This week in Careers, we spoke to people about interesting internships, training courses and opportunities, as well as all the usual jobs news and insights.
We talked to a great variety of people boosting their careers in different ways this week, from software engineers to UX writers.
Have you ever wondered about driving your career forward while spending some time in a different country? Aravind Jayadev Menon moved to London after studying in UCD, but it wasn’t too long before he found himself working at a tech company in Silicon Valley. He talked to us about his experiences so far on the Silicon Valley Internship Programme.
If you’re hoping to give your career a boost but don’t want to travel halfway across the world for it, an online course might be the right choice. We talked to Jane Ruffino about her upcoming UX writing programme at Berghs School of Communication in Sweden.
One person in particular who has travelled a diverse career path is Amy Neale, vice-president of Mastercard Labs. Neale described how she began her journey with a computational linguistics PhD and transitioned into start-ups, venture funds and more.
We also heard from Fidelity’s John Farrelly, chapter lead in software engineering at the company, who joined through its graduate programme 17 years ago but has made the transition from a developer to a manager during that time.
And for those looking to get into the life sciences sector, perhaps, we got some tips from Genomics Medicine Ireland on how to put forward a strong application.
News
The National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT) launched its new online training platform this week. We talked to the institute’s training director, John Milne, to learn more about it.
In other development opportunities, Enterprise Ireland and DCU’s Centre of Excellence for Diversity and Inclusion have launched a new leadership programme for women. Associate professor of organisational psychology at the university’s business school, Dr Melrona Kirrane, designed the programme to cater to aspiring women leaders.
Expleo also launched a new initiative, offering people returning to work after a career break of two years or more paid placements at the company. In particular, the digital consultancy firm hopes to attract more women into its workforce. The programme was developed by Expleo in partnership with Women Returners Ireland, and the company it is investing €100,000 in its roll-out.
In jobs news, 14 new positions were announced in Derry by mechanical engineering and piping firm Gallagher & McKinney, while HR software company HR Duo is expanding its workforce in Meath by creating around 50 new positions over the next three years.
Words of wisdom
Want to find out how good you are at asking questions in work and how you can improve? Check out this week’s infographic here.
Elsewhere, Neil Brady, co-founder of CaliberAI, spoke to us about the efforts he believes are worth prioritising to encourage more women into STEM. Brady recently tweeted his disappointment at receiving just two applications from women for a machine learning engineer job, having gotten 27 applications in total.
27 applications received for @CaliberAI's Machine Learning Engineer position so far…and only *two* women. Something not right there ? cc @MargaretEWard @hannahmdeasy @RLadiesDublin @smcs @mairinmurray @rachelsklar @RA_Costello @joannaniec #CES #CES2020
— Neil Brady (@neilpbrady) January 10, 2020
And finally, since we’re almost finished the first month of 2020, we asked some HR leaders for their thoughts on how working life is going to change this year.
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