Unspoken Rules — We make the invisible rules of success visible.

Who We Are

Built at the intersection of education, industry, and employment

Unspoken Rules is a WIL and graduate employability business that bridges the structural gap between education and sustainable employment. We work with universities, corporates, and SETAs to develop graduates who don't just start — they stay.

"The gap is rarely technical. It's the absence of a structured methodology for developing work-readiness alongside real skills."

Every workplace runs on invisible rules — inherited through networks, exposure, and social capital. We make those rules visible, teachable, and practicable for every young person, regardless of background.

"Qualified young people are not the problem. The broken infrastructure between education and employment is."

Unspoken Rules — Core Belief

Systems over symptoms. Always.

Design Philosophy

Our Programmes

Two pathways. One coherent system.

The 12-week training component is the shared foundation of both programmes. Clients choose their level of engagement — standalone intensive, or the full WIL journey.

Programme 01

12-Week Graduate Employability Programme

Summer camp in format. Transformative in outcome.

A structured, intensive cohort experience for universities and corporate graduate programmes. Participants develop the most relevant digital literacy skills for their industry, sector, or career path — alongside the professional behaviours that organisations expect but rarely teach. Real industry challenges from week one.

Weeks 1–2

Selection & OrientationProfessional identity, cohort norms, and the foundational rules of how organisations actually work.

Weeks 3–8

Industry Challenge SimulationTeams tackle real corporate problems guided by the Head, Heart & Hands framework, with structured coaching throughout.

Weeks 9–11

Solution DevelopmentParticipants refine outputs, build professional communication skills, and prepare for stakeholder engagement.

Week 12

Industry Panel & Employment PathwaysLive employer panel, direct employment pathway conversations. The programme ends where it was always headed — work.

Programme 02

1-Year WIL Programme

WIL, operationalised.

The full Work Integrated Learning journey. Combines the 12-week training intensive with a 9-month workplace placement. Funded via SETA WIL stipends and/or a corporate organisation. Skills content focuses on the digital literacy capabilities most critical to the partner industry, sector, or career path — identified through subject matter experts, critical skills plans, and sector research.

Phase 1
12 Weeks

Training: Technical, Soft Skills & SimulationThe same 12-week intensive as Programme 01 — niche digital skills, professional behaviours, and workplace simulation, tailored to the partner industry.

Phase 2
9 Months

Workplace PlacementParticipants placed with corporate co-funders in roles relevant to their trained skills. Ongoing mentorship, check-ins, and performance support from Unspoken Rules throughout.

Funding

SETA WIL Stipend and/or Corporate FundingThe programme can be funded through a SETA WIL stipend, by a corporate organisation, or a combination of both — making it accessible across different organisational contexts and funding structures.

Our Methodology

Head, Heart & Hands

Three interconnected dimensions of workplace capability. Together, they define what it actually means to be work-ready.

Head

Cognitive and professional capability. Graduates learn how organisations and systems work, developing the judgement needed to operate effectively inside them.

Critical ThinkingSystems UnderstandingProfessional JudgementDigital Literacy

♡

Heart

Behavioural and relational capability. Graduates develop the interpersonal and emotional behaviours organisations expect but rarely teach explicitly.

CommunicationEmotional IntelligenceAccountabilityProfessional Identity

✦

Hands

Practical application. Graduates apply learning through real work exposure, structured feedback loops, and the discipline of delivering actual outputs.

Work-Integrated LearningOutput DeliveryFeedback & ReflectionProfessional Habits

How We Identify Skills

Niche digital skills, defined per industry

No generic curriculum. Both programmes focus on digital literacy — but always the most relevant and critical capabilities for the specific industry, sector, or career path. We identify exactly what that means for each cohort through three inputs:

Subject Matter Experts

Practitioners within the target industry who articulate the digital capability gaps they encounter most frequently in junior hires.

Critical Skills Plans

Sector-specific skills plans from SETAs and industry bodies — identifying where shortages are most acute and investment most needed.

Industry Research

Labour market data, employer surveys, and emerging technology trends — signalling where demand is growing and where future skills gaps are forming.

Who We Work With

Built for organisations
who take talent seriously

Corporates & Employers

Organisations with graduate intake programmes, learnerships, or B-BBEE obligations seeking measurable outcomes from their talent investment. We design each cohort around your real operational context.

Universities

Institutions looking to add a structured employability layer to their WIL offering — improving graduate employment rates with a proven, sector-relevant methodology.

NGOs & SETAs

Skills development bodies and NGOs who prepare young people with foundational training and need a structured employability layer to convert that investment into employment outcomes.

What We Stand For

Our Values

Access Over Assumption

We make the invisible visible. No gatekeeping. Every young person deserves the insider knowledge others inherit.

Integrity in Action

We lead with accountability and consistency. We model the behaviours we teach.

Growth Through Awareness

Self-awareness is the engine of professional growth. Reflection is built into every touchpoint.

Systems Over Symptoms

Root causes, not surface behaviours. Real change requires ecosystem-level thinking.

Agency & Ownership

Graduates leave as active authors of their careers, not passive recipients of opportunity.

Stacey Slinger

Founder & Programme Architect, Workforce Development

200+university students placed into industry in a single year at CPUT

R2.5M+in SETA funding secured for placed students

stacey@unspokenrules.co.za 071 024 7230 Cape Town, South Africa

Stacey Slinger is an educator and systems thinker working at the intersection of graduate employability, workplace readiness, and organisational development. Her career has been shaped by one persistent question: why do qualified young people still struggle to access and sustain meaningful employment?

"It's built not from the outside looking in, but from years of sitting at the exact interface between what education produces and what employers actually need."

As Work Integrated Learning Coordinator at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), she placed over 200 university students into industry internships within a single year. For those students who qualified, she secured over R2.5 million in SETA funding — demonstrating what is possible when education and industry are genuinely aligned.

Unspoken Rules is the culmination of that experience — a methodology built on hard-won insight, not theory. Two programmes. One coherent system. Designed to change outcomes at scale.

Work with Stacey

We make the invisible rules of success visible.