a first-time person. After establishing an account in a breakout area within the workplace, I instantly took to its straightforward format divided into sections for younger folks, educators, households, altering worklife and companies.

On the high of the younger folks’s web page popped up the Wheel of Strengths programme. For an opportunity to focus on my expertise, I began right here. Because the title suggests, this interactive software takes your strengths, character traits and pursuits and suggests probably profession paths for you. Primarily based on my communication strengths and keenness for science, the Wheel advised I’d make an honest therapist, faculty trainer, well being practitioner, or journalist – so it was good to know that I’m on the fitting path.

One key perform of LifeSkills is its responsiveness to completely different levels of life objectives. There are a selection of blogs, movies and interactive actions to select from throughout wide-ranging subjects – from understanding your strengths to what to anticipate at gruelling evaluation day interviews. I used to be ready to decide on that I’m at the moment in employment and seeking to construct my community – to which LifeSkills robotically offered centered content material, together with tips on how to get the very best out of LinkedIn, ways to approaching contacts and a video on the benefits of networking expertise.

Eager to see what LifeSkills needed to provide for the painful process of CV-building and updating, I positioned the CV builder software utilizing the platform’s search bar. A common tip I’ve acquired on CVs is to replace them at the very least twice a 12 months – recommendation I’ve missed admittedly for all the hassle of collating my experiences and milestones onto a concise two-page doc. Nonetheless, the LifeSkills CV builder does that tough give you the results you want. It makes use of your social media profiles to construct your finest moments right into a CV, along with highlighting the place you will not be presenting as effectively on-line to employers.

After utilizing the Barclays LifeSkills programme for per week, it was clear how a lot I had missed out on after I was planning my profession pathway in secondary faculty. It was every thing I wanted as a struggling teenager. Even now, sitting on the latter finish of the younger grownup age vary, I rapidly noticed how a lot the programme has to supply and after utilizing it, I can’t assist however really feel that LifeSkills can play a job all through my profession lifetime – from tweaking my CV, to enhancing my social media presence and networking, which is of utmost significance in journalism.

Programme founder Kirstie Mackey OBE – not too long ago honoured by the Queen for her providers to younger folks and monetary providers – initially began the platform in 2013 for 11-16-year-olds and mentioned she didn’t anticipate the variety of completely different teams who could be keen to make use of it – from charities to youth golf equipment and church teams. In the present day, the programme reaches major faculty college students in addition to working-age adults, with a specialised platform for educators and households supporting younger folks.

Mackey mentioned: “After we began the programme, youth unemployment was at its peak. We noticed companies weren’t recruiting younger folks as a result of they weren’t work prepared. We did some digging and realised that careers schooling had been reduce in colleges and that it was purely centered on tutorial {qualifications}, so younger folks didn’t know what companies had been searching for.”

After 9 years and a attain that penetrates 90 per cent of UK colleges, Mackey mentioned her primary measure of success is its constructive affect on younger folks. “The LifeSkills programme provides younger those that confidence they want, that motivation that they will see a future profession plan. It helps them see there’s a special world on the market.”

Our marketing campaign in a nutshell

What are we doing? We’ve got launched Talent Up Step Up, a £1m initiative in partnership with Barclays LifeSkills to upskill unemployed and deprived younger Londoners to allow them to be “work prepared” and step up into sustainable jobs or apprenticeships.

Why are we doing this? Youth unemployment in London has soared by 55 per cent to 105,000 because the begin of the pandemic, which means that 21 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds are jobless at a time of document job vacancies of 1.17 million countrywide. This mismatch, brought about largely by an employability expertise and expertise hole, is resulting in wasted lives and billions of kilos of misplaced productiveness for our economic system.

How will it work? The £1m from Barclays will present grant funding over two years for as much as 5 excellent, handpicked charities that present deprived jobless younger Londoners with employability expertise and wrap-around care to get them into the labour market and remodel their lives. The charity companions we have now introduced to this point are:

1. Springboard: they’ll help younger folks into jobs within the hospitality business (inns, eating places, bars, leisure and tourism) by way of a three- to six-week programme that features one-to-one mentoring, comfortable expertise and employability improvement (confidence, work perspective, CV constructing, interview observe and time administration), sensible business and laborious expertise coaching, together with meals security and customer support, in addition to entry to work expertise placements.

2. Metropolis Gateway: they’ll get younger folks work prepared with a 12-week employability programme, together with digital expertise, a piece placement, CV and interview expertise and a devoted one-to-one coach, extending to as much as 20 weeks in the event that they want English and/or maths {qualifications}, enabling them to realize entry degree positions together with apprenticeships in a variety of sectors, together with finance, digital media, advertising, retail, property and IT.

Extra companion charities will probably be introduced sooner or later.

How can the younger and jobless ability up? In case you are aged 16-24 and need to upskill in the direction of a job in hospitality, contact Springboard right here.

If you wish to upskill in the direction of a job in some other sector, contact Metropolis Gateway right here.

For instruments, ideas and studying sources go to www.barclayslifeskills.com

How can employers step up? We wish corporations – giant, medium and small – to step as much as the plate with a pledge to make use of a number of trainees in a job or apprenticeship. They may work in your IT, customer support, human sources, advertising or gross sales departments, or any division with entry degree positions. You can be supplied with a shortlist of appropriate candidates to interview. To get the ball rolling, contact the London Group Basis, who’re managing the method on: [email protected]

How can readers assist? The more cash we elevate, the extra younger folks we are able to ability up. To donate, click on right here