For those working in early career HR and CSR school outreach is often a key activity. In the last few weeks three significant reports have been published. In this blog Future First CEO, Sue Riley, explores how these national developments will help you move school outreach to intake –supporting your early career pipeline activity and making a positive impact on workplace diversity.
It’s a year since The Careers & Enterprise Company published its Employer Standards for Careers Education. In its 2024 review it highlights what is working well for young people, and shines a spotlight on the positive impact outreach can have for employers. The key message is that school outreach works and saves money.
“…..We can see that employers that invest over the long-term in well-structured, high quality outreach gain a significant advantage by supporting the development of a skilled and diverse workforce and saving on recruitment costs”.
Those doing the most targeted and intensive work are four times more likely to report an increase in the number of young people applying for apprenticeships. Outreach also delivers efficiencies and value for money. Seven in ten (72%) say it is improving the effectiveness of early years recruitment.

Key takeaways
- School outreach works: it strengthens talent pipelines, closing disadvantage gaps and saves money
- Collaborate for success: where employers see most benefits their outreach programmes include engagement with teachers and careers leads. This stands to reason – they are your advocates in school. They will help you improve the effectiveness of your early career recruitment and diversity.
- Engage over the long term: the report shows that it’s not enough to raise awareness of your opportunities. To make meaningful impact you should work with the same school for more than one year and offer repeat exposure: strive for more than one encounter with the same young person or cohort of young people over the duration of their time in education.
Take a look at the CEC employer standard assessment tool: it’s a free tool helps you see how you are working against the Standards and will provide you with scores, national and sector comparisons and a recommendations report.
The Government published its Get Britain Working White Paper earlier this week.
The headline for young people is that too many of them are leaving school without essential skills or access to high-quality further learning, an apprenticeship or support to work so that they can thrive at the start of their career.
Unlocking capacity for place-based solutions – helping business, civic society, education and others to collaborate and deliver a plan that makes sense for the local economy – is at the heart of the paper.
This approach is amplified in The Youth Guarantee – ensuring that all 18 to 21-year-olds in England have access to education, training or help to find a job or an apprenticeship. Eight place-based Youth Guarantee trailblazers with £45 million of funding in 2025/26 will design and test how different elements of the Guarantee can be brought together into a coherent offer for young people, to make sure no young person misses out.
And finally, the Gatsby Foundation published its ten-year review of careers benchmarks this month. The Benchmarks are a world-class framework for secondary schools, colleges and independent training providers to design career guidance programmes for young people. More than 90% of schools and colleges, (over 4,700 institutions), now measure their careers provision using the eight Gatsby Benchmarks.
Woven throughout is an emphasis on the importance of tailoring programmes to the needs of each young person and for the first time criterion relating to the inclusion of role models and alumni.
We know that good careers guidance helps to bridge the worlds of education and work and is vital for economic prosperity and growth. It also challenges disadvantages, stereotypes and inequalities ensuring that young people from all backgrounds will benefit.
In an education system that is stretched in terms of capacity, the role of alumni and employee volunteers play a critical role in a balanced careers strategy that is able to give all young people tailored support. Schools can only do this if they build meaningful partnerships in their communities – your employee volunteers have the chance to make a real difference.
You can read more about this in our recent blog post.
How working with Future First helps our employer partners move their school outreach to intake
STEP 1: target interventions where you have early career opportunities
You can work with existing Future First member schools and deliver your outreach activities in locations that make business sense to you. We can help you increase diversity within your pipeline.
STEP 2: multiple touchpoints
We can help you deliver multiple touchpoints to learners across the year(s): network sessions, business explainers, insight days, mentoring or work experience – it’s a powerful way to help young people build their confidence and grow skills.
And of course, the Future First Hub allows you to upload content and volunteer profiles so that young people can learn more about your sector in their own time and virtually.
STEP 3: collaboration
Being a Future First partner means you are part of a national programme – increasing your impact. You can also be part of Future First campaigns like the Pledge – working together to create a society where all young people can access a path to success.
STEP 4: Engage over the long term
Increasingly, our employer partners are choosing to sponsor a school – the school gains Future First membership to develop their volunteer networks – and the employer is able to target engagement over a sustained period of time. It’s a great opportunity for employee volunteers to work in this way.