The Young Digitals believes in the talent of all young people. “They are growing up in a world of digitisation and social media. They can deploy that knowledge unerringly in the business sector”, says director Sjoerd Hauptmeijer. “Unfortunately, many young people don’t finish their degree programme, or they run into difficulties finding a good job for other reasons, for example due to psychological, social or financial problems. Their distance from the labour market will only further increase without help.”
40 jobs for young people
That is why the agency based in The Hague has stepped into the breach for them since 2019. The Young Digitals wants to guide these young people towards a job as digital marketeer. They can count on a free 10-week training course, valuable work experience and help finding a new employer. In the meantime, more than 40 young people at a distance from the labour market have received help finding a job via this route. Also at VodafoneZiggo.
Getting to work at the office
Hauptmeijer outlines the learning pathway of the participants: “In the first phase, the young people are given theoretical training, in which they learn about the practice through different case studies. After that, Young Digitals employs a number of young people who have successfully completed the training. They get to work at our office for our clients under the supervision of experienced marketeers. You can kill two birds with one stone: clients can rely on support from our experienced online marketing professionals, while the young talents learn the ins and outs of the profession. In the final phase, our digital go-getters are seconded to clients where they work independently as online marketeers within a team."
No higher professional education due to a brain injury
Arun is 22 years old and sustained a brain injury as a result of a car accident. He says: “Due to my brain injury, I was not able to complete a university of applied sciences degree programme. I am very interested in online marketing, but I was not able to get a job in this industry due to a lack of a relevant degree and work experience. Eventually, I came across the existence of The Young Digitals, and that aligned precisely with my needs. They offered me the opportunity to discuss my brain injury and took full account of that."
Commercial ambitions
Together with two other ‘Young Digitals’, Arun started working for the marketing department of business customers of VodafoneZiggo. Shafiq van den Enk works in that department and supervises the young people. “Our team consists of online marketing experts and other specialists. Together we determine how we can help the customer as much as possible on the basis of our commercial ambitions.”
New perspective
"Arun, Melanie and Shane have helped with the new design for the report, which we use to show our results in terms of sales and marketing to the managers", according to Shafiq. “The end result provided us with better insights, as a result of which we do our work in an even more ‘data-driven’ way. But above all, they also provided us with new insights. These three young people have a slightly different background to most colleagues, as a result of which they raise somewhat different questions or ideas from a different perspective. These fresh outlooks were of genuine added value, and I believe that this type of diversity in teams also ultimately leads to better end results.”
Taking work off people’s hands
“Instructive and fun”; that is how Arun summarises the work. “On the one hand, the work is very instructive, because it deals with complex material. We work a lot with the tool Google Datastudio, for example, which was unfamiliar to me. On the other hand, I support Shafiq’s team and I take work off people’s hands. Moreover, the colleagues are friendly and helpful, and that makes the work even more fun. I get the most satisfaction from answering the additional questions. These are often questions which require a lot of precision and knowledge. That makes the work even more challenging.”
Fixed partner
Young Digitals director Sjoerd also looks on with satisfaction. “I’m extremely happy that we’ve had such a successful project with VodafoneZiggo. Arun, Melanie and Shane are now going to get to work on their second project for Shafiq’s team. Everything in that project revolves around Search Engine Optimization: writing texts that help VodafoneZiggo’s products end up higher in the search results of Google. In the meantime, we are running several projects as fixed partner within different departments. In this way, more young people are being given the opportunity they deserve.”
Read more about VodafoneZiggo and diversity
Young people who are having difficulty finding a job deserve a push in the right direction. On the basis of that idea, VodafoneZiggo is collaborating with The Young Digitals, a marketing agency based in The Hague. That has already produced a few great internships – and guaranteed fresh outlooks.