About JobBridge (engineering).

Rudi Montes

A few months ago I visited some Biomedical Engineering companies (Stryker, Alcon, Boston Scientific... 4-5 more around Cork) personally to drop off some CVs. Entry-level positions are few and far between, though, and I don't have any work experience to qualify for an actual position, and the only position that fit me was a Quality Testing JobBridge internship... Which I couldn't get into because I wasn't getting Jobseeker's.

Sometime after doing the visits I decided to apply for Jobseeker's Allowance. I'm 22, so I figured I could use a little extra help to lift the burden from my parents a little bit in my search for independence. I recently have started getting my payments and will soon be eligible for the JobBridge program.

I've been itching to start an internship in my area, because even though I've heard some horror stories about the program, I don't think an internship in engineering could hurt. I did the maths and if I could rent a room (or hopefully, a flat with 1 room, so I could have privacy) near the internship at €80/week or something, I could even save up some money to finance my job search once the internship was over (assuming that they have no intention of keeping me after it's over, which is the safe bet, I guess).

Question is... From your experience, will getting into one of these internships be hard? I'll have to travel for the interviews, and if it's 25 people applying for one position or something like that, I might be fighting a losing battle against time here by only applying for engineering positions. This doesn't mean I'm not going to fight the battle, but I'm just wondering what I'm in for.

Cheers

doolox

Thsi kind of engineering role is exactly what job bridge should be intended for. Where ther is a measureable, verifiable set of skills knowledge and experience to be obtained under a competent and reputable set of co-workers in a company which has a good track record in developing and training people for the workplace.

If you are good at maths and learning new skills easily then this is a good choice.

Use your time carefully and get as many externally examined skills as possible. See if the company will help you with these as many courses require you to be working fulltime in a relevant job and you do the theory in the evenings. This of course costs money and will depend on what you or your parents can afford.

A lot of job bridge stuff is too low skilled and the skills acquired cannot be verified by external sources as readily as Engineering, Science, Healthcare etc.
Other good sectors for external exams and adult professional development and education are accountancy and Inventory control and supply chain ops and managment.

charliecrows

Hi, I know this isn't the right place to ask this question but I'm not sure where the right place is. I've recently graduated with a degree in English and philosophy, after some time travelling I came home. I've been looking for work for several months nearly every day with no luck. So when I became eligible to apply for a jobbridge internship I did.

The scary thing is that I haven't heard back from a single place. I have a good degree, I have seven years previous customer care experience. I do believe my CV is good as are the emails I've been sending out but I've started to feel really lost and hopeless, like I'll be unemployed forever. Can anyone offer any advice on applying for these internships?

I am becoming a sad, lonely person who is a burden on their friends after only a few months out of work and I really just want to do well and move forward so any advice offered would be much appreciated.