JOBSEEKERS WHAT THEY SAID:JOBSEEKERS who attended the first day of the National College of Ireland's bootcamp yesterday were clearly determined to put their best foot forward.
With a cup of coffee to hand and a bundle of energy to share, Rowan Manahan, an outplacement and career management consultant was the first speaker in what is a free, week-long event helping jobseekers find work.
Mr Manahan addressed his audience with energy and enthusiasm peppering his talk with motivational analogies. “You’re the lion and you’re going for the gazelle and you’ve got to be faster than the slowest gazelle every time.”
A rapt audience, made up of young and old from various career backgrounds, scribbled furiously as he gave networking tips and advice on how to write a CV.
“Find a nitpicker friend to go over it, don’t overstate yourself,don’t irritate the reader.”
Afterwards a queue of people lined up to ask for Mr Manahan’s advice, some with CVs in hand. Once the line had died down he explained the problem.
“Irish people simply do not know how to job hunt,” he said, adding that, as a nation we tend to be “self effacing”, “not concise and clear” in how we communicate and “tangential” when it comes to answering interviewers’ questions.
Mr Manahan said the most important things to remember when job seeking were attitude, research, professionalism and “putting your head above the parapet”.
“People spend far too much time doing solitary hermit crab activities and too little reaching out by phone, by web and face to face,” he said.
Attendees appeared motivated by what they’d heard. For Gabrielle Beausang (40), who was made unexpectedly redundant from her position in administration five months ago, this kind of motivation is hugely important.
“From a confidence point of view, even though I am jobhunting and paying for my own course. . . my self esteem has depleted totally.
“You need to come to an event like this – there’s people of all ages, people with different life experiences – to see that you’re not alone.”
Joe Ledwidge (60) worked in furniture manufacturing but has been out of work for 15 months. He said the talk had focused him on the importance of networking.
“It’s quite easy to sit at home in your cocoon whereas it takes a little bit of motivation to get up, get out and make yourself meet people,” he said.
Avril McCarthy has been out of work for two months. “I’m just starting to look for work again so this is a good starting point, especially keeping in contact with people in the industry.”
Michael St Leger, a sales business professional came along to see if the event might remotivate him: “At the beginning you go for it but after a while you wane a little bit particularly with the holidays coming along you take your foot off the accelerator.”
Gerard Spierin worked in construction for 37 years before being made redundant in March. He attended as he says he knows nothing about writing CVs, having been in one job for so long.
“I was working with building machinery, construction machinery and road building which is just gone. I was working for 37 years and the girl in FÁS said to me, ‘look Gerard there are no jobs’.”
However, he says yesterday’s event has left him optimistic. “I would be hopeful . . . I keep telling everyone, I’m not retiring, I’m actively looking for a job.”
The free National College of Ireland bootcamp takes place at Mayor Street, IFSC, Dublin until Saturday August 21st.
JOBSEEKERS: WHAT THEY SAID
Joe Ledwidge (60) worked in furniture manufacturing, but has been out of work for 15 months
"It is easy to sit at home in your cocoon. It takes motivation to get up, get out an make yourself meet people."
Gabrielle Beausang (40) was made redundant in administration in March
"From a confidence point of view, my self esteem has depleted totally."