Although a target for the Millennium Development Goals was to “Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people,” unemployment for youth continues to increase.

Zahra Darvishi, Credit Suisse, led off the session discussing what the company is doing to enable young people to be successful in entering the workplace, youth unemployment being one of the top concerns in Switzerland. Employee volunteers helped young people with employment applications and practice interviews with a 70% success rate among the youth served.

Anja Meyfarth, Manager at Joblinge, discussed the mentorship opportunities they provide corporate volunteers who support young people at eight sites around Hamburg, Germany. Mentors act as ‘confidant, coach and crisis managers for the young people involved in the program. Joblinge trains the mentor through their companies’ employee development programming.

Session participants stressed the focus on working with at-risk youth and where possible working with young children and their families. There was a lot of discussion about the need for multi-sector partnerships – company, government and non-profit. We discussed the ‘size of the problem’ and the need to scale up efforts in order to respond to the scope of the issue. Companies also discussed working beyond company employees to their suppliers and engaging their customers in fundraising as well as volunteer initiatives.

One question we asked was, “How do you convince employers to value volunteering on a resume of a young applicant?” Admittedly none of the employers were considering youth volunteering on a resume except in cases of students volunteering in cross border programs. Companies also agreed that Human Resources staff are caught in the cycle of “hiring for hard skills, firing for lack of soft skills.”

Prepared by Kathi Dennis, Moderator

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