The following article was published in the Leinster Leader on Monday 19 April 2010 by Laura Coates

It followed a very lengthy conversation and so has been dramatically edited. There are some inaccuracies and misquotes, but otherwise, the main thrust of the conversation is there.

Message to jobless: ‘Never Give Up Hope’

“A lot of people apply for a job based on what they were told when they were 13 or 14. That’s not relevant to an adult with 30 years in the workforce.”

Shane O’Riordan works with Kildare Town’s Local Employment Service Network (LESN), also known as Obair. From their small Bride Street office, they offer a free career guidance service to jobseekers, helping them re-examine their approach to job-hunting to give them the best chance in today’s competitive market.

Its main target groups are those who have been unemployed for over a year, or people who need guidance getting back to work, such as lone parents. Many of its clients are referred from the Department of Social Welfare, or come on a voluntary basis through other local networks.

There are five Obair offices in the county – in Leixlip, Naas, Newbridge, Kildare town and Athy – with 19 staff. Shane sees between 22 and 23 clients per week, though he admits that with such a demand on services nowadays, they do not see people as often as they would like.

Free one-to-one guidance services are available, and one can take advantage of Obair’s information service about courses and classes, and a ‘jobs club’ also runs at the centre.

Shane says that a lot of jobseekers find themselves conditoned into seeking certain kinds of jobs they have been trained for or that they have been told they are good at.

“The amount of people who say ‘there are no jobs out there’. There are a lot of jobs out there, just not in traditional places,” maintains Shane.

“80 per cent of people put no planning into a job search. Of the other 20 per cent, only five per cent put in a high level of effort into their CVs. Those five per cent will get called for interview.”

“80 per cent of jobs won’t be advertised in the first place, because some companies just don’t advertise, so jobseekers have to start looking in new directions.”

Social media such as Facebook and Linked In will be key to job hunts in the future. But Shane issues a stern warning to younger jobseekers who have posted pictures of themselves in compromising postions on Facebook and Bebo and used strong language.

Just as employees search for job leads on social networking sites, so too do employers ‘Google’ prospective hires.

While many unemployed people would be glad to take any job in the current climate, Shane points out that it is not Obair’s remit to stick them in any job to get them off the dole queue. Rather it is to help a client decide on a career path and give them the best tools to sell themselves to employers. A typical client will have about six meetings with this guidance service, but every person is different.

“We conduct a skills audit, that is to see what skills they have that are sellable to an employer. We find their unique selling points and try to guide people to a job search that will lead to sustainable employment and not just a quick job.”

Others may have severe employment disadvantages which take longer to work through. Examples of this include those with drug problems, members of the travelling community and those whose problems are “known locally”, whereby town gossip or reputation may be keeping a local employer from trusting them.

Clients leave the Obair guidance service when they are ‘job ready’, not necessarily placed in employment.

With many of the clients Shane sees, it’s all about repackaging their skills and experience into something an employer is looking for. This means not starting a CV for a 50-year-old man with a lengthy history as a tradesperson with his primary school qualifications. It means taking out the spelling mistakes, cleaning off the coffee stains – sometimes literally – and getting jobseekers to see that they are selling themselves as a product to employers.

Shane says it’s like a “eureka” moment when this realisation is made for some despondent jobseekers who have been knocked back time and again on the weakness of their CV and presentation. He says their success rate, even in today’s crippled jobs market, increases “exponentially”.

The service is currently seeing people who have never been out of work before, those with masters degrees and a long career history.

For many, the process of losing their jobs in the current climate is akin to grief. Some workers are signing on for the first time in their lives. Those who haven’t come to terms with losing their employment, which may have formed a large part of their identity, are not yet ready for career guidance.

“At the first meeting, we ascertain in which direction they want to go,” he added.

The second phase of the process is plannning a career path and breaking down tasks such as undertaking further training into small achievable steps. The final part of the strategy is putting that career plan into action.

Shane says the main message for jobseekers is to “never give up hope”, even in today’s job market, and even if they receive continual knock-backs. “Failure is feedback”, he said.

 

Read on Leinster Leader.