AT LAST – HERE’S SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE
Amidst the current gloom, Graduate Fog is taking a moment to celebrate the second birthday of the Good + Fair Employers Club – our network of the UK’s best firms for young people to work for, which we run alongside this careers advice website, Graduate Fog.
When Graduate Fog launched, employers were scared of us. We kept calling them out on the shoddy ways they were treating young people, like running unpaid internships, only hiring graduates from posh universities, and rejecting you for jobs because they didn’t like your name, your accent, or your tie (yes really).
But that was in 2010 – and, over the years, more and more employers (especially the big ones) have come around to our way of thinking. They’ve realised that actually it’s in everyone’s best interests to hire a diverse range of young people from all social and ethnic backgrounds, and make sure that the workplace they join is as open-minded and inclusive as possible, so you can do your very best work for them, and stay with their company for as long as possible (they hate it when you leave after less than two years!).
In March 2018, we decided to test what would happen if we brought together the nicest employers we knew in what was then called the Graduate Fog Employers Club (we’ve since changed its name as we now cover apprentices as well as graduates). The result was unexpectedly magical. Immediately, a group of people who didn’t know each other – including representatives from rival companies – jumped at the chance to share their solutions, successes, problems and disasters. After the panel discussion, our guests all stuck around for drinks afterwards, to continue the conversation (see below).
THE FIRST OF MANY: Our launch event in March 2018 kicked off the Club as we know it today
Our Club now has 16 brilliant members, including Google, Channel 4, BT, Santander and Vodafone who come together four times a year to discuss how to make themselves even better employers of young people. Here is the full list of our members:
Since the coronavirus hit, we’ve had to be flexible about how we meet, moving these events online. Happily, that doesn’t seem to be a problem for our members, who are pleased to meet virtually for as long as it’s necessary.
And the best bit? (You’ll love this). We make all our Club Members pass a test before they can join. We ask them to promise that they pay all their staff a fair and legal wage (including interns). They must pledge that they are taking active steps to improve diversity and inclusion, reply to every application they receive, and offer travel expenses when applicants ask for them.
So, when you see the our Good + Fair Employers Club badge (below) on a company’s careers page, you can be sure they’re reached our strict standards of behaviour. So go forth and apply with confidence!
Latest Comments