30 August 2013
Trident are appealing for employers in creative industries to join the scheme and provide work experience placements for students.
Staff at Trident, based at Careers Jersey, work hard to match students with their ideal work placement but are finding it increasingly difficult to fulfil requests to work in businesses which deal with web design, media, public relations and marketing.
Trident Manager, Deborah Midgley is responsible for coordinating the scheme. "Trident work experience is a fantastic opportunity for students to learn a new range of skills, build confidence and gain an understanding of how their studies relate to the world of work. In addition, employer feedback shows the scheme benefits both parties in equal measure.
"Trident is a great opportunity to put businesses in touch with the future workforce but we have noticed that those students who choose a creative industry placement are often disappointed because we currently don’t have enough businesses engaged with Trident from this industry. We’d like to appeal to any employer who can offer work experience in the areas of web design, media, public relations and marketing to contact us," she said.
Career interest and aspiration
Trident is a work experience scheme that all Jersey secondary schools participate in and is now in its 29th year. It helps young people aged between 14 – 16 to improve their employability, develop as individuals and provides a unique opportunity to experience working life while still at school. Based on their interests and career aspirations, students are asked to select their top six jobs from 550 available.
The Trident office try to ensure that students receive one of their top choices from a range of industries represented through the scheme, which include retail, finance, media, hairdressing, hospitality, law, education, sport and leisure.
Publisher, Ben Davies, has been taking Trident placements for the past six years at Gallery Magazine, allowing almost 30 students to join their creative team for work experience. "We enjoy being able to offer the students the opportunity to come and see what a small media-orientated business is like. We're a small team but we try and give the Trident students a variety of things to work on and offer the chance to work on features that will be published and let them see the skills and characteristics needed for this industry.
"My placement when I was at school was awful, tea making and sitting at someone's side watching for two weeks. We try and make Gallery placements a bit more worthwhile and meaningful and feedback suggests our students seem to like it, which is great," he said.
Local employers who are interested in getting involved in the scheme, regardless of industry, can contact the Trident office for further details.