Desperation was everywhere at yesterday's Contact 99 language recruitment fair in the RDS, Dublin. You had only to walk by a stall and smile and a job was yours. Head-Hunt International, a recruitment agency, was offering a prize of a racing car lesson in Mondello Park, Co Kildare, American Airlines enticed people with a draw for free ticket to the US, and for those who would listen, Microsoft was saying you, and not the microchip, "are the most powerful force in nature". All you had to do was sign up, offer a CV and appear interested. For people who can remember the dismal days of the late eighties when the receipt of CVs was not even acknowledged, the current buoyancy seems unreal. Even the stalls were being manned by foreigners yesterday.
"When I left school ten years ago, I could not get a job washing dishes and now we are organising recruitment fairs," said the project manager, Mr John Connors. The two-day fair, focusing on language skills, had a particular attraction for companies with call-centres in the Republic. For established operators like UPS, the delivery service company, the search for language graduates is ongoing. Mr Jim Demsey said that, although the industry has a quick turnaround, the job offers work experience with a team in an office environment. However, an IFSC company got a peep in the form of Scottish Amicable International which employs 230 people selling life assurance overseas. "We actually give them a professional qualification in life assurance," said the head of corporate services, Mr Hugh O'Brien. Scandanavian languages, Dutch, Japanese and any language that is not a mainstream European one, are now being much sought after and recruitment agents are feeling uneasy about the work visa restrictions non-EU applicants come up against while client companies panic and "tear their hair out".
"If there is going to be a slowdown in the economy, the slowdown is going to be because there are areas where there are skills shortages and they are not being addressed," said Mr Graham Lambert of Grafton Recruitment.
