Struggle of young people like Connor to find work can exact heavy toll – Clara Strachan and Caroline Mackenzie
Clara Strachan and Caroline Mackenzie, of the charity Cyrenians, describe one young jobseekers’ journey to full-time employment
Young people seeking work find themselves facing an incredibly competitive job market. Even with qualifications that might have guaranteed entry-level employment and the first step towards a stable career in the past, young people are struggling to find gainful employment or break the cycle of temporary contracts and gig work.
To support young people onto pathways to meaningful, long-term work, there needs to be a concerted effort made by employers and third sector organisations to embed learning, build transferable skills and provide opportunities to gain qualifications, with work experience placements and dedicated employability programmes.
We spoke to Connor Glancey, who now works at Cyrenians’ Felix Depot as an operations assistant, about his experience participating in our employability programme.
‘I felt desperate’
After months submitting hundreds of applications, Connor began to reach a low point. “I kept thinking, it can't be this hard to get a job; it shouldn't be this hard. That led me into depressive periods. I became stuck at home, and it led me to fall into a dark cycle, where I was even questioning my own worth. No jobs were materialising and my hope of getting out of this rut sank. I felt desperate.”
In the hope of being pointed in the direction of a volunteering position or any kind of work, Connor reached out to a former mentor for advice. “That’s when I first heard about the [Cyrenians and Felix] programme. It just changed the whole game.”
The programme offered Connor the opportunity to gravitate towards the work available at the depot that interested him, involving paperwork and logistics, customer service and physical warehouse operations, and deliveries to other charities.
Connor said that he was pushed outside of his comfort zone by the learning on the programme and “encouraged to adapt and do lots of new things that I might not ever have thought about doing, that are really beneficial to do. We learned a lot about communication; how to deal with phone calls, how to deal with people face to face. They are real life skills!”
‘Just elated’
The employability programme provided skills beyond the warehouse and logistics sector, offering a mix of hands-on work experience, accredited training, and industry-specific, recognised qualifications like manual handling, food safety and customer service training, and personalised mentoring.
Welcoming spaces where young people can make the most of growing sectors they might not have considered themselves a good fit for are also vital. Connor said that although initially he “feared the stereotypes when coming into the depot”, participating in the programme “challenged my assumptions. The warehouse is mainly run by women, and they make me, as a gay man, feel so welcomed.”
Reflecting, Connor added: “I felt so comfortable around my programme supervisor Michelle, and she championed me in the work I do. She and the management team could see my capabilities, passion and willingness to improve ways of working. They watched my growth and saw I was capable of doing more. I remember receiving that email to say I got the warehouse assistant job! Just elated.”
Clara Strachan is Cyrenians’ marketing communications officer and Caroline Mackenzie works at the Felix Project
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