STEM & SME's: Recruiting your Future Talent

Following on from last weeks theme of supporting SMEs in recruiting apprentices. This week I want to focus on STEM.

Particularly, engaging in STEM engagement with schools and colleges.

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

Nowadays, you will also see the acronym STEAM which has Art as an extension on the others.

Last week I was lucky enough to have Dom from Skills Supply teach me and my colleagues some key skills around delivery engaging STEM activities. It was a brilliant session and I feel ready to get out there and provide inspiring sessions to young people interested in STEM careers. Around 15 of us from varied background spent a day away from emails playing with robots. There was a mixture of backgrounds and professions so the collaboration was off the charts.

So, Why is STEM important?

Well, STEM careers are me of the most in demand and simply put, we are not keeping up with the demand. Engineering companies, particularly the mechanical side, are seeing a retiring workforce with a predicted 20% to retire or be close to retirement in 2026.

We need young engineers and we need them now.

The UK government is estimating that we need an additional 1.8 million workers with engineering skills in the next decade.

STEM related jobs are growing at 14% versus 3% in other occupations.

So there is demand across the whole STEM industry.

Providing STEM engagements will also help students grow their critical thinking skills, as well as peaking their curiosity into various industries they may not have previously considered.

Almost every time I speak to a young person about engineering they immediately think it is too difficult for them as a career, particularly girls.

However, once we have explored coding, programming, or looked into the basics of how a submarine is made. They often come away realising these opportunities are actually within reach.

It’s about changing mindsets.

Another brilliant reason to get involved in STEM engagement, it’s much more enjoyable than answering emails, sitting in meetings or attending generic careers fairs.

Sometimes I can’t believe I get to code robots or build model submarines for a job. Beats when I used to sell photocopiers!

Anyway, If you are a business looking to get involved with STEM. I can tell you it’s easy.

Reach out to your local school or college and they will most likely bite your arm off for you to come in and deliver some activities.

Bonus points if it’s something unique to your business and industry.

Keep it simple too, take something fun and simple that you relate to your business and engage the young people.

For example we use a water bottle and balloons to submerge and resurface a water bottle. This means we can make the rather boring (to some) topic of ballast tanks, quite fun and accessible to young people.

Some great examples I have seen include, changing a tyre from an F1 team, building bridges, soldering a circuit board, driving mini robots with coding and so much more.

The best thing is when they learn without knowing it.

If you are trying to raise awareness of your business in schools in the hopes the young people will apply, STEM activities might break down barriers into what you do. Feeding off natural curiosity from the students, you can simplify what you do and make it fun, leading to the classic moment:

"Oh, I actually would like to do that"

If you needed convincing to get involved, Microsoft did a study and found 91% of girls would be interested in a STEM career if they felt confident they could succeed.

Furthermore the department for business, energy and industrial strategy estimates that if we were able to achieve gender parity in STEM this would add up to ￡2 billion in GDP.

So I see it as one of my missions to teach those STEM skills and inspire the next generation, as well as teaching them that STEM careers are possible for everyone!

If you are stuck for ideas and/or don't know how to reach out to schools and colleges to get involved, reach out to STEM Learning online, this is an organisation set up to help schools, young people and businesses access STEM engagements.

If you sign up as an STEM Ambassador you will gain access to a dashboard of schools and colleges who have requested support from businesses through STEM activities. Making your job super simple.

For advice on creating and delivering a STEM activity reach out as there is a whole host of people and resources I can point you to.

Good Luck