Jobs Fair at the Radisson

A strange affair to say the least. Broadly cut down the middle into two groups: the employers and the training establishments.

At the end of the day it's a numbers game. Business' don't want to sacrifice turnover as it stands so are only willing to offer basic wage jobs. The majority being call centre or care work. The opening speech left me less than impressed by the fact that the representative of the Department of Education and Learning (DEL) proudly told us that there were 1300 jobs available. Further investigation (something that I basically do on a daily basis) shows that 1.3% of the 1311 jobs available on the Job Centre website are based in Limavady.

Observation 1: Wearing a suit means that you are exhibitor. No one batted an eyelid at me, apart from people who I knew.

Observation 2: Experience now counts for nothing. This has been creeping up for years, my BTeC is nearly 20 years old and not worth the paper it's written on. You are now pretty much expected to be upgrading your qualifications every three years. Lifelong learning and continiuous training is the path you are all now on. Stop and you will suffer (in about three years time).

My route for the day was set, there was a company I wanted to talk to. So I went up to them with CV in hand. "So you're interested in call centre work.", "err no. I'm here about IT work you have openings in Derry and Belfast, here's my CV." A quick look over and then the expected, "you don't have a degree?", "No but I do have 20 years experience", "I'm sorry it doesn't work like that now, the minimum is a degree for IT." I took my CV and politely left the table.

A walk around the other stands didn't offer up much else. The numbers "573" seemed to mentioned a lot.