Preparing youths for the workforce

"NAME three adjectives to describe yourself".

That was the challenge posed by Eileen Tay, company secretary and regional head, corporate governance, Asean and South Asia of Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore), to her mentee, Kenneth Tan, who was a final-year undergraduate at the National University of Singapore.

The exchange between both parties is part of a wider initiative of the bank to prepare youths for the workforce.

The financial institution was exploring to collaborate with like-minded partners to support its global community initiative, Futuremakers, which promotes economic inclusion for youths. Hence, Advisory - a fully youth-led non-profit organisation dedicated to empowering young Singaporeans to make informed career and further education choices - came into the picture.

Advisory has worked with over 156,000 students and youth since 2016 and The Advisory Mentorship Programme pairs up working professionals on a 1-1 basis with youths based on their fields of interest. Standard Chartered has been one of the official mentorship partners since 2020.

Patrick Lee, cluster chief executive officer for Singapore and Asean markets, Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore), said: "The Advisory Mentorship Programme is aligned closely with Standard Chartered's global community investment ethos, and our colleagues are delighted to be directly involved in supporting our youths to be future-ready."

Students apply for the specific mentors they are interested to be paired with, but matching can also be based on the industry or field of expertise which the youths are most interested in if they cannot be matched with their top choices.

"Employees can advise on roles based on their personal career journey, their expertise and knowledge about the industry, and also help the youths think through the pathways that can help them realise their ambitions ... The youths are our future. Helping them succeed is the best way we can promote sustainable development in our communities and create our shared future success. This is the basic premise behind our global community investment strategy and it has won the full support of our colleagues. Working with Advisory is a great way for us to volunteer our time and expertise in the Singapore community - a place we have called home for over 160 years," he added.

A total of 48 staff members from the bank volunteered between 2020 and 2021. Each volunteer mentor would meet up with their mentees via video calls at least once a month for four consecutive months.

Mock Yi Jun, co-founder & president, Advisory Singapore, said: "Through The Advisory Mentorship Programme, we aim to give every young person a fair shot at meaningful work - no matter their socio-economic circumstances, family background, or schooling history. By matching students with working professional mentors ... we are able to help today's youth engage with the people they aspire to one day be like, and gain positive role models at the outset of their career journeys. This is made possible only through the involvement of partners like Standard Chartered - whose staff go the extra mile to provide the guidance and support young people need to succeed as they transition from school into the workplace."

Advisory has matched over 1,800 mentors with more than 2,200 mentees across 5 waves of mentorship in 2020 and 2021.

Tay of Standard Chartered said: "When we started the initiative, we thought it would be hard to get colleagues who would be committed to this long-term volunteering journey. Surprisingly, the response was positive. As the mentorship ended, we were able to get feedback about our volunteers' experience and how the youths had benefited ... that is why we have continued this partnership with Advisory.

She added that the most challenging part of the programme was teaching mentees about rejection, where assurances had to be given to them "that just because they did not get the internship/employment with their dream companies does not mean they are not good".

Her advice would be to "take every single job interview as a learning experience, regroup and try again ... The more sessions you go to, the more rounds you get to practise, and the closer you are to your dream role / company."

Tay also provided tips to further improve her mentee Tan's responses - such as asking questions about what he had read on the company's website / annual report (eg corporate governance, strategy, values) to demonstrate that he did his research and his strong interest in the job he applied for.

With her help, Tan - who was then pursuing a business degree - scored an internship with a financial institution, and was offered to a job as a full-time employee shortly upon graduation.

Through the experience, the Standard Chartered employee had also acquired knowledge from Tan about the latest technologies in the market, and how to better understand young adults, skills which came in handy, especially in her role as a mother of two teenagers.

Lee said: "Skills-based employee volunteering programme is a great way for our employees to contribute their expertise and experience to help others. We look forward to more of such programmes that are tailored to the nature of our organisation and also what our next generation is interested to learn about."

In an internal survey conducted in 2019, 89 per cent of employees indicated that volunteering has positively contributed to their job satisfaction.

"We give every employee three days of volunteering leave annually, so that they can give back to the communities that they care about. An engaged community is a productive one. We know from internal surveys measuring employee engagement and feedback that they want to work in an organisation which values and cares for the community. Anecdotally, we also hear stories about how employees achieve both personal and work satisfaction from volunteering," he added.

When asked about his experience, Tan said he was thankful for it and hopes to be able to pay it back one day. Both parties still remain in contact.

• This article is part of a series on doing good for our community, supported by Standard Chartered Bank