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View All NewsUK – Not considering voluntary experience means employers are missing out
Only 16% of employers ask candidates about any volunteering they do on application forms, and only 31% ask about it during interviews, according to the CIPD.
Employers are missing out on candidates with valuable skills by failing to recognise volunteering and social action experience during the recruitment process.
To address this shortfall, the CIPD suggests employers should embed social action, which can include experience of volunteering, fundraising, and campaigning, into their recruitment practices in order to allow candidates the opportunity to talk about skills they have gained outside of education and traditional work experience. This will provide employers with access to candidates with improved work and life skills, such as teamwork, communications, and leadership.
A joint report from the CIPD and the #iwill campaign, entitled ‘Unlock new talent: How can you integrate social action in recruitment?’, found that 67% of employers report that entry-level candidates who have social action experience demonstrate more employability skills. The top three skills cited by respondents were teamwork (82%), communication (80%), and understanding the local community (45%). However, despite this, less than a fifth of employers currently ask any questions about social action experience in their applications forms and only a third ask about it during interviews.
The #iwill campaign, coordinated by charity Step Up To Serve, is backed by leaders from across UK society, and led by HRH The Prince of Wales with renewed support from all of the main political parties. The campaign’s vision is for every young person in the UK to take part in ‘quality’ social action.
Integrating social action into the recruitment process, the report argues, allows employers to tap into a pool of talented individuals that otherwise might be overlooked, at the same time as demonstrating to young people that social action is worthwhile in terms of helping them to develop key skills that will be of value to employers.
Peter Cheese, Chief Executive of the CIPD said: “Historically, concern with social action, including volunteering, typically fitted within organisations’ corporate social responsibility agenda, and was often seen as a bridge between companies and the community. However, we believe that there is a strong case for social action to be integrated more widely into organisations’ people development and resourcing strategies.”
“A key challenge for recruiters is that candidates often fail to highlight their social action experience, unless given the opportunity to do so, as many still regard traditional work experience as being more important to employers. With the difficulties that many young people also face in terms of securing good quality work experience, it is clear that social action has a huge role to play in terms of skills development. By failing to uncover this experience during the recruitment stage, employers could be missing out on enthusiastic individuals who have precisely the types of employability skills organisations tell us they need and struggle to find.”
Charlotte Hill, Chief Executive at Step Up To Serve, added: “We know that communities and organisations benefit from having young people participate in social action projects. This report with support from businesses and employers reaffirms the notion of the ‘double benefit’ as young people that take part in social action also gain the skills they need for work and life. Encouraging businesses to embed this in recruitment will really change the face of social action participation across the UK.”