Career Boot Camp a winner

WHILE not as formidable as marine sergeant Hartman, the sadistic drill instructor of Full Metal Jacket fame, career coach John Fitzgerald administered a few of his own home truths at a career boot camp yesterday.

Held at the National College of Ireland in the heart of the once-thriving IFSC, the week-long series of CV clinics, mock interview workshops and networking events attempts to prepare job-seekers for an ever-tightening employment market.

To a packed lecture theatre holding a mainly middle-aged audience, Mr Fitzgerald, the star of recent RTÉ series Career Coach delivered his tips for “rising from redundancy”.

Along with encouragement came the pain, with the Limerick man stating that the job for life was gone, never to return. In a blaze of corporate-speak, he claimed that the country has returned to a period when a career would mean auctioning your services to numerous employers.

Security will no longer come from your employment but must be generated from within — or, as Mr Fitzgerald termed it, a “self-employed mindset”.

This would require people to “stand up for themselves,” something Irish people found difficult, Mr Fitzgerald said, as he strayed from his area of expertise to opinionate that this was perhaps due to 800 years of foreign rule.

Audience interaction and participation was encouraged, one man informing the session of the “one good thing” he has found in the recession: “There is no stigma in being unemployed anymore; we’re too big a group now.”

As the session progressed the confidence of the audience increased — if nothing else one tangible positive from the day’s boot camp. As Robert Ward, the boot camp programme coordinator said, such “practical” success is the aim. “Times are tough, but with updated skills and knowledge, jobseekers will be better equipped to kick-start their career. Certainly, the feedback from last year’s participants was that many of them found the programme helpful in getting back into the workforce.”

Among those jobseekers was Emily Finn, who went travelling after graduating only to find on her return last year that the job market remained depressed. She said: “Boot Camp was really helpful. It was so much more practical than any other similar session I have seen. The presenters really know where you are coming from. It is also great to know that you’re not on your own and to meet other jobseekers in a similar situation.”

Indeed many more may have to don the metaphorical US-style military helmet, featured on career boot camp publicity, as the recession continues to bite.