Landing that first job is difficult, so how can we make it easier?
In my 16 years leading Hays, we placed literally millions of people into new jobs all around the world, making a real difference to so many lives. Fulfilling work is a fundamental part of what makes us tick. It provides us for a life we want to lead, but it also shapes who we are as people. It becomes a part of our identity. No wonder it’s so important to get it right.
While organisations like Hays provide a valuable service helping people who have already embarked on their careers to take another step along the journey, there remains one group of people who I believe remain woefully under-served in the market - the millions of young people who are making the transition from a life of full-time education and into the world of work for the first time. The sad reality is that the resources available to them to make such an important move remain so inadequate. It doesn’t feel as though things have advanced a whole lot since the days when I was making the same move over 40 years ago. Despite all the advances in technology and information access online, it can seem as though the leap from education to the first real job is characterised by luck, chance, serendipity, a massive volume of applications hoping one might land, family contacts etc. I’ve seen that for myself with so many young people who often find the whole process disheartening and depressing. Some are lucky and land the job of their dreams, many have to settle for something that at least gives them a start and others either fail or drop out of the system entirely. Whichever way we look at it, it’s a shocking waste of resources, ironic when political leaders across the world constantly talk about how economic growth is at the heart of their manifesto. The human toll is even worse than the economic drag. I remember well the excitement I felt at securing my first real job and looking forward to where it might take me in life. It was a turning point, but maybe I was just lucky. For many young people these days, the excitement is replaced by disillusionment, anxiety, rejection and self-doubt.
Young people deserve better than this. While it is impossible to just create new and wonderful jobs, it is possible to help people do a better job at landing one of those roles already available. Agencies and job boards do this well for people mid-career because they already have a track record, skills and experience. But where can you go if you’re just stepping into that world for the first time, you don’t really know what’s out there nor what you really want and you don’t have an expert network in your life to help you ? Believing that solving that problem is worth doing, I teamed up with a group of successful entrepreneurs at Hunch to build a platform to level the playing field. The platform aims to bring personalised, high quality career guidance to young people to help them navigate one of the most important crossroads they will face in life. Using the latest AI technologies, it is designed to support users as they identify the sorts of roles that will suit them best based on their education, interests and personality, surface the right jobs, coach users on crafting the killer CV, understand and nail interview techniques and above all land the right job. It does this not by replacing human judgement, but by building it - itself a life skill that will be valuable to users throughout their career. The ambition is to bring this personal career concierge, cheerleader and compass to millions of young people, something I think is long overdue.
With all the talk about AI replacing roles and people, this is an example of using AI to help people get along in their lives. One of the many things I learned in my time leading a global recruiting business is that human talent is what makes the world work and I don’t think that will change. The superstars of tomorrow however are the young people leaving education and starting their first professional role today. If we are serious about growth - economic and human too - we should start at the beginning and tackle the inequities that exist at the start of a career journey. If Hunch can help even a fraction of these young people make that transition with greater clarity and confidence, everyone wins.
As ever with something new, there is a lot to learn and a long way to go. Every piece of feedback is golddust at this early stage, so if you are on a laptop, feel free to test it out at askhunch.com and your feedback will guide its future development. If you are looking to recruit for your professional entry level positions and want to position your business in front of a specifically curated group of vetted candidates, the team want to hear from you. The mobile version will be launched shortly and while the first iteration is UK-centric, the concept is obviously transferable to other markets in time. Equally, if you know someone this could apply to, or someone who is lost in the job search process, or who may just need a confidence boost at this critical time, do pass it on as the more young people the team can help, the better.
As a former employee of Hays and now a Gen Z Career Coach I was really interested to read this post. The challenges facing young people (I have a son who is 26) are accurately identified, and I would also add from my own work as a coach that often the first obstacles my clients have to address are mindset and resilience. It's both surprising and disappointing to observe how many of the career starters struggle to identify their own personal strengths. Concerned parents feel powerless to provide advice that fits for now, never mind the future. I'm very interested to see how this new, much needed venture evolves. 👍 🚀
Had applied at Hays many times but couldn't get a call because there was no reference
Super excited to have partnered with such a powerhouse from the recruitment space 👏 👏
I read your post. Over ten years ago I joined Hays as an intern—my first job—because someone inside believed in me and put my name forward. I later rose to Team Leader and built a Life Sciences desk. Two factors explain that rise: luck and network. As a recruiter I still see the same pattern. Searches for graduates with zero experience are rare and, when they happen, the brief is the hardest: no track record, no references, nothing to validate potential. The only anchor is a clear view of competence and soft skills, yet assessing them requires time, data and tools most firms lack. That’s why Hunch looks like the missing link. If it can profile strengths, surface fitting roles, sharpen CVs, rehearse interviews and connect newcomers with hiring managers, it changes the game. I meet graduates who know what they want but cannot find the doorway; an evidence-based, AI mentor could swing that door open and give recruiters proof to back talent over résumé length. This isn’t charity; it’s ROI on talent. Let’s rewrite the rules: hire for potential, measure competencies and build on-ramps for those still gathering experience. We all remember our own first break—let’s light the path for the next generation. It’s an idea worth backing.