FAS- at a time like this

Jayob10

Can anyone tell me the purpose of FAS?

Ok i'm a law graduate from 2007 with experience who is out of work. Basically i'll take anything I can get at this stage. On 3 seperate occasions I have been to FAS, twice to see a career guidance officer and another time to see a EURES officer.

On all occasions I have found the help on offer completely inadequate, I really struggle to see what they actually do for you. Now I know at a time like this there are very little jobs so their hands are tied to a certain extent.
I think at times like this they are extremely ill prepared to deal with people who may be on an equal footing to themselves qualification wise. You would not believe the bluffing I have heard from people I have dealt with in FAS. Genuine questions I have asked have not been answered in a helpful way. On 2 occasions I have found the person I have been dealing with has not even known how to operate the computer correctly

Often I have found myself called in for a chat and ive gone the whole way in and its been for nothing!

I guess my question is, once you register and log your CV etc.... what do they actually do to help??? It seems that all I have been doing is looking elsewhere myself and they suss how I am getting on. Surely there is no need for FAS at all then?? Pardon me if I sound like a prat but surely they are a waste of time really???

Does anyone else feel the same?? what do they actually do for you when you are not in front of them in the office??

cheers for reading guys

leeroybrown

I haven't had direct encounters with them but from what I've seen indirectly their big problem is that during the 'good times™' their focus shifted completely away from dealing with unemployment and more towards being a formal training agency for specific vocational areas. Now that many of the areas where they were focusing have economically collapsed they're stuck trying to rapidly restructure to cope. From my point of view the biggest thing that they appear to have been doing over the last 12 months is helping unemployed people from the construction sector emigrate. This appears to be compounded by their general inefficiency and senior managerial issues. Eventually they'll get back to their original purpose in life which was to make the Live Register figures look less bad on an ongoing basis.

The UK seem to be taking a very focussed approach to the same issue by streamlining benefits, job seeking and re-training advice into one unit with Jobcentre Plus. Perhaps a re-assessment of whether the current FÁS model is really suitable for the current mess is required...

Thoie

I think Fás are the most useless bloody shower when it comes to people with a lot of experience. You have to remember they grew out of another organisation (can't remember the name off the top of my head) that used help youngsters get apprenticeships. To my mind they haven't progressed a lot beyond that mentality, except now they can't even get that right. The courses they offer are mainly suitable for school leavers or people who've never really been in the workforce.

I suspect the only reason the organisation still exists is because they're fed by the fact that the Dept of Social Welfare makes it a condition that you have to sign up with them.

If you look at their 2006-2009 statement of strategy, their very first goal in the executive summary is

Assessment of critical issues, challenges and opportunities for Fás.

Says it all really.

The best thing they could come up with for me a number of years back was "Keep an eye on job websites".

I'd recommend that before visiting them, search through their catalogue of courses, and find something that you're interested in/may be useful to you. Also research other training courses that they don't provide, and bring details of costs and benefits of the courses with you.

Jayob10

Thoie wrote: »

I think Fás are the most useless bloody shower when it comes to people with a lot of experience. You have to remember they grew out of another organisation (can't remember the name off the top of my head) that used help youngsters get apprenticeships. To my mind they haven't progressed a lot beyond that mentality, except now they can't even get that right. The courses they offer are mainly suitable for school leavers or people who've never really been in the workforce.

I suspect the only reason the organisation still exists is because they're fed by the fact that the Dept of Social Welfare makes it a condition that you have to sign up with them.

If you look at their 2006-2009 statement of strategy, their very first goal in the executive summary is
. Says it all really.

The best thing they could come up with for me a number of years back was "Keep an eye on job websites".

I'd recommend that before visiting them, search through their catalogue of courses, and find something that you're interested in/may be useful to you. Also research other training courses that they don't provide, and bring details of costs and benefits of the courses with you.

You have taken the words from my mouth there! "keep an eye on the job websites"- that is in a nutshell what I have been told. Like I haven't been doing that already.
I have been approved for another course outside of their lists and they'll cover part of it, but its the whole job hunting side of things that lets them down.
They don't seem to have any inside track on people hiring (if any I admit) and when you have exhausted the job hunting on your end its a kick in the teeth to be called in and find out they have no idea of any other avenues you can explore. I think maybe they are used to dealing with people who are not interested in working, from years gone by I mean. I know that sounds terrible of me to say but that way they can always hide behind the rhetoric that you didn't try hard enough.

When faced with someone who genuinely wants to work they are clueless. And I have 3rd level education and experience and im not snobby in the slightest about working in lesser paid jobs. They don't even provide help there!

Ah well.........:(

artful_codger

i went in for a meeting with them a few years ago when i was out of work during the dot com recession and i found them to be a useless, clueless, bunch of eejits just paying lip service. The woman had one job listed on her computer - IT recruitment agent, i didn't even bother reading the spec. She didn't mention doing any courses, she had no advice to give except keep an eye on job websites. They're like a recruitment agency who aren't in the loop on any jobs available, they probably think Microsoft posts vacancies on the message boards in social welfare offices or something

Thoie

artful_codger wrote: »

The woman had one job listed on her computer - IT recruitment agent, i didn't even bother reading the spec.

I think I was offered that role as well

I'm not entirely sure how they do their skills matching.

"I like working with children"
"Oh, we have a vacancy here for a consultant paediatrician - will I put you down for it?"
"Sure, as long as they'll hold the role for me for 10 years, and you pay for the training. Or do you have a 6 week course in Leitrim that would cover all the necessaries?"

Nolanger

What do ye expect - think the brightest of the brightest work for FÁS? They were one of the organisations who increased their size during the Celtic Tiger instead of reducing staff numbers. Did two courses with them - complete waste of time. If you're smarter than an organisation then they will be of no use!

kippy

Nolanger wrote: »

What do ye expect - think the brightest of the brightest work for FÁS? They were one of the organisations who increased their size during the Celtic Tiger instead of reducing staff numbers. Did two courses with them - complete waste of time. If you're smarter than an organisation then they will be of no use!

I dont think there is anyone smarter than an "organisation", if that is even possible.
FAS throughout the years has focused on a few areas, one of which was getting people with lesser skills skilled up through various courses. The target audience wasnt near as qualified as the people who find them selves unemployed now. Thats basicilly what the problem is.
Theres zero point in telling a person with a degree in IT, a few years experience, that they should do an ECDL course. The organisation is trying to adapt but its not as easy as it sounds.

FAS is doing and has done amazing work with the less well off,qualified of us in the boom times while assisting many young to get into trades etc, however now it finds itself behind the times and struggling to keep up.
There will probably be a rather large shake up in the organisation in the next year or so should the unions let it (WHICH they should). With all the bad publicity the organisation has got of late, it is needed.

I work for the organisation but not in any of the roles you would have dealt with.

leeroybrown

What's the betting that we'll see a comeback of the "FÁS wall" and other similar projects?

For those with short memories, a "FÁS wall" is a small stone wall building project that allows someone to learn a skill that's of no particular use to the economy while simultaneously getting them off the Live Register for as long as they can get away with building it for.

Thoie

kippy wrote: »

however now it finds itself behind the times and struggling to keep up.
There will probably be a rather large shake up in the organisation in the next year or so should the unions let it (WHICH they should). With all the bad publicity the organisation has got of late, it is needed.

I understand what you're saying about the work they've done with the less well qualified, but I think people find it frustrating that experienced people are forced to go to Fás by the Social Welfare, and then the front line staff in Fás seem to have no idea what to do with these people when they get there. As I said in my first post, the original organisation was there to help organise apprentices etc..

I think that Fás is working to the wrong timelines. A 3 year strategic initiative should not imply that it takes that long to even do an assesment on where they need to be. Most large private organisations cover that in approx 3 months, and then draw up a 5 year plan. Perhaps Fás has a 5 year plan of actual actions, but I haven't seen any evidence of it. The shakeup is needed now, not in 12 months time. While I'm not a fan of recruitment agencies either, even they appear to get more done, and they don't have government funding pumped into them.

Their job search and course search sites are a joke. Take the job site for example. I select "Show me yesterday's jobs". It then appears to take me back to the original menu page, but now there's an extra message to tell me I can only have a maximum of 200 jobs. So I select full time jobs on another screen, get dumped back to "menu" screen again, only this time I can click on a flashing piece of text that will now show me the available vacancies.

Or try going to "Courses" - select Day/Evening/Online (wouldn't want to separate those out too handily, now would you?). First thing you see at the top of the screen is 33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333.

I selected a course at random from there - ACCA Paper 4 CAT - Evenings.

Certification: ACCA Certificate for Paper 4: ACCOUNTING FOR COSTS

Course Description: On completion of this course the participant will have the knowledge and understanding of how organisations record, analyse and report current and future costs and revenue data for use within the organisation. Topics covered in this Module: Accounting for Costs

Module: JAVA PROGRAMMING S.E. 6 - ONLINE

Um, what? Government funding goes into creating and updating this kind of ****e?

kippy

Thoie wrote: »

I understand what you're saying about the work they've done with the less well qualified, but I think people find it frustrating that experienced people are forced to go to Fás by the Social Welfare, and then the front line staff in Fás seem to have no idea what to do with these people when they get there. As I said in my first post, the original organisation was there to help organise apprentices etc..

I think that Fás is working to the wrong timelines. A 3 year strategic initiative should not imply that it takes that long to even do an assesment on where they need to be. Most large private organisations cover that in approx 3 months, and then draw up a 5 year plan. Perhaps Fás has a 5 year plan of actual actions, but I haven't seen any evidence of it. The shakeup is needed now, not in 12 months time. While I'm not a fan of recruitment agencies either, even they appear to get more done, and they don't have government funding pumped into them.

Their job search and course search sites are a joke. Take the job site for example. I select "Show me yesterday's jobs". It then appears to take me back to the original menu page, but now there's an extra message to tell me I can only have a maximum of 200 jobs. So I select full time jobs on another screen, get dumped back to "menu" screen again, only this time I can click on a flashing piece of text that will now show me the available vacancies.

Or try going to "Courses" - select Day/Evening/Online (wouldn't want to separate those out too handily, now would you?). First thing you see at the top of the screen is 33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333.

I selected a course at random from there - ACCA Paper 4 CAT - Evenings.

Certification: ACCA Certificate for Paper 4: ACCOUNTING FOR COSTS

Course Description: On completion of this course the participant will have the knowledge and understanding of how organisations record, analyse and report current and future costs and revenue data for use within the organisation. Topics covered in this Module: Accounting for Costs

Module: JAVA PROGRAMMING S.E. 6 - ONLINE

Um, what? Government funding goes into creating and updating this kind of ****e?

Yeah, theres defo issues there with the processes between social welfare and FAS. I would be of the opinion that a merging of certain aspects of FAS with Social Welfare could be around the corner, it would definitely be a logical proposal.
The vast majority of "funding" that FAS gets is paid out in various training, childcare, benefits, that would otherwise be part of the social welfare budgets. There is a lack of forward thinking at the very top and a lack of foresight, of that I agree with you. Thats what happens when political cronyism and governement appointed directors is commonplace. Its possibly a common trait among many PS organisations, sadly.
Theres a lack of knowledge, to be fair, in areas of FAS in relation to what people want/need and what qualifications are out there, this probably comes from people being in the orgainisation too long, despite having keep themselves "upskilled".

FAS, Social Welfare, Colleges and IT's, state bodies whose responsibilities are to promote and develop indiginious industry should all be working on a common strategy to deal with the current situation. A blind man can see that. But when the top guys in politics dont seem to be able to see it, there isnt much hope for there lower down minions doing it.

By the way, I believe the jobs/courses website was up and down over the weekend for maintenance. Not an excuse for the content, but perhaps for some of the glitches. Before I joined I found the jobs part of the site far more useful than that of recruiters as it was usually more up to date and contained less duplicate adds.

kippy

leeroybrown wrote: »

What's the betting that we'll see a comeback of the "FÁS wall" and other similar projects?

For those with short memories, a "FÁS wall" is a small stone wall building project that allows someone to learn a skill that's of no particular use to the economy while simultaneously getting them off the Live Register for as long as they can get away with building it for.

A lot of good work has happened over the years as a result of FAS schemes. A lot of people that built those walls in the 80's/90's got into the building trade in the "good times" and were able to make a living out of it, the rest of them are probably still building walls/doing things for the community that would not be viable financially otherwise.

leeroybrown

kippy wrote: »

A lot of good work has happened over the years as a result of FAS schemes. A lot of people that built those walls in the 80's/90's got into the building trade in the "good times" and were able to make a living out of it, the rest of them are probably still building walls/doing things for the community that would not be viable financially otherwise.

Obviously some people learned something useful *but* getting someone to spend six months to a year building a small stone wall outside a local community centre is fiddling the Live Register figures not meaningful training. I'm sure that there are plenty of people out there that FÁS gave good help to but for many others it was just an alternate dole cheque rather than a step up in lift.

kippy

leeroybrown wrote: »

Obviously some people learned something useful *but* getting someone to spend six months to a year building a small stone wall outside a local community centre is fiddling the Live Register figures not meaningful training. I'm sure that there are plenty of people out there that FÁS gave good help to but for many others it was just an alternate dole cheque rather than a step up in lift.

Was it not better that they were doing "something" even slightly constructive than sitting on their holes at home? (some of these people in fairness for one reason or another wouldnt have been able to get other work anyway)
FAS were just doing what the government of the day wanted them to do. Not something I totally agree with myself but thems were the times.

leeroybrown

kippy wrote: »

Was it not better that they were doing "something" even slightly constructive than sitting on their holes at home?

You're missing my point. My complaint isn't about the walls that a load of local community centres got, it's that the projects were deliberately drawn out to the point where they're still the butt of jokes 15-20 years later.

kippy wrote: »

FAS were just doing what the government of the day wanted them to do.

That's pretty much it and I expect them to be back doing it for them within a year.

kippy

leeroybrown wrote: »

You're missing my point. My complaint isn't about the walls that a load of local community centres got, it's that the projects were deliberately drawn out to the point where they're still the butt of jokes 15-20 years later.


That's pretty much it and I expect them to be back doing it for them within a year.

Yeah, I suppose we all know of those schemes that got drawn out to a crazy extent.

Mrs OBumble

I used to work for the equivalent of FAS, overseas.

TBH, a person with an IT degree and a few years work experience should be well-able to find themselves a job. Except that in the current climate it will take quite some time because so many IT jobs are subject to budget cycles in multi-nationals.

There are some grads who fell into a job when times were good and genuinely didn't learn job-hunting skills, or even personal goal setting and time management. (Is CV-writing and job-hunting taught in schools here?). Also, there are lots of people out there with no quals, no leaving cert (I've been told that about 25% don't get it), and very little literacy. These are the folks who the government (FAS or whoever) should be helping: the ones who genuinely need it.

The trouble is, it's hard to identify who's in which group. The organisation I was with actually commissioned some psychological research to try and find a tool that would predict who needed help and who didn't. We got merged with another govt department before it was finished though, and I'm not sure that it ever got turned into something useful.

And yes, the interface on their jobs boards isn't great - but very few vacancies are duplicate, and I have picked up some temp work from it, unlike some of the other larger-flasher job sites.

ThePlank

They were a shower of muppets when I went to them.

I'm not a college grad, but I have some college education, I had to leave to become a carer for my family.

I have experience in retail, caring, working with disabled children, a qualification to teach acting, cleaning, an ECDL, a cert for Web Design, receptionist experience, manual handling, etc.

They called me in for an interview. The guy didn't know how to use the computer, tried to sign me up for an ECDL course (I did my ECDL in secondary school) and told me that there was no help they could offer me with regards to getting a job.

I'm having to pay rent and bills and food on €160 a week, because I don't get the full dole and they say that they don't even have any courses without a 7 month waiting list in my area.

Mairead1975

Hi there
<<< Banned for 2 weeks for advertising. eth0_ >>>

Mollywolly

leeroybrown wrote: »

What's the betting that we'll see a comeback of the "FÁS wall" and other similar projects?

For those with short memories, a "FÁS wall" is a small stone wall building project that allows someone to learn a skill that's of no particular use to the economy while simultaneously getting them off the Live Register for as long as they can get away with building it for.

Looks like they're ahead of the game....

http://jobbank.fas.ie/servlet/Watis?SESS=36230_16&SERVICE=CRITERIUMBROWSE&COURSE_CODE=036&TEMPLATE=WWW_JS_TRAIN_CRITERIUM_BROWSE.HTM&ROW=6&BACK=TEMPLATE%3DWWW_JS_TRAIN_CRITERIUM_OVERVIEW.HTM

eth0_

JustMary wrote: »

TBH, a person with an IT degree and a few years work experience should be well-able to find themselves a job. Except that in the current climate it will take quite some time because so many IT jobs are subject to budget cycles in multi-nationals.

Do you realise that the people posting on this thread are not going to FAS to look for employment, they're going there because the social welfare office MAKES them sign up with FAS as a condition of getting their dole.

Having said that, it's a total waste of FAS' time and resources dealing with white collar workers. FAS is only good for trades, catering and very low rung jobs.

leeroybrown

As far as I know Jobcentre Plus in the UK is currently modifying their service model so that those with marketable skills can actually bypass a lot of the traditional jobseeker's avenues and instead initially focus on suitable work for their skills and experience. I'm sure they'll have lots of issues with getting it running well but it's still an excellent way to approach the problem.

Mrs OBumble

eth0_ wrote: »

Do you realise that the people posting on this thread are not going to FAS to look for employment, they're going there because the social welfare office MAKES them sign up with FAS as a condition of getting their dole.

Having said that, it's a total waste of FAS' time and resources dealing with white collar workers. FAS is only good for trades, catering and very low rung jobs.

Sure do: I'm one of the lucky people who Welfare is "making" do so. I've had to fill in a form, have an interview (5 minutes of my sympathising with the woman about how hard it is in the current labour market). And then a three-month interview, useless as you say, but hell it only took 20 minutes out of my day, and I'm unemployed and have plenty of time.

donkey balls

i would like to finish off my training and get my comercial pilots licence will fas be able to help me maybe pay something towards the training. LOL

x in the city

if you want to lay bricks or become a plasterer fas are fine

but most people have engineering degrees, lawyers we have seen and the such, we have no interest in laying bricks and fas are a waste of time.

i did the on line programming visual basic.net course and it was the biggest load of dog poo imaginable. stopped after about 30 mins when i realised the other people logged on had not accessed the service for months and years even...

Fugly

You also have to factor in because of increased demand they're intaking new staff from within the public service. Combine that with the older staff who have never had to help a "white-collar worker" in their entire career.

ThePlank

Fugly wrote: »

You also have to factor in because of increased demand they're intaking new staff from within the public service. Combine that with the older staff who have never had to help a "white-collar worker" in their entire career.

Yes but they KNOW there's a recession, they should have made sure that they had adequate and competent staff.

BostonB

Maybe ye have a hotline to something the rest of us don't.

Fugly wrote: »

You also have to factor in because of increased demand they're intaking new staff from within the public service. Combine that with the older staff who have never had to help a "white-collar worker" in their entire career.

Where are you getting that from? How can they transfer? Staff can't transfer between agencies. They are not the Civil Service. There was the same problem with decentralisation and the agencies. They can shuffle staff around internally.

ThePlank wrote: »

Yes but they KNOW there's a recession, they should have made sure that they had adequate and competent staff.

What about the recruitment embargo? I think there has been for ages (I think over a year) across the public sector. AFAIK only the minister can approve new hires at the moment. I think they are only taking people on in Social Welfare. If anything most agencies are reducing staff through early retirement and not replacing staff who leave.

professore

leeroybrown wrote: »

I haven't had direct encounters with them but from what I've seen indirectly their big problem is that during the 'good times™' their focus shifted completely away from dealing with unemployment and more towards being a formal training agency for specific vocational areas.

I visited them a few times in the mid 90's (pre Tiger) and they were pretty useless then as well ....

kippy

donkey balls wrote: »

i would like to finish off my training and get my comercial pilots licence will fas be able to help me maybe pay something towards the training. LOL

They have been supporting "non-standard (ie not taught in house)" training for a few years now through TESG, where you can get 75% refund of training costs. I think this may have been aimed at people who were in work to upskill through mainly IT courses but this could have changed.

superbad50

ye totally agree people , bunch of dumb people , on 2 different occasions i had to tell the officer what way the course was run , trying to tell me i was uneligable to do the course when i clearly was not . i would actually rank them worse then recruiting agencies . total waste of the governments resources .
i got no help on training courses , possible job seeking , cv help , anything . i actually felt depressed leaving the place

doolox

Fas are, as pointed out earlier in this thread, more geared towards the trade and manual skilled areas of employment. They will have to adapt to the new jobs market which demands third level honours degree as a minimum standard for a majority of its employees and a suite of skills along with the main degree.
It may be necessary for the government to support graduates longer than they formerly had to as in the good times honours graduates were almost guaranteed to get a job.
I did a year long course in Industrial Automation with Fas and already had Diplomas in Electronics Engineering and Information Technology going into the course. I can add a level 6 Cert in Industrial Automation to my list of quals and I got a job in spite of the recession thanks to some quick thinking and getting the course finished earlier than originally scheduled.
When asked at interview about availability I said immediately which is what most recruiters want to hear. They allowed me a day off to finish up my final exam and paperwork in Fas and that was it.
The stuff I am working on has some relevance to what I did in Fas as the devices are related to PLC's which I learned to program in Fas so the years course wasn't a total waste. Some of their material may need updating and some of the people may be "laid back" but most I met put in a hard days work with some of the trainees they get. Perhaps they need to be more selective but the government are anxious to get people off the dole any way they can so some trainees are not as motivated as others.
As unemployment for honours graduates becomes a permanent fact in our economy a new 3rd level training agency will need to be geared up and paid for to acommodate their future needs.
As for interview skills, you need to research your target job and company well in advance and ask help from technical people you know to do it.
Prepare a list of ****ty questions and write down and practice answering them. Favourites which everyone hates, weaknesses, why did you leave your former job? How would your boss describe you etc. etc.
From now on avoid negative people and negativity about employers and HR as these thoughts can come to the surface at interview and cynicism can be read and felt a mile away. Stay good humoured, positive about yourself and your gifts and abilities and learn the general langauge that applies to your line of work by reading trade magazines. Too many multinationals have their own terms and ways of doing things and they can be difficult to communicate in a general way to an outside person so as to demonstrate you skills. Outside courses are useful for this reason as they externalise and make generic skills that companies would like to keep specialised and internal to avoid people moving to other companies.
I was lucky in that I talked to people in business both in recruitment and HR and a CEO of an Irish company in field totally unrelated to mine. All gave me useful tips and information which allowed to get a job in the teeth of a worldwide recession. I was also lucky in that I had the support of wife and family in my quest.
I also got day courses in interview skills, CV writing, job hunting and also did an night course in introductory CAD while at Fas so I wasn't idle.
If I didn't get this job I had planned to continue education at DIT so as to stay off the dole in any way possible but this isn't possible for everybody.
What is necessary is positivity, about yourself and about the people around you and having several lines of enquiry open at the same time so at least one will become available to follow until a better one comes along.