“She has already left the hood (neighborhood, in English) and, look at her, now she dresses like Jennifer Aniston.” She, Nerea Sánchez (16 years old), looks at her colleague Rubén (19) and laughs. They are sitting in a square in their neighborhood in Fuenlabrada. They don't know how to count the hours they have spent on those benches. They have known each other since they were children, they have grown up together, and they have also failed in school together. She, who was even summoned by the Juvenile Prosecutor's Office for truancy, has said enough, she does not want to derail. She has changed her tracksuit for a outfit more formally, he has enrolled in a basic vocational training marketing —he did not get his ESO degree—, and he has even signed up for a program to get to know a company from the inside. “Now I'm more focused than them,” she says regarding her friends from her neighborhood, none of whom have reached high school.
Nerea's case is that of hundreds of kids in Spain who for a time feel in no man's land. They do not fit into the educational system – the early school leaving rate is 13.9%, compared to the EU average of 9.3% – but they do not see themselves prepared to work either. The socioeconomic conditions of their environment, usually their neighborhood, make them perceive their situation with absolute normality, and only in some cases does a spark fly to re-engage in the system. “My mother only requires me to study or work, I have tried to follow the example of my sisters, they have all studied, and I have tortured myself a lot for not being able to follow their path,” says Nerea. In her house, the only salary she earns is that of her mother, who works as a cook.
In a conversation with his friends Rubén and Unai (20 years old) signs of discontent are clearly seen. They left school when they turned 16 and did not achieve the ESO degree. His life consists of meeting up in the mornings, going down to the square, taking a walk around the neighborhood. “We get very bored, we tell each other about life,” says Unai, who has suffered from anxiety and depression for years due to “family problems” and there are times when he takes medication. “I tell my colleagues, I tell them that I'm going to take the pill and that it's going to make me sleep, we spend time on the couch,” he says while rubbing his hands, covered in tattoos. Unai works sporadically at the Madrid amusement park; there are months when he has reached 1,200 euros. Rubén does not work and in recent weeks he has earned about 200 euros for having his iris scanned at a local shopping center in exchange for cryptocurrencies.
When asked about their medium and long-term plan, they say that no one has warned them of the harshness of the labor market with candidates without, at least, a vocational training degree. They have just created a trap group and would like to make a living from music. “We know that we are worth a lot, I have seen that the important thing is not the studies you have, but how you know how to move around in there,” says Unai, who assures that in the amusement park he works hand in hand with young people with university degrees and master's degrees. who earn less than him.
The data, however, do not prove him right. According to a talk by the governor of the Bank of Spain, Pablo Hernández de Cos, this week at a conference with young people, the individual income of those in high school is 18% higher than that of those who only have an ESO degree, and 26% more in the case of those with a medium degree of vocational training. University studies represent an additional return of 20%.
Regarding the level of studies most demanded by companies in 2022, Adecco's Infoempleo report indicates that university degrees were required in 37.30% of published job offers, while in the case of vocational training they were 34. 75% of vacancies (13.36% for intermediate degree and 21.39% for higher degree) compared to 15% of jobs that only required an ESO degree.
According to data from the Economic Capabilities Index 2018-2023, published this week by the FAD Juventud Foundation, the rates of the young population at risk of poverty and exclusion are “especially worrying”, which in 2023 stood at 27.3%, as well as youth unemployment (22.4%), which doubles the European average (11.3%). “This not only affects their autonomy, but can also influence their emotional well-being and personal development,” the report states.
Nacho Sequeira, general director of the Exit Foundation – launched in 2000 to reduce the early educational abandonment of children in situations of social vulnerability through good guidance – assures that the profile of young people at risk of social exclusion has changed in recent years, so that it no longer focuses exclusively on migrants, on children who have gone through social services or have been in juvenile centers or are of Roma ethnicity. “Those barriers that were so clear before are fading, and now our programs target those who are taking basic vocational training in neighborhoods with greater socioeconomic vulnerability.”
The traditional definition made by the NGO EAPN-ES (European Network to Fight Poverty and Social Exclusion) of vulnerable young people in Spain is similar to that proposed by Sequeira: it is one with a very reduced level of training combined with experiences of failure. schoolchildren, young migrants (some in irregular situations or refugees), ethnic minorities, or those who live in degraded neighborhoods.
The company, that gray place
One of the Exit Foundation's programs is the Coach Project, for which they train volunteers in different companies to act as mentors for these kids so that they can teach them about their companies from the inside, and help them discover their vocation with the objective to motivate them not to abandon their training – the completion rate of Basic Vocational Training is 57%. During six sessions, the volunteer introduces the young person to different departments of the company. Since the project was launched in 2013, 210 employees have guided 180 young people (83% of them have continued studying after passing through the program).
“In their imagination they have the idea of a production chain, they see the company as a super gray, serious place, where if they make a mistake they will be scolded hard, with this experience many myths are dismantled,” explains Sequeira, who believes that “You can now expose the young person to all the statistics of the labor market, and if they are not clear about who they want to be, they will be of no use to them.”
Within the turn that Nerea has wanted to give to her life are the six sessions at Adecco within this mentoring program. In one of them, Marta Romero, the company's human resources consultant, gives her very practical advice for preparing her resume and her tricks to succeed in the selection processes. “Do you know the spontaneous candidacy? It is about accessing the hidden market and contacting the profiles that make the selection of candidates,” she explains.
On platforms like LinkedIn, you can search with keywords like recruiter, talent adquisition manager, or talent, so that the human resources profiles of the companies are identified. His advice is to send them a message with a brief presentation (what has interested you about that company, what values it shares… all with prior research work), even before a selection process begins. “It is an opportunity that you cannot miss, that person in charge will receive dozens of presentations, but you never know if yours will catch their attention.”
Questions about the resume
Regarding the resume, the question is always the same: how to sell myself without previous experience? “You have to look for activities in which your leadership has stood out, such as volunteering. “I recommended to a boy who was climbing that he associate that sport with his perseverance and improvement,” says Marta Romero, who has detected how the United States model and its blind resumes are increasingly penetrating, where certain information is eliminated, such as references. temporary in each of the professional experiences. “They are eliminating the dates and the photos are increasingly closer and more natural, posed with arms crossed are no longer used, it is a trend that arrived with the covid.”
What scared Nerea the most were the rigid schedules and forms; she believed that they would not treat her well and that she would never fit into a company. “I'm in a research phase to see what I like the most, and yes, I see myself in a place like this,” she says.
The OECD report How youth explore, experience and think about their future (“How young people explore, experiment and think about their future”), published in 2021, analyzed the trajectory of 67,000 students between 14 and 16 years of age over more than 10 years and concluded that those for whom life went better had done three key activities: getting to know oneself, exploring the job market, and experiencing careers. In Spain, the number of students who claim to have spent stays in companies at the age of 15 does not reach 10% – as extracted from the data collected by the PISA report – compared to the 20% average in European OECD countries. .
It is six in the afternoon and Nerea says goodbye to Rubén and Unai, who leave the square towards a supermarket where they sell cans of energy drinks for euros. On their cell phone, they review some of the lyrics of their songs, which are a declaration of intent: “Someday we will be at the top,” “we are the owners of the night.” “They are like owls, they are always on the street, they are the neighborhood kids,” concludes Nerea, who turns the corner in another direction.
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