1,645 school students have engaged with Year13’s recently launched Virtual Work Experience during National Careers Week, which took place from 13 to 19 May in partnership with the Australian Defence Force, the Tech Council, Microsoft, Commonwealth Bank, Bakers Delight, NBN, Department of Education Victoria, and Gelato Messina.
Year13’s Virtual Work Experience platform seeks to solve the problem of school students struggling to find placements by moving employer-branded Work Experiences online for students to participate in.
Year13’s After The ATAR Report surveyed 3,000+ youth nationally and found 34% of don’t know what career they want to go into, while 39% said a lack of experience is a barrier to pursuing their career.
When it comes to high school work experience, just 32% said it helped with their career decisions while 38% said they never did high school work experience at all.
Year13 co-founder Will Stubley said: “Our data confirms young people spend up to five hours per day online so collaborating with industry and employers to create quality Virtual Work Experiences for school-aged children is one of Year13’s priorities.
“Our Virtual Work Experience platform is mobile friendly, visual and interactive, which we know appeals to teenagers, and it’s free for every young person, which is hugely important in terms of providing equitable access to career education regardless of a young person’s circumstances or where they live.”
1,589 students also completed its Academy e-learning courses during National Careers Week.
Year13’s Virtual Work Experience partnered with the ADF, Tech Council, Microsoft, CBA, Bakers Delight, NBN, DoE Vic, and Gelato Messina to let students virtually tour their workplaces and complete gamified activities where upon completion they earn a digital certificate for their resume or LinkedIn profile.
Year13 and Career Tools head of marketing Lillian Gorman said: “Year13’s Virtual Work Experience content is designed specifically for school-aged children rather than higher ed graduates and is promoted extensively through Year13’s eco-system, including our youth facing platforms and our career transition platform Career Tools, which has over 1200 subscribing high schools.
“This enables Year13 and partnering industries and employers to reach young people earlier in their career decision-making journey, facilitating more informed pathway choices.
“During Nationals Careers Week we had several thousand young people take part in these offerings, putting us on course to have more than 100,000 young people complete these fun and engaging courses by the end of the year.”