engaging young talent via employment or internships is beneficial on several levels.

Woman and boy having a conversation, smiling, sitting in a bus. Other people in the background.
Woman and boy having a conversation, smiling, sitting in a bus. Other people in the background.

Is your business creating a new future with young employees?

In late 2015, The Randstad Wiliams Engineering Academy was launched. It’s a unique, powerful and exciting scheme that sees Randstad and the Williams Formula One team mentoring students from around the globe as they bid to secure a career as Formula One engineers.

As we move into the future, businesses need to be just as innovative in creating and executing programs to educate and attract the younger generation.

Our focus is so often on experienced talent with proven track records that we sometimes fail to put effort into the vibrancy and energy of the younger talent pool.

At the same time, offering opportunities for young talent also helps on a societal level. Around 280,000 Australians aged 15 to 25 are neither employed nor in education.

They lack the experience to win roles and can’t gain that experience.

what can a business do to make the most of this massive, untapped talent pool?

Here are five suggestions from Randstad CEO Frank Ribout.

1) commit to internships

Good internship programs (ones that don’t involve regular coffee runs) take a little while to set up but can be beneficial on numerous levels once established. They serve the business, introduce a new way of thinking, give experience to the young and can create an army of advocates for your brand.

2) partner with universities

This is a mutually-beneficial relationship. The university offers internships to its most exemplary students, and your business is put on the radar of top students as you conduct guest lectures, providing insight into your industry.

3) run open days

Invite groups of young people into your workplace, perhaps from a local university or some other interest group, to find out what you do and how you do it. Pick their brains on how they might do things differently.

4) offer detailed interview feedback

After interviewing a young candidate, if they’re unsuccessful, offer them detailed and meaningful feedback on how you, an experienced industry expert, would go about skilling yourself up to do better next time.

5) be a mentor

Use your experience and knowledge to broaden somebody else’s future. It can be as simple as you’d like and is enormously rewarding.

At Randstad, we’re investing in our next generation of workers via the Shaping Young Futures program.

register here

find a suitable candidate

submit a vacancy

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