The first job is still the hardest qualification

An applicant needs experience to get a job and a job to get experience. An International Labour Organization brief published on October 13th asks employers to break that circle by testing what young applicants can actually do. Its proposals follow the agency's report of deteriorating youth employment. They also put a responsibility back on businesses: an entry-level role needs room for an entrant to learn.

A business has good reason to avoid an expensive hiring mistake. Yet demanding a track record shifts the cost of initial training to another employer. If too many firms make that choice, applicants can remain untested while vacancies go unfilled. An experience requirement may protect an individual recruiter while helping to perpetuate the shortage that recruiter is trying to resolve.

The applicants outside the count

The ILO's August report estimated that 67 million people aged 15–24 were unemployed in 2025, a rate of 12.4%. More than 257 million young people, or 20%, were outside employment, education and training. The unemployment rate uses the youth labour force as its denominator; the second measure uses the broader youth population. Some people appear in both groups, so the totals cannot be added.

The distinction changes what success should look like. A discouraged applicant who stops searching can disappear from unemployment without finding work. Conversely, someone who returns to active job search can enter the unemployment count before securing a job. A government judged only on the headline rate could therefore miss both worsening exclusion and an early improvement in participation.

Nor does employment necessarily complete the transition. The same August assessment found that nearly nine in ten employed people aged 15–29 in low- and lower-middle-income countries worked informally. That age range is wider than the one used for the headline unemployment estimate. The finding points to a second hurdle: moving from any available activity into work that supplies dependable earnings and useful experience.

What an employer can test

The October brief proposes skills-based recruitment, structured support and better job design. Its central suggestion is practical: identify the tasks an entrant needs to perform, then assess relevant competence rather than relying entirely on previous titles or years worked. The brief recommends that approach; employers would still need to establish whether their assessment predicts performance.

A workable test would have to distinguish skills needed on the first day from those that can be learned under supervision. Otherwise, an employer can remove an experience requirement from an advertisement while recreating it through an unrealistic assessment. A genuinely introductory role needs someone responsible for teaching, time allocated to that task and a clear standard for progress.

There is also a distributional problem. An unpaid trial or lengthy selection exercise can be easier for an applicant whose family can finance the wait. Employers seeking a wider pool should consider what participation in their process costs. The policy objective is a reliable signal of ability that applicants can reasonably supply.

Training needs an employer

Recruitment reform cannot create customers for a business with too little demand. The ILO's broader January employment assessment linked weak productivity and limited structural change in low-income economies to insufficient high-quality job creation. It also distinguished a wider shortage of opportunities for people who want paid work from measured unemployment.

That makes placement and training complementary tasks. A course without a plausible destination can leave its graduate better qualified for the same shortage of openings. A subsidised placement without meaningful instruction can give a business temporary labour while leaving the entrant no stronger when support ends.

A programme should therefore be followed beyond the placement date. Retention, transferable skills and progress towards better-paid responsibilities would show whether the entrant is becoming more employable. Counting enrolments or advertised vacancies is easier, but neither reveals what remains when a course finishes or a subsidy ends.

For employers, the October brief leaves a concrete decision: which abilities must be present on arrival, which will be taught, and who will do the teaching? An advertisement becomes a genuine first job only when the business can answer those questions. Otherwise the demand for experience survives, even if the wording changes.