You Are Not Unemployable, You’re Just Undersupported

Can I talk to you sincerely for a moment, not like how it’s done at a workshop, retreat, or programme outline, but like real people trying to make sense of life?

Many young people do not wake up feeling lazy or unmotivated. They wake up feeling overwhelmed, confused, and sometimes behind. Like everyone else, got a manual for life and they somehow missed the class.

They scroll endlessly through job listings asking for “experience” they have never been given the chance to gain. They hear speeches about “working harder” while quietly wondering where to even start. After a while, something dangerous happens: they stop believing the problem is the system and start believing it’s them.

This internal narrative is one of the biggest barriers to employability, and no CV template can fix it, because employability is not just about jobs. It is about restoring belief. Belief in your voice. Belief in your capacity.

What we don’t say often enough is this: employability starts long before the CV, before the cover letter, before the interview. It starts when a young person realises, “I belong in rooms I may never have been invited into before.”

That realisation doesn’t happen by accident. It happens through exposure, encouragement, and support.

At Proudtobeme, we teach skills, yes. Digital literacy. Communication. Teamwork. Time management, but we also teach something more powerful: how to own your story without apologising for it.

Employers don’t just hire what you know. They notice how you speak, how you listen, how you adapt, and how you respond when you don’t have all the answers. Those are not personality traits you’re either born with or not; they are learnable skills.

No one is born employable. People are developed. They are mentored. They are exposed to environments that gently stretch them, not shame them.

A young person who struggles in interviews is not “bad at interviews.” More often, they’ve never been taught how to translate their experiences into language that employers understand. A young person who lacks confidence is not incapable; they have simply been navigating life without affirmation or safe spaces to practise in. That’s the gap, and that gap is not your fault.

So if you’re reading this and you’ve been rejected, overlooked, or ignored, please hear this clearly: rejection is not a verdict on your value. Sometimes it’s just feedback from a system that doesn’t always know how to see potential.

Your job is not to shrink. Your job is to grow anyway, and if you don’t know how yet, that’s okay. That’s why community matters.

Community is where confidence is rebuilt. Where questions are allowed. Where mistakes become lessons instead of labels. Where you learn not just how to apply for opportunities, but how to walk into them with dignity.

Employability is a journey. It’s learning how to communicate your worth, even when you’re still becoming. It’s learning how to sit at the table without feeling like an imposter. It’s learning how to try again without losing yourself, and you do not have to walk that journey alone. We want to hear from you.