WYGU (When You Grow Up) www.wygu.com, the new social careers guidance, development and e-mentoring platform today announces its public launch.
‘What do you want to be When You Grow Up?’ it’s a challenging question that we’ve all faced in our youth, and some of us live with this uncertainty well into our career journey as adults.
It’s also an unfortunate fact that many of us have fallen into ‘accidental careers’ and often regret our choices, leaving us unable to achieve our true potential.
WYGU launches today after four months in Beta to address some of the fundamental problems in the current careers market by offering a platform for advice and guidance, direct from individuals at all levels and in every sector.
WYGU does this by offering a free online space for people to receive e-mentoring, peer guidance and personal career-matching, as well as access to a wealth of industry and user-generated content in a unique information resource, the WYGUpedia.
WYGU’s Matching Engine is unique in that it assesses an individual’s suitability for between 10 to 100 careers automatically against over a million variables and has the further unique capability of self-learning through the crowd-sourced WYGUpedia.
WYGU also champions the process of ‘e-mentoring’. Mentoring is associated traditionally with deep, prolonged and highly resource-intensive models. WYGU believes that everyone should have the benefit of one or more mentors, often changing with the specific stage and needs an individual goes through in their career development.
WYGU will encourage people to be users, mentors or both, promoting a give-back campaign through the use of its trademarked Personal Social Responsibility (PSR) ‘league tables’ showing the top individual and corporate contributors by industry over any given period.
The platform is designed to bring the careers community together to help those:
- In education seeking guidance
- Stuck in ‘accidental’ careers and considering change
- Looking for a mentor
- Looking to build their career
- Seeking new opportunities or challenges
- Wanting to help others develop or chose their careers
WYGU has been under development with a team of 10 for the past 14 months and is focused on encouraging everybody to take personal responsibility (PSR) for changing the way careers are developed and avoid falling into careers accidentally.
Sign up at WYGU.com to:
1. Find a career that combines your skills and interests
2. Join the conversation about careers and exchange knowledge within the community
3. Contribute to the WYGUpedia of careers information online, accessible to all and enabling the right help to get to the right people
4. Build your Individual, Institutional or Corporate profile and network around focus, career development, recruitment or social contribution.
Alun Baker, CEO and Founder, WYGU comments: “WYGU has been developed to help people find the career they really want by connecting individuals who need advice with those able to give it.
“From my own personal experience, I know that most people end up in accidental careers through a lack of informed guidance at school or further education and, crucially, not being able to talk directly with those in the careers we aspire to, meaning we can never understand how to break into them.
“Careers advisors can’t be expected to be authorities or have first-hand experience of every career but WYGU offers a space for open, trusted conversations with people who want to share their knowledge and help others to achieve their goals, using a combination of facts and experience-based information.”
Andy Townsend, broadcaster and former professional footballer, adds: “I think WYGU will make a big difference to people’s personal and professional lives as our career choices often shape our experiences. I know the value of a mentor when making difficult choices and I have benefited greatly in my own life from expert advice at the right time. I want my children to benefit from real advice and practical information before making their career choice, and WYGU will go a long way to helping them.”
Linvoy Primus, youth mentor, charity worker and former pro footballer says: “WYGU is needed now more than ever before as young people have to make their career choices sooner as the jobs market gets increasingly tough. I have been very blessed in meeting people who guided me in my early playing days and others who helped me through difficult times. Without them, I’m pretty sure that I would not be where I am today and I’m grateful to them for all their help and advice.”
Jesse Wynne, City of London Police, comments: Like many other students, I took a summer job to help pay the bills while I was studying for my Economics degree, working at an executive search firm.
After graduating, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do and I continued to work in recruitment. My career progressed well and I moved to the world's largest Executive Search firm, earning a six-figure salary. Strange as it may sound, I always felt that I hadn't experienced all life had to offer, but it took the loss of my father to make me stop and re-evaluate my life.
I decided to go back to what I had always wanted - to serve my country in some way. I was too old to join the armed forces and so I enrolled to join the police. It took three years to get into the Force, but today I'm doing something that I feel is valuable, because I'm giving something back to society.
Four years on, I'm a sergeant in the City of London Police, and although I'm not as well paid as I was in my previous career and life is not always easy, that's not a problem. I am fulfilled in my work and I try to pass that on by mentoring young people to help them realise their own potential.
I think WYGU is a perfect platform for anybody, who like me, wants to consider a change. WYGU mentors can help anyone looking for the right advice and guidance to help them move out of an accidental job and into a more inspiring career, or make the right choices before they make a mistake. It does this by connecting people with real world careers experience to those who need it most in an open and social environment.
Shivani Mair, Founder & Director of Today, The Careers Surgery Ltd, comments: “In this country children and young adults are often encouraged to focus on job roles and their weaknesses when considering their options for a future career, rather than their talents and passions. This means that too many of us fall into jobs that do not inspire us and as a result we rarely manage to reach our full working potential.
“The social network platform WYGU is aligned with our focuses at the Careers Surgery as it enables youngsters to reach a much broader mentoring network, offering advice on how to achieve their potential and take control of their career journey.”
