Presenting +1 - help young people to thrive

How many times have you heard this concern? Perhaps it happened to you as well.

Should I work or should I study? What experiences could I make to enrich my CV and let my application stand out and grab that job opportunity that I am looking for?

With "+1 - help young people to thrive" we help you to solve that Chicken & Egg problem.

Student competitions and call for projects are among the best ways to enrich your curriculum, broaden your horizons, meet other like-minded people, and attract potential employers while studying. Depending on the characteristic of the opportunity, you will need to devote less time than an internship or a part-time job but you could earn more

The key to raising the interest in you by employers is to do what your peers don’t do. Everyone does their chores, study and obtains more or less good grades.

You need to communicate your value by diversifying the enriching activities that you do. Engaging with your community can highlight your interest to create value and may hint at your capabilities as a leader, and student competitions and calls for projects provide evidence on at least three important aspects:

• Ability to deliver results
• Proof that you engaged with specific topics and subjects and you developed certain skills
• Ability to work and/or lead teams

The latter reminds me of this quote: "You go faster alone, but you go further together". And many companies are now valuing the ability to be a good team member and deliver excellent results together than delivering good results faster, but alone. Ah, the famous collective intelligence!

Why "+1 - help people to thrive"?

Rome was not built in a day. Similarly, you can't expect to achieve high results overnight. You need to be prepared, even better if you do it well in advance. Understand the rule of the game: CV, cover letters, recommendations... and which skills are actually required to be taken into consideration by a potential employer!

More often than not, when you finish your studies you are automatically ready to grab your seat. For example, if you study business administration, some positions require or appreciate the knowledge of ERP systems. And if you study finance, you would be surprised that for some positions the knowledge of programming languages such as Python is strongly encouraged!

Of course, there are outliers and you may well be able to get what you want with no problems, that's great! In this case, you would not be on the receiving end of our project, but you can provide your insights to the benefit of everyone.

"+1" stands for an incremental approach, a way to build your professional skills day-by-day, which is the optimal way to have a positive, compounding effect that will start to snowball for you after you reach a certain point.

What next?

Through the column "+1 - help young people to thrive", we aim to:

• Share opportunities: Student competitions, call for projects, opportunities, interviews (we start with a focus on the European Continent and the main language will be English, albeit we will publish written, video or audio contents in other languages when needed).
• Pull you to engage, compete and collaborate. We want you to consume the content and take part in competitions and collaborations, and know whether it has been valuable to you.

• Give back. We want to hear your successes and failures, your feedback and suggestions, and, why not, we look forward to collaborating with you as an editor or in other ways.
• Create a community of like-minded people. This is the ultimate goal, in which more value is created and shared among readers and community members to help each other. We want you to thrive.

Some years ago, I started t0 share student competitions through my personal LinkedIn profile and I sent to my university course secretariat, which promptly shared them, but it was not enough. I lacked the feedback coming from people who were interested, those who participated in them, and a system to collect suggestions and more opportunities to share. This is what I hope to do through Vocal.

Before you go!

Let's go back to the subtitle:

“WTF? I am graduating soon and I am seeking a job opportunity, but, oddly enough, employers require experience even for an internship or an entry-level position. I am struggling. ”

Exit from your comfort zone, make experiences and build relationships with like-minded people through the opportunities that we suggest and beyond. Start to thrive. These are our suggestions.

If you want to collaborate as an editor, suggest opportunities, or advertise yours, get in touch!

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~ Andrea Valeri