Open Coffee Waterford Notes

Michael Maddock (SEBIC CEO) started the morning. 18 people here.

The Pilot Training College of Ireland
Sinead (General Manager) introduced this business. Part of a group which works in a number of Aviation related sectors and has an operation in Florida as well. 15 person management team and heavily regulated because of the sector. Started by a commercial pilot with commercial experience - Mike Edgeworth. They have 85% to 90% of the Irish market for pilot training and are ranked 3rd in Europe. They offer a one day skills assessment course which gives someone a measure of how suited they might be to flying.

She said that Waterford Airport is becoming a centre of excellence for aviation training and related services and this is being discussed with Enterprise Ireland as a attraction for other business start-ups. Waterford has freely available airspace and relatively good weather.

98% of their graduates in employment within 2-3 months and they recently agreed cadetship programme with FlyBMI.

She finished with the example of Cathal Healy who is flying with Aer Arann at the age of 19, Rossann Kinsella who is flying with Aer Lingus at 24 and Carthage Minnock who changed from accountancy to pilot at the age of 32.

She was asked about what they could do with to make Waterford better. Only a couple of things - later opening, bigger sq footage/airside building and maybe better navigational equipment. However they have a business which is the Airports biggest customer and they can go straight from flight checks to take-off which is highly cost effective for them and their students.

She spoke about the difference between Aer Arann (real flying) and airlines like Ryan Air (backwards and forwards to the UK 6 times a day and mostly automated)

Matrix Recruitment

Hazel introduced this recruitment business which focused on Admin, Engineering, Outplacement and Accounting. Each of their sectoral heads has industry experience so they bring real world experience to the service.

The business was established in 1998 and has offices in Tullamore, Athlone and Carlow.

Growth areas for them: Financial Services, Pharma, Medical Devices, IT Dev and Food

Slow areas for them: Construction and related, Retail, traditional companies with low automation levels.

Current challenges for them

• Candidates less willing to move (worries about being made redundant in new position)
• Extended decision making process by their clients
• Networking essential as are referrals
• getting credible and knowledgeable consultants.

She was asked about labour shortages and said that any science related persons with a couple of years experience will walk into jobs. There are a lot of college science grads but few with a little experience but not so much that they have gotten expensive.

Their fees start at 14% for salaries up to 30k and go up from that. They never get written references - they always follow them up verbally.

keith

 

Comments

[John]

Cheers Keith. Really need to start attending.

[keith bohanna]

Welcome John :-)

keith