The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

SCORES of young job seekers were left disappointed yesterday when only half of the companies at a government facilitated careers fair showed up.

And to add insult to injury, most of the 10 organisations that were present told participants that presently they were not hiring new employees but just gathering information for future use. They confirmed the same to reporters.

When The Tribune arrived at the Town Centre Mall court at around 11 am where the Ministry of Youth Sports and Culture hosted the event, nearly 300 young persons were making their rounds handing out resumes although the prospects they said looked grim.

Many of the hopefuls, who spoke to this newspaper, requested anonymity for fear of retribution.

One of them, a single mother of two, called the event, which was to continue from 10am to 4pm, a waste of time.

“They asked us to be here at 10am,” she said, “ I was here before then ready to get the process started, but now it’s almost noon and half the companies are not even here. They want the prospective employees to be on time, but they aren’t.

“The job market for persons like myself is not easy, and again people like me come to things like this hoping to get jobs, but it’s disappointing when we find situations like this one where the employers don’t look like they want to hire. Why are they here?”

Another job seeker said he was not very optimistic of getting a call back.

“I have been looking for a job for months, I came here thinking I could get something. But what are the chances if no one turned out. I don’t know what they had this thing for. It is very frustrating.”

However, Joslyn Harper, Youth officer with the Ministry and organiser of the career fair, said despite the poor turnout out companies those present could take advantage of the other aspects of the event. She was unsure why there was such a poor turnout.

“When we contacted all of them this morning,” she said, “they assured us that they would be in attendance. But a lot of them are small companies who might not have been able to spare employees for the whole day.
“We tried to get 20 companies to come out who were either hiring or who could at least offer some insight into their hiring process. At the same time we wanted to offer some advice for the people who don’t dress appropriately or don’t know proper interview or work etiquette.

“So we have some workshops that are going to be going on in terms of dressing properly on a tight budget, working with difficult people and building a resum�.”