Ilias and Shamas are behind the scenes experts at online job event
IT students, Ilias Dirie and Shamas Iqbal helped to make an online job day running across Europe a great success after taking on roles as support technicians. The European Online Job Day was hosted from Matthew Boulton College and organised by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and job mobility portal, Eures.
It invited jobseekers from the UK that were interested in finding out about working in another European country to find out about the different roles that employers including Fiesta, Tui and Cosmo had available.
Ilias and Shamas who are first year students at the college helped to lay out network cables for laptops, video cameras and other equipment. They also sat in on the online webinars so that they could offer help with any technical issues that arose during presentations, live chats and video transmissions.
“We were pleased to welcome the students on to our behind the scenes team and partner with the college on an initiative that encourages people to see the massive potential in working abroad,” commented Craig Isherwood, Head of National Co-ordination at the DWP. “Bringing jobseekers direct to employers in a virtual environment is really beneficial as people can dip in and out of the different sessions going on, taking as much information as they need. It also helps that the vacancies that are promoted are still live at the end of the event so applications can be made afterwards.”
Craig continued: “Basing ourselves at the college helped us reach out to more young people who might not yet have thought about working abroad. Ilias and Shamas did a fantastic job observing and taking part in the event coordination.”
European Online Job Days encourage jobseekers to search and apply for jobs that match their profile, make contact with employers and book one or more job interviews. They can also view company presentations online and ask questions during live Q&A sessions with the presenter.
“Setting up the connections and components for the equipment took quite a while and there were health and safety issues to think about as well, so it was interesting to see how these things came together,” said Shamas, 16. “And it was useful to see just how alert you have to be all the time in case the connection was lost or someone in the chatroom was asking questions.”
“I’ve got a much better understanding of how much effort is involved in setting up and maintaining a live stream,” said Ilias, 17. “I’m glad I got to be involved such a major event in terms of the size and how busy it was. 700 had logged on at one time and from countries such as Estonia, Germany, Hungary and Malta.”
For further information about European Online Job Days, visit www.europeanjobdays.eu/en/events
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