Success of resource centre wins praise from firms and job-seekers

The work of M:PLOY, the Stornoway-based training resource centre, is winning praise from both job-seekers and employers, Western Isles Enterprise said this week.

The centre, in Keith Street, aims to help graduates and other professionals enhance their employment opportunities and also provides facilities to help workers from the oil fabrication sector to find new jobs.

After being run directly by WIE since being set up a year ago, the centre operation was contracted out to management consultant RMK Associates in December.

Now it is headed by former lecturer John Mackillop, who has had experience in several areas of industry, including the fabrication yards of Kishorn and Arnish, as well as in higher education at Lews Castle College, Sabhal Mor Ostaig and in Canada.

It is intended to develop the work of the centre to assist local employers, particularly those setting up from scratch who could use the centre¹s wide range of facilities, including interview rooms, as well as accessing the database of graduates available for work.

The work of M:PLOY has won praise from a newly established Internet company, Virtual Nations Scotland Ltd, which is now based on Cromwell Street Quay, Stornoway.

Company founder Bob Duncan, who aims to sell the products of various countries worldwide through the e-commerce site, said he had not expected the quality of candidates which he immediately found when he contacted M:PLOY and conducted interviews with some of those from their database.

He has already taken on two people and is intending to take on a third. “M:PLOY has been very successful for me,”  said Mr Duncan. Mr Duncan, who has years of experience as a software engineer and also in recruitment, had been working in the Netherlands for ten years before deciding to return to Scotland.

Mr Mackillop  said that M:PLOY served the oil workers as an information exchange, provided facilities like phones, fax machines and internet access.

Graduates on the database had a very broad range of education  from Gaelic and Celtic Studies to English, Rural Health Studies, social sciences and many more. Mr Mackillop said he tried to provide graduates with help to complete application forms and write CVs, as well as interview preparation and expanding their IT skills.

During 2002 a total of 129 graduates registered with M:PLOY and by the start of November a total of 75 had found full or part-time work. Evaluations from those people showed that M:PLOY had played a significant role in their success.

Around 10/15 oilworkers  with a wide range of specialist skills  use the centre daily, searching for further jobs not only in the UK but also abroad.

WIE chief executive Donnie Macaulay said that having established M:PLOY the enterprise company felt it could expand its impact by bringing in private sector skills to manage and develop it.  “The training resource centre should play a major role in the development of the Island economy at a time when a number of enterprises, large and small, may be developing in the Islands,” he said.