[00:00:00] Amelia Loveday: Hello and welcome back to CareerCon and this conversation all about preparing the next generation for the world of work. I'm Amelia. I'm head of programmes at hundo and my role is all about bringing virtual work experience and skills development to young people, no matter their location, their skills, their interests to help them prepare for the world of work.

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And really there is no one better to have this conversation with than Melanie Parker. Uh, she's both a parent of a teenager and a recruitment specialist with a passion for fostering local talent and helping young people into the jobs they love. She's the founder and director of Graft Talent based in Leeds.

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Uh, we've crossed paths and connected several times. Um, hundo works a fair amount in Leeds. Uh, and we've been able to connect over our shared mission and values. Um, so I'm hoping you'll start Melanie, uh, by telling us a little bit about Graft Talent, your experience in recruitment, and what pushed you to want to start your own organisation.

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[00:01:10] Melanie Parker: Yes, Amelia, I will do my best to do a bit of a nutshell job. So basically, um, graft is six years old. I have been in recruitment for 30. That will not discuss how old I am. It's advancing. Um, so I spent 10 years working in higher education and I set up, uh, the UK's first um, student and graduate recruitment business within a university really to help and prepare the next generation for the world of work.

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And like you say, that's why we've connected multiple times and it's obviously a point of shared interest for us. So spent a long time within employability, career coaching, careers, and recruitment. And then, like you say, all neatly put together in Graft, which I founded six years ago. 

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[00:02:04] Amelia Loveday: Amazing. Um, and with Graft specifically, what, what do you do that's sort of different from traditional recruitment processes?

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[00:02:13] Melanie Parker: So what I can do that's different is really give a very unbiased look at the job market and the world of work because one of the challenges is, uh, let's just pick graduates as a prime example, but obviously there's apprenticeships. There's so many different ways into the world of work now, but it can be very confusing.

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Um, and you need signposting to certain sectors, industries. It's really helpful if you've got someone who can So, for example, look at your degree discipline. and then try and figure out routes to industry based off your degree and or to look at it entirely differently and come up with a whole new sort of raft of jobs that are typically found The people don't really know what's out there, you know, you're in a kind of a bubble in education and then when you come out of education, it's very confusing.

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So I think the thing that Graft can do is really very unbiasedly look at individuals and try and work out a solid career plan for them moving forward. 

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[00:03:21] Amelia Loveday: You're absolutely right. I think when you don't, you just don't know what's out there, even if you've got the wherewithal to be able to identify your, uh, transferable skills.

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It's so hard to job hunt. I remember leaving university with a languages degree and no idea what to do with it. Um, yeah. So, you know, with your professional experience, are there any specific challenges or uncertainties that you think about when you're thinking about your own child's future in the workforce?

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[00:03:49] Melanie Parker: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting with my own child because she's, uh, A person who doesn't know what she wants to do. So I think if she had of know what she wanted to do I would have been sort of pushing her really down the um degree level apprenticeship route Because in that respect, you know, there's some very strong key benefits to that You know, the employer's going to pay for the degree so you'll be leaving university debt free And also you're already in the job.

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So, you know, you've got that perfect blend, um, of a vote, well, of the skill of the job of the sector. Plus obviously the learning of that. I tend to find some of my own worries with my own child is being wrapped up in the bubble of university and then having no direction or solid careers advice coming out of it to think with a degree in history.

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What am I going to do? Um, I mean, I'm very pleased that she's going to get to enjoy maybe finding that out and being curious about different sectors and industries, but that's because I'll be at the back of her reminding her to, to do exactly that. I think really for a lot of parents and, you know, kids coming out of education at whatever level, it's just a minefield of, you know, You know, missed opportunities.

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A lot of the time, that's the sad result of it really that due to a lack of either good careers advice, which, you know, is difficult to find based with knowing what does industry want, that's the biggest thing. So you've got a lot of talent with no. skill or experience in the particular industry in which they're trying to join.

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So the, what I've seen over my 30 year career, unfortunately, is this whole chicken and egg thing where employers obviously want people to understand their sector and their industry and fresh talent simply hasn't had an opportunity. To do so, so that's what I really took to task when I worked at a university was right, we need to equip this next generation of talent coming out with the very well, not even very specific, but just some idea of what the industry they're going to go into or potentially going to would look like.

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So they've got something to bring to the table. 

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[00:06:12] Amelia Loveday: Yeah. Um, how old is your daughter? Is she college? She's 18. Is she, has she started uni or just started? No, she'll 

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[00:06:19] Melanie Parker: be going in, she'll be going in, I don't think, oh God, I'm not, hopefully I'll be, I'm very happy for her to be going, but I will miss her. Um, so she'll be starting in the late summer.

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[00:06:32] Amelia Loveday: Okay. Um, and to just sort of address that disconnect. between what they learn at school, what they learn at university and what they need in the workplace. What could educators be doing differently? So colleges, universities? Oh, 

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[00:06:45] Melanie Parker: do you know, it's pitiful. I mean, her career's advice at school was just non existent, really, and nothing of any particular merit in terms of looking at, you know, for example, is she a left or a right brain?

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Is she, You know, there's all so many different metrics and ways to measure, but there's, it was just pitiful really. Um, so I think what I find is that when people are in education typically, and it's no fault that I'm not a portion in blame here, because everyone's got a job to do. It's really difficult to leverage against doing the job that you're fully involved in to then pop your head up to try and find out what industry is doing and try and understand and translate that.

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I mean, I'll often find, you know, I could go into a lecture theatre and start talking about a sector or an industry and the graduate, the students wouldn't know what the job titles even stood for. Because things are moving so quickly that unless there's really up to date information about, you know, how to get into a sector, what kind of skills you need to be able to evidence, what you need to be able to do, the whole sort of knowledge bank of that, I think, just doesn't seem to work.

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There's a huge disconnect between, you know, a graduate student, someone coming out of school, college, university thinking. I don't know what I want to do for a career and making sure that that very up to date advice is there. So I think where it can work well is when schools, colleges, universities have relationships with external companies.

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Yeah. And you really need to leverage the knowledge from the external companies to really make a difference in that academic institution, whichever it is. 

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[00:08:42] Amelia Loveday: Yeah, I mean, that leads me on to my next question really, which is if, if educators are struggling to give students the up to date insights, advice about the job market, um, and those industry connections are really important because if you can bring in employers or businesses or expert companies to talk to students, that's great, but then you have to go out and find those connections.

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So what, what could companies and employers do? And what should they be doing, uh, to help address this, this skills gap? 

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[00:09:14] Melanie Parker: This should really be tapping into the fact that almost every sector unequivocally is struggling for talent. So I wouldn't say there's been a better appetite for external organisations to want to get involved with schools, colleges, and universities because they're all facing hiring challenges.

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You know, simply put, there just isn't enough good people for the roles that they have. Exist out there and to, to this point today, there's, there is like over a million jobs, which are unfulfilled in the UK, which is having a knock on effect with productivity GDP, you know, it affects every single part of my life as we know it really.

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So I think it's just very important to try and build. relationships. Make sure that, you know, you're, you're leaving your door open for companies to come in to actually find their talent. within your um, school or college or uni, you know, and not be, don't sort of put any obstacles in the way, you know, you want practitioners doing CV workshops, doing a day in the life of, you know, so that it's real.

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people doing real jobs so that the students can identify actually that really interests me or you know what i've never thought about that but now i've heard about it direct from the horse's mouth i'd love that would be something i'd love to pursue and if we can get You know, that kind of relationship going very strongly.

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It pays back on both sides so much because it keeps um, people within the um, education, um, you know, environment right up to date with, because the job, I mean they change all the time. There's new things, there's new job titles coming in based on new technology. So all of a sudden we've got jobs that didn't exist.

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Two, three, four, five years ago, and then that's just going to continue. So it's, it, it gives you an opportunity to be able to have sort of like a learning environment, both ways. 

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[00:11:22] Amelia Loveday: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's, it's really easy to have a, an image in your head of what an industry is and types of roles in it.

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And that it might not sound like something you'd be interested in without actually speaking to people in that industry. gaining some experience about the whole range of jobs you could be doing. Yeah, 

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[00:11:40] Melanie Parker: manufacturing's a really good one there, Amelia. You know, people might still think, oh, manufacturing's dirty, very male dominated.

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I mean, arguably it still is. But, you know, people might have an opinion of it, but then there's, there's Robots coming in, there's AI, there's all sorts of, you know, modern technology that is aiding and abetting and making that entire industry completely different from years ago. But it's like you say, how do you find that out?

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[00:12:12] Amelia Loveday: Yeah. 

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[00:12:12] Melanie Parker: And they need talent to do those roles. So they need to Oh, absolutely. They're really struggling because, because of the, the reputation it has. 

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[00:12:20] Amelia Loveday: Yeah, this brings me on to work experience. Um, as you know, hundo developed virtual work experience programs and we're launching some new programs in June, uh, focusing on sort of the essentials of the workplace, uh, a bit of AI entrepreneurship and more.

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Um, we view work experience really as the first step of getting people Enterprise involved in education. Um, I know a lot of companies, they want recruiters to find them talent for next month or next year. Um, but if they're willing to invest in future talent, that's maybe five to 10 years down the line, work experience is a great way to do that.

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Um, did your daughter do work experience? Um, was it, was it helpful? If not, what happened? And, and what do you think are the benefits of work experience for, for student development? 

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[00:13:14] Melanie Parker: Well, she did do work experience and funnily enough, she did it at a primary school that she went to. And actually the, I mean, God, honestly couldn't make it up.

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The teacher actually said to her, I wouldn't do teaching. It's not a nice career. And I was like, I just want to pull me out now. This is, yeah, this, it wasn't the best for her. And actually they didn't really give her anything of, I mean, as the time went on, obviously the started to trust that she could. Do more, but I think at the beginning they didn't really know what to do.

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They didn't really know What to offer that could be valuable for both um, I think half of the problems would disappear if everybody did work experience Because that's your first Step on the ladder to really understanding not just The job, the role, the skills, but also the etiquette of being out of a classroom, into a work environment, you know, the subtle differences that makes.

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And that, when I say etiquette, everyone always immediately thinks, Oh, the negative, you know, I've got to like be, and it's not that at all. In fact, a lot of, you know, when we go out to schools and they'll say, so can you just sort of. Go to events. And I'm like, well, yes, it's all part of the job. So actually the freedom to start to get a bit of a sense of is really exciting for, for the students.

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But I absolutely feel like work experience should be, um, mandatory. And really it should be, there should be some sort of proper guidelines in place so that people can actually, because often it's given that it's But people don't focus on, well, what value do we need to add here? And so sometimes, you know, the very junior person obviously can end up doing very junior tasks and not essentially really seeing a proper insight.

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So I think that it could do with kind of shaping up, but I think it's imperative. 

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[00:15:23] Amelia Loveday: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, on the The issue of sort of setting a standard for work experience, you hear all the horror stories of shadowing and photocopying and making coffee, and that's not going to get anyone actually excited for the workplace.

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Um, what we've found from talking to employers is if a company has gone remote or hybrid and it's not in the office very often, they actually, they don't know how to offer work experience because you know, the student will sort of get lumped onto a junior colleague who has to text them twice a day going, how's it going?

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You okay? Um, so we've got our virtual work experience to try and make virtual meaningful. And if students walk away with. skills in writing an email, all those etiquette things that you were talking about, the absolute basics, how to organize and run a meeting, then they've gained something valuable. And it wasn't just a slightly disappointing experience.

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Um, do you have any thoughts on virtual work experience and how that how it could close a divide between in person placements, which are very necessary and very useful, but not available to all students, um, and how it could address the evolving needs of the job market. 

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[00:16:39] Melanie Parker: Yeah, I think the beauty of, I mean, I personally think that in person would be the most valuable, but in every situation, that's just not possible.

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So we live in a world where we can create, you know, the kind of the experience in a completely different way. So of course we should be embracing that. And I mean, you know, COVID, we all know what happened there. Now it's normal to be recorded or being, um, you know, video calls. So everyone's kind of used to it, which is good, which I think will really make the virtual work experience much more successful, because I think it would have maybe been seen as a barrier.

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But I think to reverse that, the point of the matter is that not everybody can go in the office or at the employer's site. And actually, if you remove those barriers, it also means that they don't have to be governed by geography. So, there are cities in the UK which are much more, you know, centric to particular sectors, so Say you wanted to work in the theatre or music production, it's more likely to be London.

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I mean, that is obviously changing. We're getting more activity up here in the north as well. But it definitely helps on a number of different levels with that. So you've got, you know, the geography doesn't matter anymore, which is superb. Also, if you're not, uh, particularly confident or you may have, um, some kind of learning impairment and that whole kind of, you know, being there and being scared, actually, you know, we forget that we are talking about the younger generation who were kind of locked away.

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Um, through COVID and may have suffered in some way with some communication skills, for example. Hopefully, the fact it would be virtual might make it a little bit less intimidating. I think people can be massively unsympathetic to the effect of the youth during COVID and what that's left them with. You know, some pretty hefty anxiety is, um, you know, I see that a lot.

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You know, anxiety. about simple things, but that would actually be a blocker for them. They would, they would likely not volunteer to do something if they felt highly uncomfortable. Whereas I think in the virtual world, they are more comfortable with that because that's been more of their reality. So I can't see it being anything other than a big benefit, actually.

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And choice is always good, right? So if you want to go, Um, to a physical place, then we shouldn't take that off the table, but I think in a lot of instances, virtual will overtake and be an improvement in some respects to the on site provision. 

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[00:19:34] Amelia Loveday: Yeah. I think you hit the nail on the head there. It's about choice, really, um, and removing what for some people is an absolute barrier.

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Um, I'd just like to wrap up that conversation with, it's also about. Setting expectations for a young person's future, you know, cause work experience, you know, you might be a grad doing work experience, but you might be 14, 15 doing work experience. And we should be able to say to young people, you can still pursue a career in the creative industries, even though you live in North Yorkshire or the Midlands, just because you can't commute to London or wherever it may be, doesn't mean that you can't have this career.

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And I think virtual. Can provide an option to inspire them and make them feel like, Oh, I can do that. 

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[00:20:20] Melanie Parker: Well, hopefully it'll be a massive leveler. 

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[00:20:23] Amelia Loveday: Yeah. 

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[00:20:24] Melanie Parker: You know, and that's what needs to happen really because if, if we were, You know, I mean, channel four is a great example, you know, coming to lead. So that, and the BBC coming to Manchester, solve for keys, you know, so they can explore more regional talent.

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There's so much talent out there. It's clearly doesn't make sense that it's all just centered in one location. That's insane. Um, and I think, you know, the UK is. It's made up of lots of different types of people, so why do we focus on one area? Does it make any sense at all? So that's the thing I'm most excited about actually, and in my day job, recruiting.

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You know, the need for people to be physically there. It doesn't exist in any way, near the same form. 

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[00:21:10] Amelia Loveday: Yeah, you're right. Leeds is a great example of this, the connection between enterprise and education. But we'll, we'll have to have that conversation another day. Running out of time, Melanie. Um, so first of all, thank you.

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And very quickly, could you share with us, uh, websites? Where can people find out more about Graft and about you? 

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[00:21:33] Melanie Parker: So you can find me on LinkedIn, uh, Melanie Parker. So I've got LinkedIn page for Melanie Parker and also one for Graft Talent. You can find the website at www.grafttalent.co.Uk and on Instagram with the handle at Graft Talent.

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So lots of different ways to reach out and communicate with me. Um, and yeah, hopefully some of you will. 

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[00:21:59] Amelia Loveday: Amazing. Uh, and as always, you can find out more about hundo at hundo.xyz you can subscribe, uh, to get news about upcoming CareerCon discussions, events, um, we'll be covering lots of different industries in the coming months.

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So stay updated. Uh, Melanie, thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure. Um, and I hope to pop up to Leeds and visit you soon. Yeah, that'd 

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[00:22:24] Melanie Parker: be lovely. I'll get the kettle on.