Formula E and giffgaff give Big Issue Recruit candidates a taste of the workplace: ‘It was amazing’

When Shakira first glimpsed a Formula E race car, it was only for “two seconds”. But that was enough to fall in love. “It was amazing,” she said. “So I’m quite excited.”

Sleek, low-slung and built for tight corners, these cars – capable of speeds up to 200mph – look closer to spaceships than anything you’d see on a motorway.

For one weekend in August, 22 of these all-electric speed machines duked it out on the track at the Formula E London E-Prix. Shakira – a carpenter who had recently struggled with unemployment – was one of a group of Big Issue Recruit candidates given the chance to gain hands-on work experience at the event.

By the end of the weekend, she’d seen rather more than two seconds of racing. “It was great, it was awesome,” she told us. “I had a Porsche car roll past me when we were on the pit walk.”

Big Issue Recruit is Big Issue’s specialist recruitment service for people who have faced homelessness or long-term unemployment. Since last year, our long-term partner giffgaff has provided candidates like Shakira with refurbished smartphones to search for vacancies and join online interviews, as well as investment in the Big Issue frontline team to offer coaching and digital skills training.

Ahead of the London E-Prix, giffgaff teamed up with Formula E to direct €25,000 (£21,400) from the motorsport’s Better Futures Fund straight to Big Issue Recruit. It’s a natural partnership: both giffgaff and Formula E are certified B Corps, holding themselves to verified standards of social and environmental impact.

As well as career insights and refurbished smartphones, candidates were offered paid work experience, working alongside giffgaff employees in the Fan Village over the two days of racing on 15 and 16 August.

For Shakira, it was a particularly fitting place to spend the weekend. Her dream job is “working for Porsche”. And she was thrilled to see Porsche win on Saturday. Shakira and her fellow candidates got the chance to work on giffgaff’s stand in the Fan Village, where visitors could find out more about reducing electronic waste through phone refurbishment and recycling.

In the last year, 66% of phones giffgaff sold were refurbished, helping people save money while extending the lifespan of pre-owned devices. The stand featured an interactive quiz and free phone health checks from giffgaff’s recycling partner Likewize, which also offered trade-in options on site.

For people looking for work, the chance to step into a new environment can be vital, explains Stuart Greenway, director of Big Issue Recruit.

“The work experience today is about giving young people the opportunity to see what working is really like, but with support as well,” he said.

“So they’ll be interacting with the general public, they’ll be talking about products, they’ll be engaging with people from diverse backgrounds. It gives them a really good grounding in what working life is really like.”

For Goodness, one of the Big Issue Recruit candidates, this was exactly what she’d hoped for. She’s been with Big Issue Recruit for around two months and is “looking to gain more experience”.

“I want to ask some questions, and see the different types of jobs that people hold around here,” she told us before the weekend began. Goodness has worked in customer service and PR before, but a period of unemployment has hit her confidence hard. Despite some nerves, the weekend itself turned out to be easier than she had expected.

“It was really good, it was a lot smoother than I worried,” she said.

As well as helping out at the Fan Village stand, Goodness spent time behind the scenes with the social media team, feeding lines to presenters and appearing in some of the clips.

“That was cool,” she beamed. “[Seeing] the whole process of what it takes to create, some of the videos that we see online. You probably didn’t know that behind the scenes there is someone feeding lines to them [the hosts], and the whole setup, moving different angles and things like that.”

That kind of practical experience appeals to her fellow candidate Ali too. After leaving school without A levels, the 19-year-old is “looking for opportunities”.

“I’m very confident in public speaking. I want to train, and also just to like really dig deep into different opportunities,” he told us. “I just want direct experience.”

Such direct experience can be particularly difficult for young people to secure. It’s a tough job market: an interim review by Alan Milburn published earlier this year warned that, without urgent action, the number of NEETs – young people not in education, employment or training – could climb from one in eight to one in six within five years, affecting 1.25 million young people.

Milburn found that around one in eight young people are currently neither in education nor work, compared with closer to one in 20 in the best-performing countries.

At just 19, Ali is one of the so-called NEETs. “It’s hard, definitely, for young people,” he said. Danny, also 19, felt similarly. He told us: “I want to get more experience in a workplace. It’s on a bigger scale, I’m putting myself into a position that I’m not usually in, I’m putting myself out of my comfort zone. I’ve been enjoying it. We all want to learn new things and do good things for the company.”

For the giffgaff team working alongside them, seeing that drive in action made a lasting impression, says Tracey Herald, ESG lead at giffgaff.

“At giffgaff, we know that talent is everywhere, but opportunity isn’t. Through our partnership with Big Issue Recruit, we’re proud to help young people connect to opportunities and gain hands-on experience on a global stage like Formula E. It’s been incredible watching the candidates in action – growing in confidence, picking up new skills, and acting as brilliant brand ambassadors for giffgaff.”

All of our Big Issue Recruit candidates are keen to work. But some can’t even access the web. With many job applications, interviews and training programmes now exclusively online, the consequences for those who are digitally excluded can be significant.

Government figures show that more than 22% of working-age people without internet access are unemployed, compared with just 3.8% nationally. This is why giffgaff’s support is so valuable.

The difference a phone can make is easy to underestimate, Greenway said. “To give them a physical refurbished mobile device allows people to start their journey… You’d be surprised how many times we have a conversation about making job applications, without the actual ability to do it,” he said.

“[Without] a mobile phone and the training on how to use them, they just can’t apply for jobs, they can’t continue in their careers and they can’t access training, so it’s fundamental to what we do.”

The partnership is working. After months out of work, Goodness has recently secured a new role in fundraising – “thanks to Big Issue Recruit”.

The Formula E weekend, she says, was a timely experience as she prepares to start. “This was actually like a really good experience to take me into this new job that I’m going to,” she said.

Her message to others considering Big Issue Recruit? “Definitely go for it. There’s a lot of support that you get. Everyone’s really friendly, and really help you to try and find your path of what you want to do, by giving you different options. So I say, definitely go for it.”

You might end up in places you’d never expect – like on a global sporting stage, watching electric racing cars fly around a track.

If you could benefit from the support of Big Issue Recruit’s job coaches, or if you are an employer looking to build an inclusive team and create social impact, get in touch at bigissue.com/big-issue-recruit.