Webinars aim to help get young people into work

A series of webinars to help young people find new job opportunities is being launched by one of the UK’s leading training providers.

In-Comm Training, which supports over 2500 people with vocational learning and upskilling courses every year, will host its first Careers Launchpad  virtual event on Wednesday (June 17th) at 3pm, and is urging school leavers to sign-up.

The interactive webinar will explore the journey of embarking on an apprenticeship and the 40 different Trailblazer courses currently available, covering anything from engineering, manufacturing and logistics to mechatronics, administration and welding.

For the first time ever, there will also be an exclusive virtual tour around the firm’s £3m state-of-the-art training academy in Aldridge, featuring a dedicated CNC machining zone, the latest metrology technology and an industry-leading fluid power department that young people will train on.

Jayne Guest, apprenticeship engagement manager at In-Comm Training, said: “Despite the dramatic economic impact of Covid-19, there are still lots of career opportunities for young people out there and we’re going to help people find them through a series of Careers Launchpad webinars.

“We want to cut through the media hysteria and all the white noise, to provide all the information an individual will need to make informed decisions on the next stage of the learning journey and how apprenticeships can deliver an £100,000 opportunity.

“In-Comm is currently working with lots of employers who are still recruiting, including Collins Aerospace, Doncasters and Gestamp Tallent, not to mention exciting SMEs, such as Key Precision and Valen Fittings. We need to get this message across loud and clear so that we ensure we have the talent of the future still coming through the ranks.”

Careers Launchpad will aim to replicate what you would see and hear if you visited the In-Comm Training academy, with tutors and apprentices also on hand to talk about course detail and what it is like from the learner’s viewpoint.

It will be the first of a series of webinars that will be hosted over the next three months, with a different apprenticeship tackled and explored each week. At the end of each virtual event, there will be an interactive Q&A session.

Jayne said: “There’s a whole school year group that have studied really hard and need to know opportunities for them to kickstart their career are still out there and taking the conversation online will allow us to do just that.”

In-Comm Training, which operates three academies at Aldridge, Bridgnorth and Shrewsbury, has been asking firms in the West Midlands to sign-up to its Skills Pledge, which will see them commit to supporting apprentices, raising the profile of vocational learning and upskilling their workforces.

Powering the Engine will last for over a year and will ensure the business world does not sacrifice the investment and time it has channelled into developing the talent they are going to desperately need to help reignite the economy now that lockdown is starting to ease.

25 companies have already taken one or more of the pledges, including Alwayse Engineering, Billcar, Liberty Pressings, MET Recruitment and SDE Technology.

Pictured: Jayne Guest