Career Zoo is nearly upon us. Ireland’s leading tech recruitment and networking event will be take place tomorrow (20 February), drawing thousands of jobseekers to The Convention Centre Dublin.
Ahead of the massive event, Career Zoo lets us in on some of the great stuff it has up its sleeve, and highlights the things you absolutely won’t want to miss.
Check out some of the awesome employers hiring right now
Pharma company MSD announced 200 jobs earlier this week. PwC plans to recruit more than 500 people this year. Accenture plans to fill 200 roles at its Centre for Innovation in 2016. Asavie has 100 jobs on offer in its Dublin office. Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) is hiring for 400 new positions between now and 2018.
That’s 1,400 jobs from just five of the employers participating in Career Zoo tomorrow. There are almost 100 employers at the event overall, with roles on offer ranging from data analysts and developers to UI engineers, bioprocess specialists and marketing experts.
Discover how DAQRI uses augmented reality to redefine work, with co-founder and VP Gaia Dempsey
Gaia Dempsey’s address at Inspirefest last year was a definite highlight. She’s back in Dublin tomorrow to speak about augmented reality and future tech (Career Zoo Main Stage at 4pm) but, if you want to hear her views in a more intimate setting, make sure to head to the Women in Tech space, where she’s delivering a workshop at 2.45pm.
Get there early to grab a seat!
Participate in a wearables picnic
Coding Grace – the group that organises women-friendly coding workshops across Dublin – will be at Career Zoo tomorrow, collaborating with DAQRI on a ‘wearables picnic’ (essentially a wearables hack, with added picnic benches thrown in).
Attendees will be welcome to join in and showcase their skills, making this the perfect platform to impress a prospective employer.
Hear cybersecurity warriors speak about their work
One of the most fascinating talks on Career Zoo’s Main Stage looks set to be the 2pm session, ‘Cyber Security Warriors: Defenders of the Digital Frontier’.
Emceed by acclaimed STEM broadcaster Jonathan McRea, panellists will include Hugh Callaghan, chief cybersecurity scientist with EY; Owen MacHugh, technology security operations manager with Bank of Ireland, and Tom Keating, managing director of Ireland R&D operations at FireEye.
Take part in a Java 8 workshop
AOL will run Java 8 workshops alongside its space at Career Zoo, with sessions running throughout the day.
Drop by to find out what’s so great about Java 8 and to give it a go yourself.
Tune in to some great Tech Box talks
Tech Box is where the hardcore techies converge at Career Zoo. Highlights this time around include talks by Sarah McDonald, IT lead at MSD; Yow-Hann Lee, director of engineering at DAQRI; Michael Rembetsy, VP of technical operations at Etsy, and Claire Hendrick, services engineer with Ericsson.
Topics covered will range from ‘Augmentation under the hood’ to ‘A bluffer’s guide to internet routing’.
Check out the full line-up here.
Donate to a good cause (at no cost to yourself)
Throughout the day at Career Zoo, BMS will be donating funds to the Irish Cancer Society through a special Twitter initiative. For every person who posts a tweet using their designated hashtag, BMS will make a donation to the charity.
Full details will be available at their stand in the BioCluster.
Explore Etsy’s quirky character
Etsy is one of the quirkiest tech companies in Dublin, with one of the most talked-about company cultures in the world.
Lauren Sperber, Etsy’s senior software engineer, is travelling from Brooklyn to Dublin for Career Zoo, where she will deliver a keynote address on engineering culture. At Etsy, Lauren works on the tools that help sellers run their businesses.
According to her bio, she “demolishes the competition in the company bake-off” and puts her two degrees in English Literature to good use “when correcting spelling mistakes in code reviews”. One thing is for sure: she’s unlikely to deliver a standard tech talk for her keynote address.
Check her out on Career Zoo’s Main Stage at 1.15pm.
Discover some of the hottest Irish-owned tech companies
IT’s Happening Here – Enterprise Ireland’s initiative to promote jobs in Irish-owned software companies – is sponsoring Tech Town at Career Zoo tomorrow. This space will host a dozen indigenous tech firms, including some of the most exciting home-grown companies, such as CurrencyFair, Version 1 and CR2.
Use the event app
Career Zoo has been a paperless event for the past couple of years, with employees encouraged to use the event app and smart-badging system to digitally share their CVs with employers that appeal to them.
The app also has the full schedule for the event and lots of information about participating speakers and employers. You can download it here.
Career Zoo takes place at The Convention Centre Dublin tomorrow (20 February), from 9.00am to 5.00pm. Admission is free, and you can register online until 9.00pm tonight. You can also head along tomorrow and register at the event venue. Further information is available at www.careerzoo.ie.
