Monday 10 August 2026 3:09 pm
| Updated:
Monday 10 August 2026 3:18 pm
Headlines about the challenges facing young people trying to secure their first meaningful job have become hard to ignore. And with exam results for our next generation of workers landing soon, Emily Shenton, co-founder of Arrival, an organisational performance consultancy whose social impact practice partners with corporates to help ambitious young people build careers and Susie Sek, Sustainability Manager at Investec, discuss why supporting young people through the transition into work matters and what every professional can do to help.Graduate roles now attract hundreds of applications. Even students with the strongest of CVs are submitting dozens, sometimes hundreds of applications without success. Add to that the challenge of finding part-time work while studying, alongside growing uncertainty about how artificial intelligence will reshape entry-level roles, and it’s easy to see why so many young people and their support network are anxious about the future.No single business can solve the challenges facing the early careers market, nor should they be expected to. Businesses can’t create roles where there isn’t a genuine business need.So, what can those of us leading and working in businesses actually do? How can we help ambitious, hard-working young people keep going while they navigate an exceptionally difficult labour market? The encouraging news is that we can all do something simple: give an hour of our time.Susie: Research from The King’s Trust found that more than 70% of young people wish they weren’t starting their careers in today’s economy. Does this mirror what early careers students are saying to you ?Emily: The labour market is undoubtedly difficult, and no one I’ve spoken to pretends there’s an easy answer. Arrival was working with young people during the 2008 financial crisis and this is far more serious. It’s worth saying this is not about handling a few rejections. It’s about what happens after forty, fifty, sixty applications, months of silence and the gradual erosion of hope. I recently spoke to an impressive young engineering student at Imperial College London. He achieved excellent A-levels, is clearly smart, thoughtful, hardworking and driven. He told me he was on application number 46 and had yet to receive a single positive response. The “new norm” is not to receive a response at all. Susie: How are the young people you work with through Arrival responding?Emily: What I have observed working with young people from lower socioeconomic communities is how remarkably resilient they are as a group. But I’m increasingly starting to see the negative impact of repeated rejection. It’s completely understandable that, after months of repeated silence and rejection, they begin to question whether all the hard work they’ve put in is ever going to lead anywhere. And that worries me deeply. I am fortunate in my work to meet thousands of smart, ambitious young people who want to contribute to our economy and society, who want to build lives and prosper in the UK.Increasingly, though, I’m hearing a question I rarely heard a few years ago:
