Employers will normally select for an interview, candidates who are better qualified over those who have little or no work experience or qualifications. Therefore, for these young people, it is difficult to get selected for a job interview. And if selected, giving an outstanding performance during that interview, becomes the only opportunity for these job seekers to gain employment.
This project is the follow up project and complimentary to the 2014-2016 ET-NEETs (Effective Training for NEETS) Erasmus+ project which collected a large amount of data from both NEETs (Young people who are ‘Not in Employment, Education or Training’) and Employers. Please see: www.et-neets.eu. The majority of information collected from both groups (73%) described problems with job interviews as a major obstacle of getting into employment. These findings were confirmed in pre-project research with employers and HR managers who described that in many cases the performance of young unemployed youth during interviews was below the required expectations and that they lacked skills of presenting themselves and therefore were not chosen for employment.
The majority of information collected from both groups (73%) described problems with job interviews as a major obstacle of getting into employment. These findings were confirmed in pre-project research with employers and HR managers who described that in many cases the performance of young unemployed youth during interviews was below the required expectations and that they lacked skills of presenting themselves and therefore were not chosen for employment.
The project therefore addresses as its two target groups;
- Young job seekers with little or no work experience, qualifications or training (including NEETs),
- Employers, recruitment agencies and job centres,
It has aimed to support young people to gain employment by developing tools which will help them to:
- determine their readiness to perform well during face to face job interviews,
- gain the knowledge and training to improve their interview skills and performance, and
- supply them and potential employers with a platform that allows for upload and viewing of “Living Video CVs”.
For this it has developed two main outputs:
1). The Interview Champ APP
And
2). The Job Portal
The APP and Job Portal are unique approaches and systems for tackling a wide ranging problem- the poor prospects for inexperienced job seekers trying to find employment without the specific knowledge of presenting their skills and competences at interview and/or throughout the recruitment process. These two tools have been designed to be transferable and universal to other countries and lauguages.
The central impact of the project is to generate a positive effect for young job seekers and help them integrate more easily into the labour market by providing innovative and effective methods to support their potential.
The partners’ consortium will during and after the project exploit the potential of the tools to be adopted by employment organisations, job centers, recruitment agencies and authorities.