Following on from our guest post from Dom at The Apprentice Academy earlier today, Laura Gordon, Brand Ambassador with the company, also has a few words to say. Take a look at Laura’s blog to see why she believes apprentices are the future:
I would hire a 16 to 18 -year-old Apprentice over a graduate.
Hiring an Apprentice is like getting a new computer straight out of the box. They have all the most up-to-date hardware, can process information extremely quickly and have masses of memory available to fill with new skills and experience about your company and industry.
How does this compare to what I have noticed about graduates? In computer terms, they come to you with a whole host of pre-loaded software – much of which is out of date or unnecessary for your current needs and the memory is getting clogged up with generic software and files. The processing speeds have gone down over time; things take longer to learn and stick. So you hope you have hired an amazingly knowledgeable graduate who knows exactly how to do the job, but in reality first you have to reprogramme behaviours, install new software and create new files and folders to store all this new information. Which as you can guess takes up valuable time and is often met with resistance from the graduate in question.
None of this is a fault of the graduate of course, more the university system they have been through. Their minds are full of knowledge, but lacking the skill-sets and experience to apply this knowledge to a real-world situation. They often express a sense of entitlement when it comes to entering the working world. Having paid through the nose for their education, they understandably have certain expectations about their future -including walking in to a well-paid job at a competitive wage. This unfortunately is not the case. Employers now look for experience over education, with degrees counting for less and less, as was represented by the Guardian’s statistics which reported in 2013 that 1 in 10 graduates were unemployed.
So why are Apprentices the solution?
Having studied 3 degrees at university myself, I look back and realise how much I learnt within that time period. I was young and had so much energy with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Which naturally leads me to think of how much I may have learnt in that same period of time had I started my career straight away. By this point I would have had 10 years of relevant skills, knowledge and experience. Scary!
For me, this isn’t just a theory as, through my role as a trainer at The Apprentice Academy, I’ve observed 100s of young people gain these valuable skills and experience and reach their goal of attaining full-time work in fantastic companies. Most of this usually occurs before they have even reached the ripe old age of 20. I’ve witnessed one Apprentice be promoted to marketing manager within just 3 months – impressive by anyone’s standards!
There is, and always will be, a need for degree level students in our workforce, but before you make the decision as to whether to hire a graduate, please bear in mind what I have experienced. Rather than waiting until they have come out of university maybe you could be finding your company’s future talent when they are fresher and eager and raring to go right now! Just a thought.