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<\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\nI have spent my career of over 25 years working in graduate recruitment & workforce development. I have seen where it has been done well and where it has not. During this time, my company has helped to start the careers for many thousands of graduates, with highly effective recruitment strategies and impactful development. Many have gone on to be very senior business leaders and are at the forefront of our industry today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am reminiscent of the early 1990\u2019s, which is when I was early in my career, where a recession caused businesses not to focus on the future. Revenues declined, inflation was over 9%, interest was over 14% and unemployment was rising. Businesses, to their detriment as they discovered, stopped investing in recruiting graduates and over the following years struggled to keep up with demand as their markets took off. They simply did not have the talent and the leaders coming through their businesses, and it caused problems for several years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recognizing the impact this had, over subsequent years many companies have ensured that their early career & graduate recruitment remains protected. I was one of the lucky ones, I was given a chance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have never experienced anything like this before. We are in uncharted waters and life is very unpredictable, but I am fearful that our 2020 graduates and early career talent who will chose not to go to university this year could become the lost generation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As business owners and leaders, I believe we have a responsibility and obligation to ensure that this does not happen. We cannot allow our children to fall between the gaps caused by this situation; if there was ever a time that business needs to pull together with humanity, it is now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are seeing already the impact Coronavirus is having on our workforces. Skills gaps were already an issue, but now we have capacity issues as workers self-isolate or are ill. This is not going to change in the short term, but business trading still needs to happen, and life cannot go on hold. Products still need to be produced; salespeople still need to sell; deliveries still need to happen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I believe despite the immediate turmoil this is causing, in a few weeks\u2019 time this will become the new norm (at least for a while), and this needs to be the time to take a moment to look to the future. In a few weeks\u2019 time, the next wave of graduates will hit the jobs market, eager to start their careers and where possible we need to do our bit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At Discovery, we are going to do just this, and put our money where our mouth is. Over the coming days we will be announcing our plans for how we will support businesses both financially and structurally to ensure they can benefit from these fine people, who come full of fresh ideas and a genuine desire to make a difference, at a time when business could need them most. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As business leaders, our job is to look at the pin on the floor and view the horizon at the same time. I urge you, amidst all this ambiguity, to take a moment to consider what your business needs in the next two years rather than two weeks, however difficult this may be. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a matter of weeks, our next tranche of graduates leave university for the last time with, what should be, the excited anticipation of entering the workforce and starting their careers, but this year it is very different. If the last few weeks have taught us anything it is to expect the unexpected. If a year ago it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18192,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_breakdance_hide_in_design_set":false,"_breakdance_tags":"","footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discovery-adr.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}