Skills upgrade for jobseekers

PROFESSIONALS who find themselves out of work have been given the opportunity to upgrade their skills.

Clare Connect is a networking organisation established to help jobseekers explore their options. It is facilitated by St Joseph’s Conference of St Vincent de Paul, a section of the charity that deals with education, research and planning for the county.
There has been a small improvement in the Clare unemployment rate recently, with 9,996 signing on at the end of April, down by 171 from March. Organiser Jim Quinlivan feels Clare Connect offers solace to the “hopelessness” of unemployment.
“One of the things about unemployment, especially if you’re in a later stage, can be very much the difficulty of feeling that you’re on your own, that you’re out there, that you’re sending out CVs and you’re not getting any response. The hopelessness that’s there, that’s the first thing,” he claimed.
“Clare Connect shows people that they’re not on their own. There are other people who are in the same boat as them, who have the same kind of difficulty. It’s not just them, it’s not just something they did themselves.”
Mr Quinlivan is proposing that at each meeting a participant makes an elevator pitch on something they are looking for and something they are willing to do.
“It’s where somebody gets 15 to 20 minutes to say ‘look, this is my product. This is what I’m trying to do. This is what I want to do. This is where I want to go’. Then the rest of the group can come in and see where can they support them and what can they do for them and do they know somebody who might be able to help them. It’s actually meeting other people that are in a similar situation to yourself and helping each other to overcome the obstacles that exist in your field.”
Guest speakers give talks about topics such as legal advice and stress management. Liam Horan, a Clare Champion columnist, gave a talk last Thursday on interview preparation and how to fill out a CV. Mr Quinlivan said interviews can be a “hugely daunting task” for those who haven’t applied for a job in years.
“They need to be told how to retrain themselves. Things you’ve learned at school, especially if you’re in your 40s and 50s, are no longer that relevant in the present-day job market.
“I know people who, when they’re made unemployed, the first thing they do is start sending CVs out all over the place. They go to everybody and everybody gets them in the door and they get the standard letter back, ‘Your CV is in now. We’ll keep it on file.’ But this CV has no relevance to the jobs that might come up in that area, it’s a standard CV. You need to customise your CV to the job you’re applying for.”
Anybody interested in attending the upcoming Clare Connect meetings or finding out more information, can register with clareconnect123@gmail.com.