Apparently it does not exist.
Taught by Humans and techSPARK have been awarded a government grant (through TechFirst) which aims to find local jobs for local talent. Specifically, derisking entry-level AI role hiring across the South West - using our Confidence Architecture, and of course Dotly.
But we have a lofty goal: 50 entry level AI roles (minimum 6 months, minimum 25 hours a week). 50% of these women. (Full project details here.)
Before we even get started on how we're meeting this goal, the grant itself raised some questions:
- What is an entry level role?
- What is an AI role?
- And what the hell is an entry-level AI role?
We have a lot of thoughts and opinions - but decided to start by speaking to those actually hiring. And there is a fabulous breakfast group in Bath which invites tech leaders to roundtables once a month (hosted by SETsquared Bath and techSPARK) - so we co-opted September's.
What Employers Actually Told Us
It is a bit stark - of the employers in the room only 2 plan on hiring any entry level roles in the next year. Some have hiring freezes across the board. Some companies have removed junior roles entirely. AI is enabling role creep - designers coding, analysts doing things that used to need a developer. New AI roles are mostly repackaged existing roles with AI bolted on.
Those hiring entry level roles (graduate schemes and apprenticeships) were either human based (consulting) or physical roles.
The general consensus in the room: entry-level AI role as a standalone job type does not really exist. It is a specification across roles, not a category. And even further - all roles are AI roles, or will be. (More on that in the next post.)
Which is a slightly awkward thing to hear when you are running a programme to get people into exactly those roles. But we already knew this (thankfully).
What Does This Mean?
Two big things to me, neither particularly good.
The entry level jobs crisis is very real. I wrote about this a few months ago - 1 million young people not in work, education or training, 84% of whom want to work. The floor is falling and nobody has a great answer yet.
I have said this before, but I have not yet had anyone really respond - if nobody is hiring juniors, who are the seniors of the future? When are they getting a chance to learn? Or will we all just be AI supervisors in the future? (A scary thought.)
It Is Not All Doom And Gloom
Some companies are still hiring. Engineering firms in Bristol have opened grad and placement schemes with actual AI Engineer roles in them. One company in the roundtable is keeping their 20-person grad scheme going - which felt really significant in that room.
We are not going into this grant expecting to change anyone's mind about hiring junior roles. If someone does not want to hire entry level, forcing them to is not going to end well for anyone.
How We Are Hoping To Help
- Help employers write better job specs. Entry level job specs often confuse entry level people. They often are not written thinking about the day-to-day of the role, and what is needed vs what can be learnt on the job. They default to Python, STEM degree, three years experience - for a role that really needs curiosity and a willingness to figure things out. As someone put it today: we can teach people coding, we cannot teach them how to think.
- Assess candidates on potential, not CVs. CVs are done. Every CV is the same - generated by AI. But CVs were never the right tool (especially for entry level). Dotly talks to candidates and builds a picture that a CV never could. Especially useful for people who are early career, returning to work, or just do not have the right words for what they are good at yet. (We wrote more about this in our hiring blog.)
- Matching these two together using a fair process (which we are currently testing out). With a focus on uncovering unlikely matches - someone that meets 60% of what is asked but brings something the spec never thought to ask for.
It is not going to solve the whole problem. But if we can derisk this for a few companies and help people find roles for their potential not their CV, we would be happy.