VIDEO: Employers donate time to give tips to unemployed

The Education & Youth Services (EYS) Group has been running Kickstart and Workskills programmes at the Sandringham Hub, in Houghton Regis, since January.

Sandie Copp, of EYS, said some of the short-term unemployed people being helped included those who had been made redundant after 30 years with one company and “hadn’t had to fill in a CV or been to a job interview in 30 years.”

The idea is to give intensive training to people to build their confidence and give them the best chance of getting an interview and a job.

The scheme’s success rate has been pretty impressive, getting something like 75 per cent of the candidates back into work.

Wednesday’s event involved 11 employers including Steve Cantellow, of HSBC Bank, who said he would have given jobs to some of the people he saw if he had the power to do so.

And Annette White, sales and marketing director of PC Help Centre, in Dunstable, said she hoped the good and bad feedback would be useful.

As far as the subjects were concerned, they included one former managing director and others who had been in all kinds of sales, teaching and retail roles.

Sandie Copp said the “speed dating” introductions event was all about making job candidates relaxed and familiar with the questions. And in the past, employers had offered jobs to the people they had interviews.