March 2009

Skills Awareness Workshop

Consultants, Ian Orme and Leanne Troup from Thorpe Molloy Recruitment Limited have been sharing their expertise with school pupils from Aberdeen city and shire.

The workshops, which provide guidance on how to get into employment upon leaving school, focus on CV writing and interview techniques, bringing the subject to life using “dream job” examples like X-Factor judge; astronaut, Scotland Football Manager (dream or nightmare depending on your view point!).

Ian explains “We provide guidance on how to write a CV – the format, style and content. Often the pupils don’t appreciate the skills they have and what they should be noting down on their CVs, such as part-time work experience or extra-curricular school activities. We also explain what a recruitment business is all about, and the types of jobs we recruit for, it’s brilliant to see a “light bulb” moment when pupils learn about a job for the first time and think “I would love to do that.”

Leanne continues, “We use interactive exercises too. In one exercise we ask the pupils to evaluate our performance in a mock interview – first impressions, professionalism and preparation. It’s brilliant to see the pupils immediately implementing what we’ve taught them.”

John Cowie, Development Officer Enterprise in Education, who arranged the most recent Dyce Academy workshop comments “The workshop went really well – well paced, interactive, informative and enjoyable. I know that the pupils were engaged and gained a great deal from it.”

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