Archive for the ‘Job Hunting’ Category

Councils in three English regions are collaborating to advertise jobs on the internet through new regional recruitment portals.

“In difficult economic times we are collaborating to make finding employment in the public sector as easy as possible. NorthEastJobs helps job seekers and keeps recruitment costs down”

Jobseekers in the South East, East Midlands and South West will soon be offered a one-stop shop on the web for council jobs in their area. The new web portals will allow job seekers to search and apply for a wide range of employment opportunities in councils, and in some cases fire and rescue services and other public sector employers.

Following the successful launch of NorthEastJobs.org in 2009, three more regions are developing linked recruitment portals as part of programme funded by Communities and Local Government and delivered by the North East Improvement and Efficiency Partnership.

Jennifer McNeill, Regional Director of South East Employers said:

“We are delighted to be hosting the first of these new regional portals. This provides an exciting opportunity for SEE to support our 74 councils in driving down costs in their advertising and recruitment processes whilst raising their individual profiles as employers. SouthEastJobs.org.uk aims to provide a user-friendly facility for job seekers to apply for jobs directly, or as a useful signposting service for them”

NorthEastJobs has already brought together 14 councils and fire and rescue services in the North East, offering a wide range of opportunities from Berwick to Redcar.

Helen Paterson, Strategic Director of Transformation and Chair of the National Programme Board said:

“In difficult economic times we are collaborating to make finding employment in the public sector as easy as possible. NorthEastJobs helps job seekers and keeps recruitment costs down”

The new portals are supported by a system supplied by Tribal.

Brendan Harris, Commercial Director for Tribal’s resourcing business said:

“Tribal invest a huge amount of time and effort in delivering tailored solutions for the public sector and are delighted to be supporting the local government regions to implement efficient and cost-effective recruitment systems. The collaborative working with a total place approach to the regions within the UK will also help to make finding and applying for jobs so much easier for candidates looking to work in council and public service roles – a real win-win for recruiter, applicant and the taxpayer.“

Southeastjobs.org.uk will be available to job seekers in July. Portals in the East Midlands and South West are expected to follow shortly afterwards. A further regional portal is being considered by local authorities in the North West.

Web Links
North East Improvement and Efficiency Partnership: www.northeastiep.gov.uk/recruitment/
South East Employers: www.seemp.co.uk
Tribal: www.tribalgroup.com

A college in Oxford is helping to reduce unemployment in the county thanks to an innovative approach to finding jobs for students and the long-term unemployed.

Oxford and Cherwell Valley College’s Jobfinder scheme is matching its own apprentices with employers and helping to find jobs for those out of work who have received training from the college, especially so for those out of work for more than six months. This is thanks to funding from the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS).

“I wouldn’t want to refer to the project as a recruitment agency but if you think about the services offered by the very best agencies, we have similar aims,” explains Neil Edwards, the college’s business enterprise manager.

Oxford and Cherwell Valley has a strong track record in delivering high quality vocational skills training, holds the Learning and Skills Council’s sought-after Training Quality Standard certification and served more than 500 employers of all sizes last year, including BMW and Oxford’s University’s colleges.

But as unemployment has risen it has proven harder to find would-be apprentices sustainable employment to allow them to continue to take advantage of college-based apprenticeship training. This has prompted a rethink on how the college can better help match aspiring apprentices to employers.

“We have around 50 young people already training on Programme-Led Pathway Apprenticeships, mainly in the motor vehicle and plumbing sectors” said Mr Edwards, “They are our priority group because we have to match them with employers by September to enable them to continue training. But we are also working with Job Centre Plus clients from across the county, running a wide range of short courses for people out of work.”

“We thought about how we might be able to more actively match these people with the employers we serve.”

The answer is to recruit two people – with the help of LSIS funding – to conduct in-depth interviews with all the candidates trained by the college and then take the resulting profiles to employer groups through one-to-one meetings and events so that aspirations are precisely matched.

The college is also offering recruitment support, such as interview tips and CV preparation, for these candidates, who may be entering the job market for the first time.

In an effort to win over employers to the scheme the college will not make any charge for placing candidates with employers – at least whilst it has LSIS funding – and the support offered will not end when a candidate is matched to an employer as Mr Edwards explained: “If a Job Centre Plus client has come to us for a short course in something like security training, once we have matched them with a new employer we can then offer them a longer-term NVQ qualification in the subject. It is all about how we can offer support for candidates and employers at every stage of the process.”

The scheme is one of several awarded to innovative schemes by LSIS in the first round of bidding for its flexibility and innovation fund. The fund is aimed at fostering innovative ideas which can produce results to benefit the learning and skills sector nationwide.

Jobfinder is already up and running with college HR advisor Nicky Harris kicking-off the candidate interview process until the two new arrivals are in post by the end of this month. As well as paying wages for the new recruits the £90,000 provided by LSIS will help publicise the scheme and subsidise some of the additional college costs to get the scheme operational.

“We’re confident that this scheme will make a difference and we will happily share our experience of what worked well and also any operational concerns, so that similar organisations can replicate it across the country,” added Mr Edwards.

LSIS recently opened the second round of bidding for the flexibility and innovation fund, for more details visit www.lsis.org.uk