In need of a (young) blood transfusion

Some professions have always struggled to attract young recruits to replace the old expertise dying out, especially as employment prospects have, over time, migrated from country to city, from manufacturing to service. But the shifting economic tides could mean that things are set to change…

Here are three employment areas that are desperately seeking new talent:

Sustainability
The idea of a “skills shortage” in any sector is always going to be a contentious one – especially with so many skilled people unable to find work. But commentators point to an age “time-bomb” in the green jobs sector – everything from solar panel installers to energy assessors – over the coming years, to meet the UK’s carbon targets.

400,000 workers would be needed by 2020 for renewables alone, according to the Renewable Energy Association in Business Green, published last month.

There is a mix of theories over why some jobs are not being filled now. Some say the Government is not investing enough in science and technology apprenticeships. Others blame bean-counters in charge who don’t value or understand engineering, meaning there are fewer incentives and interested people to enter the sector. Another reason put forward is that training simply isn’t up to scratch.

Two graduates give advice on getting into consultancy

Consultancy firms are big graduate employers and can offer a competitive salary, but not a lot of people understand what consultants actually do. We asked Olivia Pierce, 23, who is an associate at OC&C Strategy Consultants, and Ann Hyams, 22 , who works for LEK Consulting to demystify the job a bit.

What does a strategy consultant do?

OP Overall you’re looking at ways of making a business more competitive and making that competitiveness more sustainable in the long term. You’re assigned to a particular project and your typical responsibilities at associate level will involve a lot of research into particular companies or industries, analysis of the data you find and presenting that data in a way that is understandable for your team and your client. As you progress further in a project the research becomes more analytical.

Have you always known you wanted to go into consulting?

OP I had no idea at school but it was well advertised at university. I like the fact that it is so broad. You can pick a firm that does retail, media, services and telecoms etc and you don’t have to specialise in a particular sector until you know what you want to do.

AH I didn’t know until I went to uni when I went along to some careers events. The variety especially appealed to me. There’s such a wealth of industries. You change projects every 4-6 weeks, although there are some larger ones. It is very research based but you’re researching different things all the time.

Do you have to have work experience in consultancy?

OP I did do 2 internships whilst I was at uni but neither were directly consultancy based. I don’t think this was a big problem though. What they’re looking for with consultancy is more general market awareness and there’s many different types of work experience which can contribute towards that. I would say that one of the things my firm specifically look for is where your work experience background is, where you interned and how you can apply the things you’ve learned before to your career in consultancy. I would definitely recommend doing some work experience while you’re at university.

AH I didn’t do consultancy specific internships but I think they’re a good idea if you know that’s what you want to do. I didn’t so I tried one in HR for example before I went into consultancy. I think it’s important that you do something so you appear career driven and look more knowledgeable when it comes to interviews. It’s important that you’re interested in business.

How did you make the most of your internship?

OP I think it’s worth taking some initiative in organising internships and once you have them really making the most of them by pursuing different options, asking for work and not just sitting there not doing anything. There’s definitely something to be said for maintaining contact with the people you meet because they’ll inevitably go into similar kinds of careers. Even if you don’t get a job there afterwards it’s definitely good to have some contacts under your belt with people from different fields. Also, it’s important to remember that Internships are an extended interview so you’ve got to present yourself in a way which makes them think “yes I do really want to work with this person on a full time basis.”

AH I think before you start doing an internship you might not realise how much people actually take in. So make sure you wear appropriate clothing and think about what people are wearing in the office. Everything from the moment you walk in the office is really taken on board by people including the way you act around the office and whether you’re taking initiative and asking for work. You’ve also got to take into account before you start work whether that particular place is somewhere you want to work, not just is this a job that I want to do.

What has surprised you about your job?

OP I didn’t think I’d enjoy it as much as I am. Right from the start you are given lots of responsibility and particularly in the last project I did there was loads of client contact so you’re organising meetings and making contact directly. You do have to appreciate that it is long and hard work which I think is a bit of a shock to the system for some people.

What are the biggest misconceptions people have about strategy consultancy?

OP Sometimes people just associate strategy consultancy with long hours, Excel spreadsheets and not a lot of creativity. But at my firm there is an emphasis on work life balance and there is a social culture which I do really enjoy. There’s also a more creative side to it as well as it’s about putting your ideas forward and thinking outside the box because at the end of the day you are trying to help a business organise itself in a different way so that does require different insights.

AH I think there’s a general misconception about work that you have your work and you have your friends and those two things are separate. But I was very surprised as my firm organises things all the time. Your colleagues really are your friends as well which is really good if you’re working long hours.

Have you had a favourite moment so far?

OP I’ve only been working for 2 months but I have just finished a project where we had to go and present to senior management at a company and there were questions directed at me individually. Being able to answer those questions made me feel like I was contributing something to very high level management and I feel like my contribution has been valued and I’ve made a difference.

AH I’ve only been working for 3 weeks but the best thing for me is walking into the office every day and actually wanting to be there. Being able to see your slides in a presentation and thinking I can explain that because that’s what I worked for gives you a big sense of achievement for quite a little thing.

Click here for a video giving an introduction to consultancy.

Pimp My Prospects’ graduate profile podcast: Matthew Gouland, commercial trainee, Arla Foods

Here’s Pimp My Prospects’ second (here’s the first) graduate profile podcast. Matthew Gouland, 23, commercial trainee at Arla Foods, home to some of the UK’s leading dairy brands, takes his turn in the hot seat. Gouland tells Pimp My Prospects how he landed the job, his advice for others, and his hopes for the future.

Matthew Gouland, commercial trainee at Arla Foods

One in five young people unemployed as recession bites

More than one in five young people aged 16 to 24 are unemployed, new figures show.

As the economy slides into a double-dip recession, 1.03 million 16 to 24-year-olds are jobless, according to the latest set of data released by the Office for National Statistics.

Though the amount of unemployed youngsters has fallen by 9,000 in the three months to February, the number of 18 to 24 year-olds who have been unemployed for a long period has increased.

There were 54,700 young people claiming jobseeker’s allowance for more than 12 months in March, up from 49,500 a month earlier.

Overall unemployment fell slightly to 2.65 million, but experts are anticipating an increase as the Conservative-led government cuts more public sector jobs.

Some 625 public sector jobs have been cut every day since the general election, according to Unison.

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “We know that times are tough, but Jobcentre Plus takes 10,000 vacancies every day, and we’ve invested £5 billion into the Work Programme and increased apprenticeships and support for young people through the Youth Contract to help improve people’s chances in the jobs market.”

Get the data

“Make sure you’ve got a strong team of people behind you who share your passion and vision” – Key tips to get YOUR business idea off the ground

You’ve heard Amy Hale’s story working for Bristol Foodcycle, now here’s her key tips for Pimp My Prospects’ readers on setting up a student enterprise:

Amy Hale is coordinator of Bristol Foodcycle

– Before starting; make sure you do your homework. Does the business plan add up? Does your idea have a unique selling point? Is there a strategic plan for the future?  These issues may seem like unnecessary faff but they’re vital, especially if you want to avoid wasting time further down the line. We spent a good few months researching to ensure there was demand for our service along with drawing up a constitution and clear mission. We also put a strong focus on continual recruitment to ensure that even as people graduate there is always a strong group leading the project.

How to set up a sustainable student enterprise – from the graduate who has been there and done it

Amy Hale, student enterprise consultant at Bristol University

Amy Hale graduated from the University of Bristol in July 2011 with a 1^st in Geography, and now works as a student enterprise consultant at the university helping students develop their business ideas. She is also the coordinator for Foodcycle Bristol, which provides affordable three course vegetarian meals sourced from waste food – goods that supermarkets throw away. Foodcycle Bristol aims to alleviate food poverty and provide an environment for people to meet, socialise and strengthen community bonds.

Here, Hale draws on her own experience to share advice to Pimp My Prospects readers on how to set up a sustainable student social enterprise:

University is the perfect place to set up a social enterprise. There are hoards of students willing to put in hard graft, full of ambition and bright ideas. There are also plenty of people to get advice and support from –whether it’s the Enterprise support team, someone from Careers , your friendly lecturer, someone on the University Sabbatical team…there’s lots of people willing to help!

FoodCycle Bristol was set up in September 2009. My friend Max had heard about a project which had recently been set up in London where surplus food was being collected and taken to a centre to be made into delicious free meals for people in the community. Knowing the amount of food that gets wasted in Bristol he recruited a team of motivated and enthusiastic students to start-up the project.

Pimp My Prospects’ graduate profile podcast: Simone Osmond, IT training consultant

Simone Osmond, 23, IT training consultant

Listen to Pimp My Prospects’ graduate profile podcast with Simone Osmond, 23, who works in London and across the UK as an IT training consultant. Hear how Osmond got her job and what advice she has for others setting out in the job market…

Heading in the right Direction

Natalie in action at the New Diorama Theatre

Here at Pimp My Prospects, we have gathered advice from young people starting out in careers ranging from law to politics, banking to advertising so we thought it was time that we gave the arts a look in.

This is a recording of an interview that we did with Natalie, an up and coming young theatre director, who despite being only 20 years old, has just bagged herself the position of Associate Director at a prestigious London theatre.She talks about what it is like to get in to the career at a young age, and tells us what advice she would give to her 16 year old self.

For those of you who dream of a life backstage, here’s a firsthand account of how to do it.

If at first you don’t succeed…

The first step on the career ladder is one that people seem to worry about the most, but what is often lost sight of is that the career that you start out in is not necessarily going to be where you end up.

Here at Pimp My Prospects we know that getting that first job can seem a bit daunting, but we thought we’d take some time to reassure you that there are plenty of people that have gone on to be incredibly successful in their field who didn’t exactly have the best start in their careers…

Marilyn Monroe: A young Monroe was told by modelling agents that wasn’t pretty enough and should consider being a secretary, before going on to be recognised as one of the most iconic beauties of all time.

Monroe was told that she ought to consider becoming a secretary

Fred Astaire: In his first screen test, an MGM director wrote that Astaire, “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.” Astaire went on to become a movie legend, but he always kept that note in his Beverly Hills mansion to remind himself of his humble beginnings.

Vincent Van Gogh: Although his paintings now sell for hundreds of millions of pounds and are exhibited in all the most prestigious museums, Van Gogh sold only one painting during his lifetime, and this was to a friend for a very small amount of money.

Bill Gates: Gates dropped out of Harvard and started a business called Traf-O-Data which flopped. Although his early idea wasn’t a success, he went on to found Microsoft.

Walt Disney: His cartoons have become classics and his characters loved all over the globe, but Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because, “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”

Walt Disney was fired for not being imaginative enough

Thomas Edison: The famous inventor was told at school that he was “too stupid to learn anything” but went on to invent the lightbulb, after  over 1,000 unsuccessful prototypes had failed.

Elvis was told that he ought to be a truck driver

Winston Churchill: The wartime leader was defeated in every election for public office until he finally became the Prime Minister at the age of 62.

Steven Spielberg: The blockbuster director was rejected three times from the University of Southern California School of Theater, Film and Television. 35 years later, he returned to University to get a BA in film studies.

Stephen King: Now one of the bestselling authors of all time, Stephen King’s first novel Carrie received 30 rejections. King threw the manuscript in the bin, but his wife managed to encourage him to fish it out and resubmit it.Elvis Presley: In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after just one performance saying “You ain’t going nowhere, son. You ought to go back to driving a truck.”The Beatles: The fab four were rejected by a recording company when they were just starting out, who said  “we don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”Soichiro Honda: Honda applied for a job as an engineer at  Toyota Motor Corporation and was rejected. He started making his own cars at home, and encouraged by his neighbours, started his own billion-dollar business.

Youny: An internet business case study

Following on in our series of features about young entrepreneurs, we thought we’d look at a new London-based start up called Youny.

The website, which is a venture set up by two entrepreneurial LSE students, is an idea made by young people for young people and is generating a buzz around London campuses.

The basic premise of the site is that it allows students to connect with each other and ask questions about their degree. “In particular, it is aimed at connecting students for the specific modules they are studying, as well as providing a more general network across universities. It combines elements of traditional social-networks with elements of existing virtual learning environments (VLEs) in achieving a new type of social-platform, geared expressly towards facilitating academic interactions.”

In translation: a fusion of the useful elements of forums like the Student Room and Yahoo answers, with all the flexibility of a social networking site.

So if you ever find yourself needing to know the answer to a question about your module but don’t want to bother everyone on Facebook, you can ask your coursemates on Youny. Or if you desperately need to know a deadline at an antisocial hour you can log on and search through the questions until you find the answer that you need, and give it a good rating if the answer proves useful.

And for those with tech-savvy teachers, Youny is also open to academics, who will be able to log on and answer any pressing questions.

Providing a handy way to stay in the loop with examination dates looming for students, this is a good example of students that saw a niche in the market, and decided to use their skills and knowledge to provide their own solution. The dedicated team behind the project is made up of students with knowledge and skill sets ranging from social networking to marketing, business skills and tech know-how.

The site is launching at UCL, KCL, Imperial or LSE at first, but if successful, has the potential to be rolled out across the country.

Co-founder Jamie Qiu said of the idea: “Youny is an online platform for academic peer tutoring. You know the age old saying about walking a mile in a man’s shoes? Well the truth is, thousands of students at your university have walked a mile in your shoes. They’ve taken the courses you are taking right now. So who better to help you get to the finish line then them? It’s all about bringing the student community together.”

To find out more about the concept, watch the video below. Or check out the website. And why not take inspiration from them? Have you got a great idea for a start-up? Why not get a team of skilled friends around you and come up with a business model? You never know where that idea could take you..