At Construction Youth Trust, we are all about preparing young people to access real opportunities in the world of work. The aim of our Pathways to Professional Careers programme is to support young people from underrepresented groups secure highly competitive higher-level degree apprenticeships.

We achieve this goal by providing young people with opportunities to repeatedly meet with employers who are actively hiring and offering roles in the industry they are excited about. Young people complete a variety of engaging activities ranging from workplace visits to week-long work experience placements.
Live Vacancies events are crucial to this strategy. Over the course of a day, employers present jobs and apprenticeships they have on offer and young people then take part in true-to-life recruitment tasks and mock interviews. This enables them to showcase their talents and learn about company culture, while boosting their confidence and skills ahead of navigating the actual application process.

In partnership with global professional services company, Turner & Townsend, we delivered a Live Vacancies Day at their New Change offices. It introduced 33 young people on our programmes – aged 16+, both out of employment and still in education – to Turner & Townsend apprenticeships in Cost & Commercial Management, Project Controls (analysing progress and performance data) and Project Management. The Turner & Townsend hiring team introduced the opportunities available and answered topical questions from the young people on areas such as salaries, progression routes and employee benefits. They also ran a series of mock interviews in a professional setting to help prepare the young people to thrive in the application process. Alongside this, a Q&A session, with current apprentices speaking about their day-to-day experiences and answering questions from the floor, left the young people feeling empowered and ready to tackle their next steps into the world of work.

By the end of the event, the attendees were not only aware of the specific employability skills required for the roles on offer but had also built valuable connections with the Turner & Townsend hiring team – increasing their confidence and knowledge ahead of the application process.

We’re delighted to share that 11 young people applied to the apprenticeships on offer, and two have already received offers for apprenticeships in Project Controls with Turner & Townsend. These events really are life-changing, and we’d like to thank the Turner & Townsend team for all their support – it’s clear this is a winning formula and we look forward to offering more young people these inspiring opportunities!