E EMPLOYABILITY CO M M UNITY
PAGEGROUP TELETHON IS GOOD (WORK) EXPERIENCE BY GRAHAM SIMONS
C
onsultants at international recruiter PageGroup have helped a charity secure 70 work placements for less advantaged students from Tower Hamlets in a single afternoon telethon. Education charity Tower Hamlets Education Business Partnership (THEBP) challenged PageGroup consultants to hold a telethon to secure some of the 1,000 work-experience placements it is seeking for Tower Hamlets students aged 14 to 18. The charity promotes work experience among students to give them greater confidence and insight into the world of business. The ultimate aim is to help them forge careers at large firms located in the London borough of Tower Hamlets. PageGroup consultants, with the help of Tower Hamlets mayor John Biggs, managed to secure 70 of the 1,000 placements target. The charity had already managed to secure 300 placements before the 21 July telethon. Expanding on the importance of the work placement scheme, Helen Sanson, THEBP director, explains that work placements at big City employers are hard to come by for students from less advantaged backgrounds. This is due to the fact that often, opportunities are reserved for friends and family of staff. Sanson explained that considering the levels of child poverty and inter-generational worklessness in Tower Hamlets, the team wondered how they would ever improve “social mobility unless we get big companies like this to start saying ‘ok, we’ll take students on work experience, we’ll open their eyes, we’ll show them a different path. We’ll raise their aspirations to give them an opportunity’.” Consequently, the charity set itself a target last
PageGroup aims to help secure 1,000 placements for THEBP
“Once we've made a link with the company, they usully take more students next time and keep going” 42 RECRUITER
“You must get students who are committed”
year of 750 placements coming from big businesses and corporates, a target that Sanson says was “smashed”. So this year the charity upped the stakes to 1,000. To make sure students and schools get the most of the placements, the charity consults with schools to confirm students are genuinely committed to the experience, Sanson says. “We rely on the schools to support us with that. When we have really, really prestigious placements, we say to the schools ‘You must get students that are really committed and really want to work in this sector’. “It’s so important that the students do turn up, do a good job. Otherwise our programme loses some of its momentum. We would lose our reputation. The company would become disappointed and think ‘Oh, I’m not doing that again’.” Sanson adds that generally the programme works well, and experiences a lot of repeat business with firms. “Once we’ve made a link with the company, they usually take more students next time and keep going.” Ahead of the telethon, Megan Hunter, the charity’s senior manager and HR manager, briefed PageGroup consultants on typical daily activities
SEPTEMBER 2016
p50_51_recruiter_employability.indd 50
10/08/2016 09:32