Week 20 - Youth Into Jobs End of Year Celebration

What's a youth employment program without a little end of year party? We had food, drink, speeches and gave every a +1 to bring a friend. We also invited Momtaz Ajid, CEO of LiC and Helal Ahmed, Head of Spotlight Youth Centre & Youth Services for Poplar Harca.

We started with a little presentation on the 5 steps we took to making our young people employable. This step by step system was news to the participants as well as the guests. 

Step 1 - Get them to bond and unite

Step 2 - Build their CVs and interview skills

Step 3 - Turn them into professionals

Step 4 - Crank up the competition

Step 5 - Send them out into the big, wide world

It was a funny but emotional day for them, looking back on photos and videos of the journey they had all taken.

Afterwards, we presented them with their Youth Into Jobs t-shirts to remember it forevermore.

Helal Ahmed commented on how the enthusiasm from the participants was "second to none", which was great to hear coming from someone who oversees youth projects across the whole of Tower Hamlets. 

Congratulations and best of luck for the future for Youth Into Jobs graduating class of 2012! 

Week 19 - Y2J Round Up Day

Anhar took some time to get everyone to reflect on everything they have been learning in Youth Into Jobs over the whole program.

It was a very emotional time and we got to see how much they really bonded and got to know each other.

There was wide spread agreement that they all feel much more confident in their ability to find a job compared to before Youth Into Jobs.

We gave them a chance to tell us their plans and how they are going to use their new found skills in future. Several had plans to repeat the Westfield CV exercise from Week 16. One had been preparing for 2 interviews, one with Jaguar and the other with Transport for London. Another had an interview with Natwest, and a third was due for an assessment day with John Lewis.

Youth Into Jobs graduating class of 2012

Week 18 - Y2J Diary Room

Youth Into Jobs Diary Room

Following on from last weeks 'ripping off television programs' theme, we're allowing the group to give feedback on the entire Youth Into Jobs program through what we like to call:

The Youth Into Jobs Diary Room

They can choose to be filmed in pairs or individually, as long they really b**** and get everything off their chest that they didn't like about the program.

This was prompted by the pathetic answers received on the feedback forms for the following question:

"Is there anything you would add, change or remove to make Youth Into Jobs better?"

"No"

...this answer was given across the board by every one of them, independently and without knowing what the others had written.

As much as I'd like to believe that we've managed to create a perfect program first time around, it's a lot more likely that they are apprehensive about criticising the program on a form that they know we will read.

That, and they are probably too lazy to use up precious brain power in thinking up creative ways we could to improve it.

Having them in front of a camera with no one around created an atmosphere where they can really open up and tell us what wasn't so good. 

We were expecting the this total freedom of speech to result in the b****ing levels reaching epic proportions, but the actual results were surprisingly tame. 

One major point that came out through the diary room was that they all truly loved the program as well as the trainers (yay!)

Despite how it may look, we did not put them up to this. 

And it is by sheer coincidence, that we have a go karting trip organised for them next month.

Week 17 - John Lewis Factor

John Lewis Factor
This week we had special guest Terry Saunders, Community Liaison Coordinator at John Lewis, coming in to let our candidates know which four people had made it through the interviews to do a work placement.

Please don't tell Simon Cowell... we can't afford to get sued

We had envisaged it being like the last stage of boot camp on X Factor: Split them into two groups (one successful, one not), bring one group into the room, line them up (pause for dramatic effect) and tell them they've all made it through to the work placements (queue the screaming and hugging).

Instead, we've opted for the last stage of the judges houses. Terry will be taking them to the lounge room couches to give them feedback on their interviews before letting them know whether they are through.

Terry stayed true to the X Factor tradition of leading the successful ones on to believe they hadn't made it through, before giving them the good news. All unsuccessful candidates were given feedback on how improve and give a stronger interview in future.

Anhar enjoyed plagiarising The Matrix in telling candidates that what was said was said for them alone.