Written by Dave Cullen
It’s been a busy week on the road for Cpl as Peter Cosgrove, in his role with the National Recruitment Federation, partnered with Fingal Enterprise to talk about “Bridging the Skills Gap”. The event took place at the Grand Hotel Malahide and Peter was joined on stage by Professor Brian Norton, President, Dublin Institute of Technology, who highlighted some of the employment challenges facing new students as well as the exciting new campus at Grangegorman that DIT are moving to, which will create more 4,000 jobs over the course of its development.
On the same day Cpl presented to the Going for Growth entrepreneurs group run by Paula Fitzsimons. Paula’s mission in Going for Growth is to support women entrepreneurs in achieving their growth ambitions and to get more women entrepreneurs into a growth frame of mind. The key message to these entrepreneurs was the importance of finding the right talent when looking to hire, as failure to do so can be a very costly mistake. One key message that resonated from the presentation was the importance of taking detailed references from potential recruits, as many only do this as a “tick-box” exercise.
On October 3rd, Cpl participated in the Trinity College Careers Week and spoke to students about how to effectively leverage social media and networking as part of their job search. The key message for graduates was to differentiate themselves and concentrate on developing their personal brand. This is because many graduates look the same to employers so it is vitally important to stand out from the crowd in today’s job market. This is obviously an enormous challenge for graduates right now with many employers preferring experience over education in the short term as they are prioritising their immediate issues. The seminar talks were given by career experts and companies looking for graduates.
