Volunteering during working hours: Inspiring young people at JINC
Since January 2022, TOPdeskers have had the chance to spend 2.5% of their contract hours doing volunteer work. An hour a week, half a day a month or a week a year – the choice is yours! But how to spend those hours? We’d love to give you a few ideas. Would you like to help clean up the plastic soup, take care of animals or inspire young people? In this blog, we zoom in on JINC: an organization that introduces schoolchildren to the job market.
A helping hand
At TOPdesk, we’re proud of the way we encourage and coach each other in our personal development. So why not use this helpful attitude outside our own organization? JINC is fighting for a society where your background doesn’t determine your future. Young people aged 8 to 16 get a clear picture of the job market through educational activities.
JINC’s projects teach participants a number of essential skills: planning, applying for a job, entrepreneurship and digital skills, for example. JINC also organizes TaalTrips, outings aimed at improving the language skills of children who do not speak Dutch all the time at home.
Quite a few TOPdeskers already have experience at JINC. There are three projects in which our colleagues volunteer:sollicitatietraining (Job Application Training),bliksemstages (Mini-internships) and Baas van Morgen (Tomorrow’s Boss).
Mini-internship in the classroom
We asked marketers Suzanne Meijer and Kayleigh Noordijk about their experiences as volunteers at JINC. They recently held a mini-internship in Rotterdam South for primary school pupils in years 5 and 6.
How does a mini-internship work?
Kayleigh: “Pre-coronavirus, we would have given the youngsters a tour of the office so that they could see for themselves what things are like at TOPdesk. This time, we still opted to go with the reverse option. Armed with a presentation and corporate videos , in the classroom, we tried to create the best possible picture of the atmosphere at our office.”
Suzanne: “JINC gave us clear guidelines and they helped us put together our presentation. Their support makes the step to volunteering at JINC very low-threshold. We shared a little about ourselves and our work at TOPdesk, and we quickly sparked interaction with some statements that the children could respond to.”
Kayleigh: “And those responses were incredibly enthusiastic! Then, like real marketers, the children were given an assignment where they had to come up with their own way of promoting an app on social media. They were also allowed to dream up the app themselves. The children had some very creative ideas, which were clearly inspired by our TOPdesk software!”
JINC gave us clear guidelines and they helped us put together our presentation. Their support makes the step to volunteering at JINC very low-threshold.
Suzanne: “At the end, the children had lots of concrete questions. What training had we done, what exactly did we love about our work and did we want to do it forever. It became a very personal conversation. I can’t wait for my next mini-internship! I’d prefer to give the students a tour of the office then, to complete the experience for them.”
What tips do you want to give to colleagues who’d like to give a mini-internship one day?
Kayleigh: “Step out of your comfort zone and find out how it feels. You’ll see that it’s incredibly fun!”
Learning how to apply for a job
Once young people are in secondary school, the time is ripe to teach them some tips and tricks that can help them apply for their first job or side job. As a recruiter at TOPdesk, Leander Overmeer knows the tricks of the trade.
How did you approach the job application training?
Leander: “The students in this project are 15 to 16 years old and, in preparation for the training, they prepare a CV and motivation letter. They want to use this CV to apply for a real side job. Those jobs range from washing dishes to assisting in communal areas in care homes. Based on the CVs and letters, we practised some job interviews in front of the class, which we also discussed in class. And, of course, I gave tips: how to greet someone properly, what attitude to adopt and the like. So even those who didn’t get up in front of the class learned a lot.”
What did you learn from it yourself?
Leander: “That these young people are very eager to learn! It’s a target group I wouldn’t have encountered easily without JINC. I can recommend every colleague to break out of their bubble for once and broaden their view of our society.”
Want to volunteer at JINC too?
Feel like taking schoolchildren through your daily activities and inspiring them to maybe choose a similar job later on? Check out the JINC website. Who knows, you might soon be contributing to their wonderful projects as a volunteer. Joining TOPdesk? You can even volunteer during working hours!
