Comments by "" (@lonevoice) on "Why aren’t young people working?" video.

I am a retired professional but can relate to much of this having had three university graduate boys struggle with this. Perhaps it relates to boys more than girls as it seems that at a young age, girls are often more articulate than boys, and the HR firewall for many businesses seem to be very focused on this. One of the boys (with grade 2A* and 2A A levels) faced a similar problem trying to get into medical school. He had good writing skills and had already written two novels but getting into medical school requires a demonstration of empathy and at this age it seems to be more natural to girls rather than boys. Perhaps that is partly why medical school intake is largely female. Competition is also massive. When Jeremy Hunt was Health minister he stated that it was cheaper to bring in a qualified doctor from abroad rather than train one up in the UK, so that doesn't help. Fortunately for my son, having been rejected by all but one university my wife and I insisted that he went on a weekend course aimed medical school entry. He did and sailed through his entry into the last remaining one and has been very successful during his training and is now fully qualified. Another one of the boys got a chemical engineering masters from one of the Russell Group universities. Then when he came to trying to get a job, he hit a brick wall and it went on for months. Firstly it wasn't helped by the fact that businesses seem to minimise their graduate training programmes and as with medicine, will tend to bring in qualified experienced people from abroad as and when needed. There are agencies in the UK that do just this. Then there is the HR firewall and that is a real nightmare. In the end my wife and I had to take on getting him a job as a project with formal weekly meetings with him to discuss progress and strategy. Eventually, largely thanks to my wife, he got a job and so far has been very successful in it and has already been promoted.
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@davidc4408 Maybe but we've had plenty of frustrations. A lot of young people will not have the benefit of people like my wife and I to drive things forward and I don't know where my two would have ended up without our help. I just feel sad that so much young potential never gets a chance.
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@seiwarriors Yes. We knew that they were capable and we also knew that despite that, recruitment in the UK is appallingly bad and they could very easily be shut out. Until the recruitment process gets a major overhaul, nothing much is going to change. In fact one of the universities used to put in a lot of time and effort into interviewing and assessing graduates applying for limited places on their PhD course, but were disappointed by the outcomes. They therefore decided to switch to a random selection and found that the outcomes were no worse than their careful assessments. They saved a lot of time and effort by themselves and applicants in the process. Maybe it was also a fairer basis of selection.
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@SciaticJones You and your whole generation deserve better. Somehow you have just got to stay strong and determined but realistically may have to consider developing a career outside of STEM subjects. That may even include an apprenticeship to gain a completely different skill. Awful I know but that's the state of the whole western world at present, and it's not going to improve anytime soon. I wish you well and get some luck, but keep trying.
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