Small Biz: Is your small business planning to hire a school leaver?

The family-owned business turns over $3.5 million a year and employs a team of 16, including two workers who joined fresh from the classroom as junior IT support staff a couple of years ago.

Co-owner Michelle Joosse is looking for two more juniors to start in the new year and has advertised the opportunity at local schools and on social media.

Youngsters start on around $35,000 a year and learn the ropes setting up computers for small business clients before progressing to the helpdesk.

"The people we employ have been tinkering with their own computers at home, building them and pulling them apart – that's the sort of thing we're looking at, people who are really passionate about IT," Joosse says.

While it's important to provide direction and set expectations early on, she believes there's a major upside to hiring school leavers.

"I think the fact that they are so fresh means they haven't really developed any bad habits from previous jobs," Joosse says.

"We'll get people come in for a level two or level three [role] and they think they know everything and they will then start tinkering with things they shouldn't be doing, whereas these guys recognise that they don't have the experience and so they'll ask questions and check before they go ahead and do something ...

"Also, they come in with this enthusiasm, they're so enthusiastic for the opportunity. They're finally out in the real world after all these years of study and they're eager to learn something."

I think the fact that they are so fresh means they haven't really developed any bad habits from previous jobs.

Michelle Joosse

Certus Legal Group co-founder Darryl Richards is also a fan of the young and mouldable. The Queensland practice turns over between $2 million and $3 million a year and employs two school based trainees, one of whom will be offered a permanent position in the new year.

"We take someone with the right attitude over experience so we can train them how to do things and they progress on," Richards says.

Some of the duties are mundane and monotonous – think scanning the mail and keeping the kitchen tidy – but it's a good start for someone with the right attitude, he believes.

"I always tell my kids here that we will support them in their growth, wherever they want to go," Richards says. "If after the end of the [traineeship] year they want to go and experience something else, we'll happily let them go on their way but if they want to go into law or further academic training [we'll support that]."

While school leavers may lack references and experience, business owners can still gauge the calibre of Class of '17 candidates by their CVs, according to recruitment veteran Sarina Russo, managing director of Sarina Russo Job Access.

Consistent grades suggest an ability to apply oneself while extra-curricular activities show someone can prioritise and multi-task, Russo says.

Come interview stage, employers should look for candidates who are punctual, polite and neatly attired and who've researched the business and can talk about their own career aspirations, she says.

Pick well and it can be a good long-term investment in your business, adds Dr Richard Hamilton whose family owned wineries Richard Hamilton Wine and Leconfield Wine employ 18 permanent staff, some of whom joined as school leavers two decades ago.

Wine making is labour intensive and there are plenty of tasks for unskilled youngsters in and around the vines, Hamilton says.

"We've educated them too, they get experience, we've sent them on courses and so forth," he says.

"I think there should be more of it for sure. The future is our young people, the future of the nation."

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