How can employers find young staff with potential?

Vacancies at the UK’s leading graduate employers have fallen to their lowest level since 2010. Recruitment has declined for five consecutive years and is now more than a quarter below its 2022 peak, leaving thousands of young people competing for a shrinking number of opportunities.

AI-generated application forms are increasingly common, says Euan Cameron

The figures should challenge the lazy suggestion that younger people struggle to find work because they lack ambition, resilience, or enthusiasm. Almost one million 16 to 24-year-olds are outside employment, education or training, yet 84% of those who responded to the government’s Young People and Work review said they wanted to find a job, course or training opportunity.

Young people want to work, yet too many cannot gain meaningful access to the places where skills, confidence and experience are developed.

The technology changes, but getting that foot in the door remains all-important (Picture: Adobe)

Employers increasingly want candidates who have already demonstrated their value in a workplace, yet the jobs, placements and junior responsibilities through which previous generations acquired that experience have become scarcer.

Around 1.6 million lower and medium-skilled jobs have disappeared over the past two decades, and part-time employment – once an important introduction to working life – has contracted in sectors including retail and hospitality. Artificial intelligence (AI) is also beginning to absorb some of the routine tasks through which junior employees traditionally learned their trade.

Those who reach the recruitment process face another obstacle, too – applying online has become so easy that a vacancy can attract hundreds or thousands of candidates within days. The vast majority of applications are now polished or generated using AI, leaving employers to sift through a large volume of increasingly similar CVs.

Willo’s Hiring Intelligence Report 2026 found that more than three-quarters of hiring professionals had encountered AI-generated applications. Employers understandably need a way to reduce the pile, so they return to familiar signals such as previous experience, university attended, postcode, recognisable employers and carefully selected keywords.

These filters make recruitment manageable, although they are poor measures of future potential. A CV largely records the opportunities somebody has already received, and applicants from wealthier or better-connected backgrounds consequently arrive carrying advantages accumulated long before the vacancy was advertised.

A capable young person may lack professional contacts, prestigious internships or experience of navigating corporate recruitment while possessing precisely the judgment, curiosity, aptitude and work ethic an employer needs. Too often, nobody discovers that because the application is rejected before the candidate has been asked a meaningful question.

We see employers struggling to assess enormous numbers of applicants while capable candidates disappear during the earliest stages. When recruiters examine evidence against requirements defined for the role before focusing on education or background, people who might have been dismissed through a conventional CV sift can receive proper consideration.

The result is a circular system in which businesses complain that young people are unprepared for work while denying them access to the workplaces in which they would become prepared. Employers demand experience from applicants whom nobody has yet trusted with an opportunity.

The response should begin with genuinely entry-level jobs carrying genuinely entry-level requirements. Employers should remove unnecessary demands for previous experience and give a wider group of eligible candidates an opportunity to demonstrate how they think, communicate and approach situations relevant to the work.

A properly designed structured interview can provide that opportunity. Digital technology enables employers to put the same appropriate questions to a broader group instead of reserving meaningful assessment for the small number who survive an initial CV sift.

Candidates can participate without paying to travel across the country, while recruiters can consider their answers before being influenced by educational pedigree or employment history. Used carefully, artificial intelligence can organise that evidence and show how responses relate to criteria set by the employer.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has questioned whether younger applicants can adequately convey their passion and personality through remote interviews. His concern is understandable, because a badly designed recorded interview offered without explanation, human contact or feedback can feel every bit as impersonal as an automated rejection. Moving every early-stage interview back into an office, however, would disadvantage candidates who live far from major employers, have disabilities or caring responsibilities, or cannot afford repeated travel.

Better digital recruitment should widen access while leaving consequential decisions with people. Technology should never infer a candidate’s personality or potential from their appearance, voice, or mannerisms. Employers must understand what their systems measure, test them for unfair outcomes, provide reasonable adjustments and retain responsibility for final decisions.

Recruitment reform cannot restore the entry-level jobs that have vanished, and the UK still needs stronger vocational pathways, better apprenticeships and employers willing to invest in people who arrive with potential rather than experience. The government must also address the regional and financial barriers that prevent young people from taking available opportunities.

Employers can nevertheless improve access to the vacancies that remain – they should remove unnecessary experience requirements, assess candidates against criteria connected to the job before allowing background to shape their judgment, and ensure that people remain accountable for every consequential decision.

Young employees will need coaching, purposeful contact with experienced colleagues, and opportunities to understand how organisations operate once they are hired. First, employers must become better at recognising capability before it arrives wrapped in familiar credentials.

Euan Cameron is the founder and chief executive of global candidate-screening platform Willo