More than 500 people attended Millwall Community Trust’s latest Jobs & Training Fair at the Lions Centre, connecting local residents with employers, training providers and specialist employment support.
The event brought together more than 40 employers, education, training and employability support providers, offering attendees access to live vacancies, training opportunities, careers advice, work experience and progression pathways.
Alongside the main fair, a dedicated Women into Industryzone provided an additional focus on supporting women to explore employment and progression opportunities across different sectors.
The Barclays Bank bus was also on site throughout the event, providing attendees with access to money and financial guidance alongside the wider employment support available.
Rather than operating solely as a traditional jobs fair, the event incorporated a series of Into Industry guest speaker workshops throughout the day.
These gave attendees the opportunity to hear directly from employers and industry professionals about careers and live opportunities across sectors including the Civil Service/public sector, catering and hospitality, recruitment, security, leisure and fitness, and football and sport.
Millwall Lionesses attacker Ella Rutherford also gave inspirational advice to attendees.
Interactive experiences also helped bring opportunities to life. This included exploring social enterprise and self-employment pathways through taxi driving and window cleaning, with attendees able to access a taxi on site and take part in practical window-cleaning activity outside the Lions Centre supported significantly by Homewood training who themselves had 40 available job opportunities on the day in various sector.
Feedback received from employers and partners on the day was extremely positive, with workshops and activities well attended throughout the event.
Headline stats/highlights:
500+ attendees
40+ employers, education, training and employability support providers
Live jobs, training, work experience and employability/IAG opportunities
Into Industry guest speaker workshops throughout the day
Dedicated Women into Industry focused zone
Barclays Bank bus providing money and financial guidance
Interactive social enterprise/self-employment experiences, including taxi and window-cleaning opportunities
Extremely positive employer and partner feedback
Clair Petit, Youth Employability Hub Coordinator, said: “It was fantastic to see the Lions Centre so busy and so many people actively engaging with employers, training providers and support organisations.
“We wanted people to do more than simply collect information, so seeing the industry workshops, interactive activities and live opportunities so well used was particularly positive. The feedback from employers and partners was excellent, and most importantly more than 500 people had the opportunity to make connections within the community trust that could support their next step.”
John Scarborough, Education & Employability Manager at Millwall Community Trust, said: “The Job Fair demonstrated exactly what we want our Youth Employability & IAG Hub to be about – bringing employers, training providers and specialist support together and connecting local people directly with real opportunities.
“To welcome more than 500 attendees and over 40 organisations was fantastic effort from Clair and the team, but equally important was the quality of engagement, from live vacancies and industry workshops to practical experiences. The strength of our partnerships is what enables us to create opportunities like this for our local community.”
“It takes a lot of co-ordination especially on the day to pull events of this size like this off, as often confronted with variety of logistical challenges but the team and partners pulled together and got the result on the day that our local job seeking community desperately needed be it job opportunities, advice or just knowing they are not alone.”
Abbie Hamilton, Group Business Development Manager at Trail Group added: “It was great to bring the social housing and construction sectors, alongside other local businesses, together for the day and talk about the wide range of career opportunities available across the industry.
“As a business, we’re passionate about encouraging more young people to consider a career in the sector, particularly young women, and showing them the variety of roles and career paths available.
“Events like this give us a valuable opportunity to meet local people, understand their ambitions and help them explore routes into employment, training and long term careers.
“It was fantastic to see so much engagement throughout the day, and we’re really pleased Trail Group could be part of it.”
