Corecom delivers employment workshops to new communities in Harrogate

Corecom Delivery Consultant, Elise Simpson, has been working with our MD, Jonathan to design and deliver a series of three employment workshops to new arrivals in Harrogate.  The initiative came after Elise, recently graduated from the University of Leeds, approached Migration Yorkshire with a proposal to provide employment support on their successful Connecting Opportunities scheme.

Talking about the initiative, Elise says: “I had volunteered with refugees at university and knew that Corecom’s ethos centres around wellbeing and empowering individuals. Our MD, Jonathan, has already carried out a multitude of activities to promote equality and diversity within the workplace and our local communities so, with his support, I made contact with Migration Yorkshire.”

Migration Yorkshire snapped Elise up on Corecom’s voluntary offer and she quickly got to work on devising a series of three workshops for their Connecting Opportunities project in Harrogate. Overseen by Migration Yorkshire and delivered by partner charities and councils, Connecting Opportunities supports refugees and other new arrivals across North and West Yorkshire on their journey into training and work by raising confidence and aspirations as well as developing skills.

“Harrogate has seen a significant growth in recent new arrivals, partly due to the conflict in Ukraine and the passing of new security laws in Hong Kong that infringe upon human rights” says Elise. “Yet the infrastructure isn’t as robust as in some other Yorkshire cities, so it made perfect sense to deliver our workshops and provide needed support there.”

Elise and Jonathan worked together to develop a series of three workshops to orientate and aid candidates in navigating the UK recruitment process. Just some of the roles that attendees had experience in and were interested in included:

• Tattoo artist
• Semi-permanent makeup artist
• Beauty therapist
• Childcare assistant
• Data entry
• Banking
• Junior accountant
• Buyer
• Office worker
• Social worker
• Care assistant

An initial workshop focused on CV writing, followed up by a second on interview preparation with the final workshop guiding on the use of LinkedIn as a marketing tool.

“Recruitment processes vary wildly from country to country and language can present a real barrier to candidates so we felt we could best support Connecting Opportunities participants by going right back to basics and walking them through the typical UK recruitment scenario. We wanted the workshops to be practical and empowering so we ensured content also centred around candidates’ wants and needs”.

Following a successful pilot, plans are now afoot to roll the workshops out to other Connecting Opportunities participants with support from volunteers from across the wider Corecom Consulting team.

“I am delighted to see such initiative and passion within our staff team,” says workshop co-designer and Corecom Consulting Managing Director, Jonathan Sanderson. “Equality and diversity is paramount to our business ethos and culture and am I delighted to see this in action with all members of our staff team showing up with so much initiative, passion and dedication. The workshops were a great success and it was wonderful to witness the positive impact that they had in building confidence and providing practical tools to those who have recently arrived in the UK. We are really looking forward to rolling the workshops out to reach more Connecting Opportunities participants and empowering them to enter the employment market.”

*Set up in 2017, Connecting Opportunities has to date supported more than 1,600 new arrivals into training and employment.