Latest / Best of Business / Kate Ross: Swivel Careers founder on the rise in teenagers struggling to find work

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Kate Ross: Swivel Careers founder on the rise in teenagers struggling to find work · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talk zed B.
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  Speaker 2: Ryan Bridge, Right, teenagers, if you've got one, you might
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  Speaker 2: know about this story. They're in search of employment at
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  Speaker 2: the moment, and it's obviously a hard job trying to
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  Speaker 2: land a job with the current employment conditions. Some have
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  Speaker 2: been searching. In fact, there was an example of one
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  Speaker 2: over the weekend in the papers. For as long as
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  Speaker 2: two years, a lack of experience has been a main
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  Speaker 2: reason for rejection. But how do you get that if
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  Speaker 2: you are never given a shot in the first place,
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  Speaker 2: How on earth do you get experience without being given
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  Speaker 2: a job. Kate Ross is the founder of Swivel Careers,
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  Speaker 2: which helps seventeen to twenty five year olds fine work
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  Speaker 2: and chees with me this afternoon.
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  Speaker 3: Hi Kate, Hi Ryan, how's it going? Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: Really good? Thank you. Is this something that you're seeing
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  Speaker 2: a lot of young people who you know, they've got
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  Speaker 2: everything going for them, they've got everything, doing everything right,
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  Speaker 2: but it's just not landing.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's mixed. I think it's tougher now than
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  Speaker 3: what it ever has been before. I mean, it's always
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  Speaker 3: hard for a person leaving school. I mean I left
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  Speaker 3: at sixteen as well. It was tough getting works. It's
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  Speaker 3: always hard when you're sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, leaving school going
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  Speaker 3: into the market and finding work because you do really
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  Speaker 3: don't have any experience. So to get experience, honestly, it's
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  Speaker 3: about just not giving up. Attitude is number one. So
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  Speaker 3: making sure that you know when you're going into a
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  Speaker 3: potential place of employment that you're coming and well presented.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, I encourage people of that young age to
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  Speaker 3: actually walk in and present themselves because it's far better
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  Speaker 3: to be seen in person than what it is on paper.
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  Speaker 3: It's a completely different reflection. So turning up and just
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  Speaker 3: you know, presenting yourself nicely, heading over the CV and
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  Speaker 3: saying listen, I'd like to apply for the role. The
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  Speaker 3: employer then gets a bit of a look of what
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  Speaker 3: that person is like, and you know, sometimes they can
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  Speaker 3: take them to the back office and have an interview
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  Speaker 3: right then off the cuff. So there's other ways of
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  Speaker 3: doing it. But right now, with the economy as it is,
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  Speaker 3: it is tougher.
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  Speaker 2: What you mentioned that people should young people should sort
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  Speaker 2: of take initiative and all of that. It sounds like
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  Speaker 2: this particular person. I was reading about it the weekend.
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  Speaker 2: It sounds like they were taking all the initiative, applying
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  Speaker 2: for loads of jobs. But if you haven't got a
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  Speaker 2: job in two years of trying, surely there's going to
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  Speaker 2: be something else going on.
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  Speaker 3: I think to answer that question, well, I would actually
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  Speaker 3: need to have a chat to that person. And also,
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  Speaker 3: you know, see what kind of roles they're applying for.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not saying that person applied for the wrong job,
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  Speaker 3: but you've got to make sure that the roles you
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  Speaker 3: are applying for are aligned to your skill set or
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  Speaker 3: what you want to do, you see what I mean.
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  Speaker 3: And also when you're putting your CV forward or cover
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  Speaker 3: letter forward, making sure that the cover let or the
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  Speaker 3: email if they don't want to read it, is to
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  Speaker 3: actually have the things in that are transferable. So, for example,
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  Speaker 3: if someone's looking for a receptionist or a customer service role,
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  Speaker 3: then you can give experience or some idea of how
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  Speaker 3: you've done that in a limited way in your past,
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  Speaker 3: so there's some kind of transfer relatable skills. So you know,
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  Speaker 3: I'd really have to have a chat to her to
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  Speaker 3: see what she's done to really have an educated answer, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: When I my first job I think was when I
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  Speaker 2: was nine. Mum made us get a paper round and
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  Speaker 2: then you went from your paper, you went from your
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  Speaker 2: local paper. You could deliver the evening post. This was
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  Speaker 2: in Wellington, and then you graduate to doing the milk
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  Speaker 2: run and then you would graduate eventually to be able
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  Speaker 2: to work in a cafe or the supermarket. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, obviously newspapers probably aren't a thing anymore, there's
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  Speaker 2: no one delivering those. But there must be jobs like
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  Speaker 2: that that young people can start with.
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean my first job was picking strawberries, which
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  Speaker 3: I think I actually got size from. But anyway, so
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  Speaker 3: you know there's always some kind of role out there.
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  Speaker 3: But right now, you know, I'm in their defense. Even
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  Speaker 3: people leaving university are really struggling to find their first job.
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  Speaker 3: So it's kind of falling back. You know that there
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  Speaker 3: are people who still be making redundant. You're still definitely
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  Speaker 3: uncertainty in the market. Don't get me wrong, I hope
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  Speaker 3: it's going to be better than last year, but you know,
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  Speaker 3: I have no so many university leavers this year who've
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  Speaker 3: actually packed up and gone to Australia, who have gone
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  Speaker 3: to America, to Camp of America or some kind of
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  Speaker 3: short awe because there's just nothing for them in New
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  Speaker 3: Zealand right now. And that's even in the biggest cities.
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  Speaker 3: Typically the regions do find it harder because obviously it's smaller,
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  Speaker 3: less opportunity, but the biggest cities like Auckland and Wellington
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  Speaker 3: are struggling just as much.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Kate, thank you very much for that, Kate Ross.
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  Speaker 2: These swivel careers who looks after help, seventeen to twenty
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  Speaker 2: five year olds find work
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