West Cork jobs forum a huge success

The second Fuzion Communications / Cork Independent-sponsored jobs forum, which was held at Fernhill House Hotel in West Cork, has been hailed as a positive event that gave people hope. 

The event focused on providing people with the tools to improve their skills, tailor their CVs, and improve their online presence to boost their chances of getting a job.

Managing Director of the Cork Independent Newspaper, Jarlath Feeney, who introduced the event, said the positive atmosphere was "really encouraging".

“It was relevant and helpful for people looking to make the move from unemployment into the workforce, either by finding jobs or setting up their own business. We had Donal Molloy of Career Consult, who spoke about preparing your CV and the best way to approach getting ready for an interview.

“We also had Greg Canty of Fuzion Communications speak about on-line presence and social media, Irene Sheridan of CIT talked about the Springboard initiative, where upskilling is provided for unemployed people.” An example of those who are unemployed but can rebound and find employment, was two women from Dunmanway, Marguerite Galvin and Helen O’Reilly. They set up ‘For Goodness Sake’, which is a health food store in the town.

“The forum was about instilling confidence to people who lost their job, the example of the two women from Dunmanway, shows there is hope out there. There was an excellent reaction and some of the material was very inspiring,” said Mr Feeney.

Greg Canty of award-winning PR agency, Fuzion Communications spoke about the importance of online presence to generate employment leads.

“It was a great event,” said Mr Canty. “It was really well attended and I learned a lot from the speakers. There is a lot of misinformation out there and some people are even getting bad advice from their welfare officers. Others are afraid they will lose their benefits if they enrol in education but there are a lot of possibilities out there. There are many programmes for re-educating and upskilling that won’t affect their entitlements.

“The event gave people positivity and hope. Even in my own area, employers are always looking for people with social media expertise so my advice would be to become an expert in social media. There are many jobs advertised on twitter so it would be no harm to keep on top of it,” he said. 

This is the second event jobs forum the Cork Independent has supported, prior to this, the paper gave its support to another free initiative, the Conor Cunneen JobTalk at the Cork International Airport Hotel.

There are plans to organise a third jobs forum event so keep reading the Cork Independent to find out more details.