Employers often comment that people with the right skills are difficult to find. On the other hand, millions of people all over Europe are unemployed, desperate for an opportunity to work. Because of this paradox 7 stakeholders’ consortium (one of which is Association Langas į ateitį from Lithuania) has started a new project to find a possible solution for this problem. The goal of this project is to find motivated candidates amongst the young unemployed people, train them in a range of ICT skills and help them find IT jobs in private companies, thus helping companies to find young talented people.
Training job seekers with the in-demand skills has already been successfully proven as highly effective by Fast-track to IT (FIT Ltd), a non-profit organisation established in 1999 in Ireland. FIT is an industry-led initiative which works in close collaboration with government & employers, national education and training agencies, local development organisations and a host of community based organisations.
FIT4JOBS is an European-funded pilot programme based on the successful FIT model of up-skilling job seekers and placing them in employment. The project has originated from an official pledge made by FIT to the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs. The objective of the project is to recreate the FIT model in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Latvia and Lithuania, together with local partner organisations. The long-term vision is that this model, if scalable in participating countries, could achieve over 100,000 job placements per year in Europe.
The project will last untill April of 2016.
Description of target users and groups
This project targets young unemployed people who are interested in starting a ICT related career and also companies that are looking for fresh talented people who are eager to learn and excel in the IT field.
Description of the way to implement the initiative
During the selection of candidates a total of 100 talented job seekers with low to mid-level ICT skills who express an interest in ICT training for employment were identified and chosen. Then they went through series of aptitude tests and interviews, after which 30 job seekers were chosen and given the opportunity to attend a 3-month training for a skill that is needed by companies looking for ICT talent. During the training potential employers were contacted and offered the opportunity to hire a candidate that interests them for a probationary period with the option to hire them full-time after that.
Main results, benefits and impacts
25 training participants of 37 who have completed the training are now working (October of 2015 data)
Lessons learnt
It is very important to focus more attention to the whole participant selection process in order to find and identify the most motivated people. It is also necessary to involve employers into the process of selecting candidates and preparing the training material that would be used during the training.
Scope: European