According to Caroline Kennedy, Careers Adviser at NCI who gave a seminar on the subject, business, arts and humanities subjects (such as HR and marketing) and computer courses are extremely popular areas for conversion. And with accountancy dominating a whopping 40 per cent of today’s graduate jobs (and banking pulling in 17 per cent), these are also key conversion-course hotspots.

The most popular conversion courses are in education, says Caroline: you can convert from most degree disciplines to primary, post-primary teaching or guidance counselling. Applications from graduates in most degree subjects are also welcomed onto law conversion courses. However this isn’t the case for all areas – to convert to engineering you need to have a first degree in a science or science-related degree.

There are, of course, huge opportunities in IT, and you don’t have to have a techie background to land a place on an IT conversion course. 55 per cent of high-level IT jobs are filled by inward migration – meaning, in other words, that staff are recruited from overseas to fill these positions in Ireland – and there have been hundreds of job announcements so far this year. The government is crying out for graduates to convert to IT and to this end are funding several programmes in the hope of attracting more students. The Graduate Skills Conversion Programme has capped the fees for ICT conversion courses at €2,750, and has waived them entirely for over 750 of them. For a list of programmes funded under the Graduate Skills Conversion Programme visit www.hea.ie/en and www.bluebrick.ie/ictskills.

The government’s drastic funding cuts mean that it’s absolutely vital that you know how you will fund your conversion course. On average, they cost between €2,500 and €10,000, so ask yourself: will the course improve my employability? Will it give me value for money? If the answer’s yes, then with luck this investment will reap you rewards in the long run. We are keeping a close eye on the postgraduate funding situation in Ireland and all latest information can be found at postgradireland.com/funding.

The figures are from a European Commission initiative designed to monitor the demand for labour rather than just track unemployment. It is hoped that this will offer a new perspective to help policymakers on labour, education and training issues.

Figures showed the number of vacancies in Ireland from April to June last year was about 6,000, while the number of unemployed was about 300,000.

The important news from a graduate perspective is that once again the skills mismatch is highlighted. Across Europe there are a sizeable number of vacancies for professionals and managers – and the demand for employees with computer science and other technical IT and engineering skills is already well-documented – but the majority of people looking for work have low skillsets. Suitable jobs for these people are in short supply: new jobs in the construction industry, for example, have more or less disappeared.

Although this report does not distinguish graduates within the unemployed numbers, what it does show is that there has been an explosion in youth unemployment, accounting for 25 per cent of the total on average in the EU, and higher in some cases, eg over 51 per cent in Spain. So while employers and the economy are depending on young people to bring high-tech skills to the table, the reality is that the demand for those skills outweighs the supply. And, without these skills, many of our young people are facing only the prospect of short-term, temporary and poorly paid roles.

How can Irish graduates seek to prosper in this jobs market? One way is to consider retraining to meet the demands of the labour market.

The National Skills Bulletin published by FÁS provides an overview of current and anticipated skills shortages in Ireland. The list below provides a summary of some of the areas of shortage mentioned in the 2011 report that you may consider targeting for a potential career change.

Science

• Product development chemists
• Biologists
• Medical scientists
• Nutritionists
• Laboratory analysts at technician level.

Engineering

• Chemical (process safety)
• Design and development (pharmaceuticals, medical devices, food)
• Electrical (power generation, high voltage)
• Electronic (printed circuit board microchip)
• Planning and quality control (standards compliance, validation)
• Mechanical (renewable energy)
• Production (process automation and Six Sigma).

ICT

• Senior software applications developers (Java, C++, C#, VB, Ruby, Perl, Python)
• Network and security experts (.net, SharePoint, encryption, cloud computing, virtualisation – VMware)
• System administrators (Oracle, J2EE, SQL Server)
• Web developers (PHP, JavaScript, XML, HTML, Flex, ColdFusion)
• Business analysts IT project managers.

Finance

• Risk analysis
• Management and cost accounting
• Compliance and regulatory standards – domestic, EU (eg MiFID, Solvency II)
• Global (eg Basel II) and financial analysis
• Financial experts with proficiency in financial software packages (eg SUMMIT and SAP).

Sales and Marketing

• Experienced marketing managers
• Technical sales representatives with specific industry, product and market knowledge
• Multilingual telesales (particularly with German and Nordic languages).

Transport & Logistics

• Multilingual international supply chain managers with forecasting, planning and scheduling skills.

Lastly it is worth researching conversion courses – the only Irish website with a bespoke conversion course search is postgradireland.com.

How private is your data?

OK, we all do it. Spend hours on Facebook and other social media sites. Hours that could be spent doing more useful things like mastering tap dancing or basic Samoan. And it’s pretty inevitable, given the patterns of student life, that some of these hours involve Facebook usage of a somewhat unguarded nature. It’s amazing what pictures some people will post after a night on the beer. Fair enough. You’re only young once.

But equally true is the fact that you’ll need to earn a living too and part of the long journey towards jobhood involves your future employer deciding if you’re a good candidate for their organisation. So put yourself in their position. Wouldn’t you be tempted to run a search on Facebook for you, just in case? Human nature being a constant, many do – however unfair you think this is.

A recent survey by Microsoft of 5,000 people in five countries, including Ireland, found that only about half had thought about the implications of their digital profile on their futures. And only 15 per cent of the Irish respondents felt that they had full control of their online profile. This makes sense because your profile is constructed both by what you say and what others say about you. And the resulting rich mix of data can hang around as long as spent uranium but, unlike nuclear waste, is the precise opposite of being buried deep underground.

There are practical ways you can manage your profile though:

• conducting a regular ‘Reputation Report’ by putting your name into search engines
• separating your personal and professional profiles
• adjusting your privacy settings and
• thinking hard about what to share and with whom.

But not all employers will gate-crash your personal life. For example, KPMG has announced (on its ‘KPMG Careers Ireland’ Facebook page) that it will not view personal profiles on Facebook and it will not assess candidates or make recruitment decisions based upon online representations on Facebook.

I think this is a positive move but, until this behaviour becomes the norm, think carefully about the impression you give potential employers on Facebook. And that goes for you too, Ms Fluffy Bunny.

See the results of the Microsoft survey.

‘Localisation’ is a career area that may not be that well known at present. The Centre for Next Generation Localisation, an academia-industry research consortium based at Dublin City University, aims to change that. They have just launched a localisation careers guide aimed at getting students to consider this career path.

Localisation is the process of adapting digital products, services and content for foreign markets, and is increasingly needed in many industries, including software, games, financial services and medical devices. And it needs people with both technical and linguistic knowledge.
At the launch this week, it was pointed out that localisation is a growth area for Ireland. Many of the world’s largest software and web companies co-ordinate their localisation activities here, and the industry already employs 16,000 people.

It’s an intriguing sounding career: games localisation, for example, can cover everything from changing the footballer on the packaging to checking a dance game for moves that might be offensive in some cultures.

The people interviewed for the careers guide have a range of academic backgrounds, including translation and software development – which you might expect – and physics and literature – which you might not.

Because localisation jobs involve language, linguistics, computing, business and culture, a qualification in any of these disciplines is a possible route to this career. If you have a combination of skills you’ll have an advantage, so it could be worth doing a Masters in a complementary subject – for example in business or IT if you have a degree in languages (or vice versa). There are also a small number of specialist Masters courses in Ireland that are dedicated specifically to localisation.

To find out more, download the careers guide at the Centre for Next Generation Localisation’s careers page.

We asked the employers involved in the gradireland National Student Challenge to find out what motivates them to support competitions. The first thing that comes to light is something that is often missed in all the talk of recession, austerity and cut-backs – there is still a fight at the top of the graduate recruitment food-chain for the brightest and best students. And companies are increasingly using competitions to identify top talent.

‘Challenges such as these can make a student’s CV stand out from the crowd’ says Paul O’Leary from EMC, who employ approximately 2,000 staff in Ireland. Nessa Kiely at Ernst & Young agrees: ‘The National Student Challenge offers students from all corners of the island a great online platform to showcase their skills to us.’

One of the difficulties faced by graduate recruiters is that candidates tend to be inexperienced, and need to find ways to add ‘flesh’ to the bones of a CV. Success in competitions can be a significant factor in getting noticed.

And a tip for career-minded students is that it is never too early to get involved in competitions and to get noticed. PricewaterhouseCoopers was Ireland’s largest graduate recruiter in 2011. As such, one of their priorities is to identify potential recruits at all stages of their academic career. Lorraine Toole from PwC explains: ‘We are constantly looking for new ways to develop and grow our talent pipeline, so we look to be involved in new and innovative events which will help us identify and recognise Ireland’s brightest students. Competitions help us identify leaders of the future during their formative college years.’

So why competitions rather than recruit traditionally via application and interview? The key differentiator is how these competitions are structured. For example, the online test and the Final Day Challenges which make up the National Student Challenge are all based on the core competencies that leading graduate recruiters look for in their graduate hires. If you perform well, you are already showcasing your employability skills.

Competitions also allow recruiters to meet potential recruits, which reverses the traditional approach whereby the written application is put in front of the recruiter long before the actual candidate is met. ‘The National Student Challenge Final Day will allow us to monitor students’ performance within a controlled environment – allowing us the opportunity to see them in action. This can be directly related to possible future performance in the workplace,’ says Paul O’Leary of EMC. This is a common theme with all employers involved – the opportunity to identify bright students and see them interact, communicate and complete Challenges is a very modern way to engage with possible future talent for their organisations.

However, for many students, with pressing work and exam commitments, the key question is – will this get me a job? Paul O’Leary of EMC is clear on this: ‘If, through competitions such as the National Student Challenge, we can identify high potential students who display our competencies then there is a very strong possibility of those students being offered a position within our organization.’ Equally PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young, who between them in 2011 took on almost 600 Irish graduates, are both using the National Student Challenge to identify ‘leaders of the future’ and ‘shining talent’ at all levels of study. This could lead  to possible internships for students in the early stages of their academic careers, or ultimately for places on their graduate recruitment programmes.

It is evident that there is more than prize-money or an iPad to be won by students taking part in competitions. Lorraine Toole from PwC sums it up nicely: ‘Academic study gets your foot in the door; employability skills push that door open to a far wider range of opportunities. Competitions like the National Student Challenge help students identify the skills they’ve developed inside and outside university, and explain just how transferable those skills are to every area of our business. Quite simply, experiences and achievements not only enrich students lives; they will also enhance their career prospects.’

The online element of the gradireland National Student Challenge is open until 29 February 2012; the top 60 students on the leaderboard will then be invited to attend the Final Day Challenges in UCD Quinn Business School on Wednesday 14 March.

Make social networking work for you. Chances are you spend a fair bit of time on Facebook/Twitter already, so use these sites and their more professional counterpart – LinkedIn – to reach out to potential contacts, research companies that interest you and get the lowdown on what current employees think about their jobs. Social networking sites are a great way to start your research, firm up ideas and network with useful contacts, all without the pressure of face-to-face interaction with recruiters or official application processes. Of course, always be professional and polite in any correspondence with employers and on any forum where you have a public persona.

Make use of the ‘other interests’ section on your CV. There was a time when this section was all but a footnote to the main bulk of a CV, but this is no longer the case. In today’s fiercely competitive graduate market where differentiation is paramount, a choice piece of extra-curricular activity or two (did you set up a society at college? Were you instrumental in fundraising for a particular charity event?) can really give you the edge over your peers.

Don’t set yourself up for a fall. Many New Year’s resolutions never really get off the ground because we set ourselves wildly unrealistic expectations. If you’re bursting with good intentions and plan to apply for 20 jobs a week, but don’t manage half of that, the chances are you’ll be so disheartened that you’ll give up applying for any. Don’t despair: instead, revise your goals to make them more manageable. If five thoughtful, carefully researched applications a week is more achievable, then that’s perfectly fine. Make that your goal instead. And don’t forget to reward yourself for the successful achievement of any resolution, job-related or otherwise. Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas from gradireland!

We’ve spoken to hundreds of Irish students and graduates at various stages of the graduate job hunt over the past 12 months about their career aspirations, ambitions and experiences. As the year draws to a close, we take a look at the issues and observations that have mattered the most in 2011.

Overwhelmingly, the significance of relevant work placements/internships was of paramount concern to graduate jobseekers across virtually all sectors:

• ‘An internship can be a great way to differentiate yourself from your peers while also allowing you to sample a job you are interested in’. (Corporate Finance Trainee, Financial Services)

• ‘Take every opportunity to do a placement year – it’s the perfect chance to try out a company and find out what suits you.’ (Graduate Engineer)

• ‘Don’t just stick to law firm internships – demonstrate commercial awareness by taking placements in banks and businesses too.’ (Trainee Solicitor).

But it wasn’t all about work experience. Graduates had plenty to say in relation to job applications, the dreaded job interview, and how to get ahead at work:

• ‘Don’t rush into half-hearted job applications; spending time developing an effective CV and covering letter will improve your chances no end.’ (R&D Food Scientist)

• ‘Interview early and often. I don’t know if I would have been as successful in the interview process here had I not had prior experience elsewhere’. (Software Development Engineer in Test)

• ‘Get yourself a mentor. Being able to learn from experience and through others is vital.’ (Quality Assurance Lead).

At a time when funding for fourth-level study is being squeezed, deciding whether or not to pursue postgraduate education has become tougher than ever. Postgraduates of 2011 offer valuable advice:

• ‘Put a lot of thought into further study and make a mature decision; you have to enjoy your research topic because you’re in it for the long run.’ (MEng, Waterford Institute of Technology)

• ‘It’s important to have a strong, supportive network of people around you – other researchers and staff – as no one can achieve a PhD by themselves. Your research community and support network is vital and enriching.’ (Structured PhD, Tyndall National Institute, UCC)

• ‘Check the credentials of the staff and departments you are interested in. What journals are they published in? What kind of research do they conduct? What reputation do they have?’ (MSc, Bangor University).

Whichever direction 2011 has taken you, all of us at gradireland wish you a very happy Christmas. We’ll be back in the New Year to help you make the most of 2012.

This emerging global graduate job market has thrown up a set of ‘global competences’ that people need to develop in order to thrive in demanding international businesses far from home. These competences have been identified in a new report by the Council of Industry and Higher Education (CIHE) and the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) as:

• the ability to work collaboratively with teams from different backgrounds and countries
• excellent communication skills
• a high degree of drive and resilience
• the ability to embrace multiple perspectives and challenge thinking
• multi-cultural learning agility and
• an ability to form professional, global networks.

Interestingly, the need to speak several languages, though considered a good thing (obviously), is near the bottom of the list. This is probably to do with the convenient fact that English is the language of international business (thank God). The report also identifies the need for aspiring global graduates to be knowledgeable and interested in world affairs.

This is a UK report, based on surveys with international organisations, and concludes that too few UK nationals are gaining the kind of international experience and developing the right competences that could give them a head start in the new global jobs market. So this is conceivably an opportunity for Irish graduates to seize such opportunities, as I think it’s fair to say that we’re talking here of a body of people who have a more international outlook than their counterparts in the UK and are more geographically flexible. The Irish diaspora is already global but this report identifies an increasing need for talented recent graduates to play their part in building modern international businesses.

More details at:  http://www.agr.org.uk/Content/GLOBAL-GRADUATES-NEEDED

Guest post by career consultant Sinead English

Closing dates for many of the graduate training programmes have come… and gone. Your great intentions to apply to lots of companies got lost in a haze of assignments and exams. Now what?

Don’t despair – there are more opportunities than you think

Here’s a scoop – just because companies are not advertising doesn’t mean they are not hiring. Up to 70 per cent of available positions never get advertised since recommendations from trusted colleagues and contacts will usually uncover as many good candidates as a company will need… and it won’t cost them a cent in pricey agency fees or adverts.

The ‘Hidden’ Job Market? Give me a clue

The vacancies filled without advertising are often referred to as the Hidden Job Market – which can conjure up images of an impenetrable maze of people ‘in the know’ with you most definitely on the outside wondering how to get in! The good news is there is one step you can take today to start finding out what job opportunities exist for you on the Hidden Job Market. How? By starting to tell people what you want to do – if you can’t tell people where you want to go with your career, how can anyone help you get there?

How to hear about what’s going on in the Hidden Job Market

Find someone working in the industry you would like to work in and ask them for advice. Don’t know anyone working in the industry? Get creative. Use LinkedIn to search by industry, company, or your college. That will generate a list of names and LinkedIn will give you suggestions as to the best way to approach them, ie who you know that they know.

Target three people to start with – ask for 15 minutes of their time and be ready with your questions. Here are some to get you started:

• ‘How did you get your job with the company?’
• ‘Do you think my particular degree would be a useful qualification for a job in the industry?’
• ‘Are there any good trade publications I should be reading/websites I should be following/industry conferences I should be attending to improve my knowledge of the industry?’
• ‘What advice would you give a graduate trying to get into this industry?’

Never ask them for a job – ask them something they can deliver on there and then.

No guts… no glory

OF COURSE it is easier to keep sending CVs in response to job adverts, cross your fingers and hope that (a) no-one else spotted the job advert (b) all other applicants will have CVs riddled with spelling errors and lacking the required skills and/or (c) the advertised job isn’t actually already filled – a favourite tactic of some unscrupulous employers. OR you can go about creating your own opportunities and start to weave your way into the Hidden Job Market by letting contacts and, by extension, potential employers know you exist and what you can do for them.

The second option may appear daunting initially but the rewards in the form of you landing your ideal job will make this excursion out of your comfort zone well worth it. Go on – give it a go.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

The current trends in the graduate jobs market mirror the uncertainty in the overall economy. Earlier in the year there was a definite pick-up in activity. This coincided with Ireland’s bail-out, the general election, and a cautious feeling that the worst may be behind us. Now that it is evident that the light at the end of the tunnel was merely a very large truck hurtling towards us, and that the problems in the Irish economy were an indicator of much wider and systemic economic travails across Europe, any recovery in the graduate jobs market has stalled.

Statistical analysis of graduate job trends as reflected in the opportunities on the gradireland.com website, September to November 2011:

Overview
The average number of jobs and graduate programmes listed each day on gradireland.com during this period has been 157. This is the same as the same period last year, but down from the average in April-June which was 202.

Which sectors are recruiting in Ireland?
Some sectors of the economy have been decimated by the recession – others are leading the domestic recovery. The top ten job sectors on gradireland.com during this period were:

1. IT & technology (including telecoms)
2. Engineering
3. Accountancy & financial management
4. Financial services (including banking & insurance)
5. Marketing, advertising & PR
6. Management, business & administration
7. Retail, sales & customer services
8. Science, research & development
9. Manufacturing & processing
10. Management consultancy.

Many of the opportunities in these sectors would entail the recruitment of multiple graduates into large graduate programmes during the ‘milkround’ month of October, as evidenced by the 3,900 jobs on view at the gradireland Graduate Careers Fair in October.

Which sectors are targeting Ireland’s graduates to work abroad?

Many of the largest graduate recruiters in Ireland are multinationals, and recruit Irish graduates to work within their organisations across the world. Irish graduates are also perceived to be well educated, good communicators and to have strong language skills, and so are often targeted by employers from other countries. 16 per cent of the jobs advertised on gradireland.com during this period were based outside Ireland. The top ten sectors promoting opportunities abroad are:

1. IT & technology (including telecoms)
2. Financial services (including banking & insurance)
3. Engineering
4. Accountancy & financial management
5. Management, business & administration
6. Retail, sales & customer services
7. Science, research & development
8. Teaching & education
9. Marketing, advertising & PR
10. Management consulting.

Two things are noticeable here – the demand from the ‘professional services’ sector, who look for Irish graduates with sharp minds, commercial awareness and communication skills, often for large, international graduate programmes; and the inclusion of opportunities for teaching abroad, which is fuelled largely by TEFL companies targeting young Irish graduates as they have a proven willingness to travel and teach abroad.

What about opportunities for work experience and internships?
Interestingly the number of work experience and internships advertised on gradireland.com has halved since the Spring, and now comprise just 7.5 per cent of the opportunities on the site. Spring and Summer are always the main time to promote graduate internships, so some fall-off is anticipated, although it seems that some companies who might have promoted a graduate placement in previous years may be using the government’s JobBridge scheme. The sectors in which internships are promoted are quite different from the top sectors for jobs or working abroad:

1. Marketing, advertising & PR
2. IT & technology (including telecoms)
3. Media & publishing
4. Social, community & youth
5. Engineering
6. Financial services (including banking & insurance)
7. Retail, sales & customer services
8. Accountancy & financial management
9. Charities & voluntary sector
10. Hospitality, sport, leisure & tourism.