The current crop of school and university leavers are facing the toughest competition for employment than any preceding generation. Having been raised on a decade and a half of unprecedented and unrelenting economic growth they have no frame of reference when it comes to recession. And given that this is the worst downturn for the best part of a century, it’s all the more intimidating for the average graduate trying to get on the career ladder. So if the big companies aren’t employing what’s the alternative for under 25s? Simple: join a start-up or become an entrepreneur.
Enterprise UK, the new government-funded umbrella brand which houses various campaigns promoting entrepreneurship, including the excellent Make Your Mark, hosted an interesting discussion on the issue of youth opportunities this week. The organisation held a roundtable which brought together a group of young entrepreneurs who have all set up ventures providing help and support for their peers. Strong opinions emerged on the need to provide better career advice and encourage more young people to make the most of their entrepreneurial talent.
James Uffindell, founder of The Bright Company, argued that despite the recent increase in acceptance of entrepreneurialism as a valid career path, the message simply isn’t getting through to the careers advisors sitting opposite students up and down colleges and universities today. Likewise, existing business studies courses don’t even begin to give students a taste of what it’s actually like to run a company. As Notgoingtouni.co.uk founder Tom Mursell pointed out, the most innovative thing his business studies GCSE taught him was how far to keep a hot cup of tea away from his computer workstation.
The UK needs wealth and job creators, now more than ever. At present, there simply aren’t enough jobs within existing organisations, so the logical solution is to create more growing, profitable companies. But if the current education system is stifling our budding young entrepreneurs how can we make sure the next generation of enterprise talent flourishes?
A few interesting ideas were bandied around at Enterprise UK, namely that we need to: send local business owners into schools to talk about their experiences; provide more structured and valuable work placements and apprenticeships for young people within small companies; educate young people on the viable alternatives to a university education; recognise the value of allowing people to have a go at an ultimately unsuccessful project without branding it a complete failure.
The main point that emerged for the discussion however was that landing a well paid job straight out of university isn’t the true measure of success, and only when schools and colleges cotton on that fact, can they begin to encourage young people to be enterprising.