Skills programme: turn course completion into sustained employment

A charity teaches digital skills to unemployed adults. Most people who start finish the course, but too few remain in suitable employment six months after placement.

Funding is fixed. Mentor hours and employer placement slots are limited. The charity wants more participants reaching the six-month employment outcome.

Clarify what counts as a suitable job and whether continued employment can include a move between employers. Pay, hours and relevance to the participant's goals may matter alongside having a job. Agree on the outcome before choosing a convenient metric.

Connect whom the programme serves, the change it seeks and how its work creates that change. Carry the analysis beyond course attendance.

Here is an opening that fits the prompt:

“I would follow participants from access and enrolment through completion, placement and six-month employment. I would identify the barriers behind the largest losses, then compare interventions by additional sustained employment and the funding, employer places and mentor hours they require. Given the high completion rate, I would begin with the transition from finishing the course to finding suitable work.”

That last sentence is a starting hypothesis. Keep the access branch available. High completion among starters tells you nothing about eligible people who never managed to enrol.

For every stage, ask both what happens and why. A low placement rate could reflect missing skills, weak employer relationships, unsuitable vacancies, transport barriers or a mismatch between available hours and participants' responsibilities. Those causes lead to different investments.

To locate the loss after course completion, ask for the full participant journey. The interviewer supplies Exhibit 1: one cohort with complete six-month follow-up:

Completion is 180 ÷ 200 = 90%. Placement among completers is only 60 ÷ 180 = 33.3%. Six-month employment among those placed is 48 ÷ 60 = 80%.

The final outcome is 48 people, or 24% of starters. If you report performance against all 500 eligible people reached, it is 9.6%. These measures answer different questions, so keep their denominators visible.

The immediate post-course problem is placement. There are 120 completers who have not entered suitable work. Even retaining every one of the existing 60 placements would add only 12 sustained outcomes.

The access loss also deserves investigation: 300 eligible people did not enrol. You can prioritise placement while checking whether course timing, eligibility administration or practical barriers exclude people the charity intends to serve.

Consider a teaching-only proposal that would lift completions from 180 to 190. For this scenario, the interviewer adds that placement capacity is capped at 60 suitable jobs and the six-month employment rate remains 80%. The 60-placement capacity limit is an additional assumption, not something proved by the earlier placement count.

The final outcome remains:

60 placements × 80% = 48 sustained jobs.

Ten more course completions do not improve the stated outcome under those conditions. Additional teaching could still have value, but it has not solved this case's immediate employment gap.

Ask what the 60-placement limit represents. Are there only 60 suitable vacancies, or does the team have time to support only 60 applications? Are employers rejecting applicants for a particular skill gap? A count of available slots should start an investigation, not end it.

Separate employment from earnings and lasting progress. Getting someone into any job and helping them into better, sustained work are different outcomes.

For the next decision, the interviewer adds that £20,000 can be redirected without reducing current services and shares Exhibit 2: two intervention forecasts. Staffing requirements fit within available hours. The final column calculates additional outcomes relative to the original 48; it is not a separate observation.

Placement support costs £1,250 per additional sustained outcome. Support after placement costs about £1,667 per additional outcome.

On these forecasts, placement support produces more additional outcomes and the lower cost per additional outcome. It also uses the full available budget. The second option leaves £10,000 unspent; its result could become more attractive if that remainder funds another effective intervention.

Do not assume you can buy half of each option at half the effect. Employer relationship work or a mentor programme may need a minimum team to function. Ask which costs and effects are divisible.

I would prioritise the placement option while validating the employer commitments and the support needed by the additional entrants. The 80% retention assumption matters: the next 20 placements may face different barriers from the first 60.

A programme could raise its placement rate by selecting only people who were already close to getting a job. That would make the dashboard look better while changing whom it serves.

Review outcomes for the groups the charity intends to reach. Interview people who did not enrol, graduates who were not placed and people who left employment. Their explanations help distinguish a course-design problem from barriers such as transport, care responsibilities or unsuitable working hours.

MDRC's ten-year follow-up follows earnings and advancement well beyond training. For this case, the lesson is to retain a view of job quality and progression even while the immediate decision uses a six-month target.

Your conclusion can be direct:

“I would use the flexible £20,000 to strengthen placement support. The current funnel loses most completers before employment, and the forecast adds 16 sustained outcomes, compared with six from the post-placement option. Before committing, I would confirm suitable employer vacancies and mentor capacity. I would track six-month employment and job quality by participant group, while investigating why eligible adults cannot enrol.”

The intervention forecasts still need to be tested. Tracking outcomes shows whether the programme meets its target; a suitable comparison is needed to estimate how many jobs the intervention itself caused.

Practise following an education funnel in the university enrolment structure drill. Its academic and financial objectives differ, so state those before borrowing this structure.