National Skills Week Highlighted Youth Employment Success Stories

Youth Employment Success Stories Highlighted During National Skills Week

Celebrating Youth Employment

The celebration of youth employment was a key focus of our National Skills Week event. In particular we wanted to highlight the opportunities available for job seekers through Traineeships. As a learning model, a traineeship is part paid job, part continuing study, and part work-experience that brings the practical skills and the theoretical knowledge together.

To welcome our guests, CEO Jennine Blundell shared the WorkVentures story and our pathway for tackling youth unemployment, the success our trainees have had to date, and the valued support our Host Employers provide with jobs and guidance for their trainees.

Head of Recruitment and Training, Anne Kelly, shared our vision for increasing the impact achieved with our existing programs, and future strategies for helping young people transition from school to career.

Scott Dibb, Academy Manager for our Kickstart Program gave us a more detailed picture of the steps on a Traineeship journey, and the differing types of activities we build in to assist a wide range of job seekers find their niche.

WorkVentures Operations Manager, Don Quinn, was able to share real stories from some of our Tech trainees who have gone from school leaver work experience to full time employed technicians in real jobs.

Real people + real skills = real jobs

The highlight of the day came with the uplifting and encouraging stories from two trainees, Ross Mentiss and Sean Scully.

For Ross, working full time at Talent International while continuing his studies has taken him from a work experience placement with us while he was still at school, to a full time job where he continues to learn with support and guidance from his supervisor and team mates.

Sean is close to finishing his current IT Certificate studies while working in our Connect IT Call Centre. His stories of the highs and the challenges taking Tech Support calls and the constant learning required to keep your skills relevant was insightful and entertaining.

Also part of our National Skills Week Event was the awarding of a Toshiba laptop by our CEO Jennine Blundell, generously supplied by our partners IBM and Westpac, to one of our Group Trainees – Lara Mallee. Her Host Employer, Kolling Foundation are the official fundraising partner of the Northern Sydney Local Health District including Royal North Shore, Ryde Hospital and the Kolling Research Institute. Her supervisor, Alla Sorokina, advised that Lara was dedicated, willing to learn and develop her skills both at work and with her studies.