Career Ready

Moray Council are delighted to continue their support of the Career Ready programme to open up the world of work for our talented Moray students.

Over the last 4 weeks, our wonderful volunteer mentors have hosted 4 young people for a paid internship in departments across the organisation, helping them to develop the skills and experience needed to kickstart their future careers.

Alex a student of Forres Academy was mentored by Robin Paterson – Project Manager (Education). Alex has relished the opportunity to be creative and during the internship created posters and artwork and is hoping to have an article published in the Forres Gazette. Alex has found the internship experience invaluable as an opportunity to grow in confidence and meet new people. Alex will continue onto 6th year before moving on to further education or seeking out an apprenticeship as a tattoo artist.
Aaron is a Keith Grammar Student who has been mentored by Arlene Youngson – HR Adviser. Aaron has enjoyed a very busy internship which primarily focused on reviewing Mental Health in the workplace guidance. This included benchmarking against other local authorities, reviewing existing guidance and drafting new management guidance. He has really enjoyed the opportunity to meet new people, develop new IT skills and to experience a different work setting. Aaron plans to continue on to 6th year at Keith Grammar whilst also volunteering at the Loft Youth Project in Keith as a Youth Worker.
Isla, a student of Lossiemouth High School who was mentored by Sheila Strong – Mail Room Team Leader. Isla has really embraced the opportunity to work in a team and the challenge of being focused and busy alongside her colleagues in the print room. She relished the relaxed but productive setting even when hand stuffing 2135 letters in two days and found the whole experience positive especially when given the chance to experience new things. After 6th year, Isla plans to take a gap year before applying for university.
Evelyn, another Lossiemouth High student this time mentored by George Gunn - Climate Change Strategy Officer. Evelyn has really enjoyed the opportunity to visit sites across Moray as she worked on a variety of protects for the climate change team. During her short time wish us Evelyn has researched ways we can reduce household waste, conducted town centre health checks to monitor vacant businesses and collated data from Elgin Academy students to influence local development plans. She found the internship experience really useful and although Evelyn doesn’t have a fixed career path in mind, she plans to finish 6th year, learn to drive and hopefully attend colle.

Each intern has done a tremendous job in their time with us, and it’s been a real highlight to see their progress over the last few weeks. This was only made possible by the dedication of our volunteer mentors who have enabled their interns to embrace the world of work, build confidence and gain invaluable experience.

“Being new to Career Ready I was a bit apprehensive initially, however I needn’t have worried.  Both the Career Ready Team and the Organisational Development Team have made the whole process seamless and always there with a helping hand if required.  I’d definitely recommend Career Ready Mentorship to anyone who is interested” - Sheila Strong – Team Leader

“Reflecting on my experience as a mentor I can now really see the benefits of the programme. It’s far more than just work experience and is really about pushing the young person’s boundaries in terms of what they think is beyond them and proving that they can do it. This means gently encouragement to undertake workplace activities that they would have otherwise found scary to do at the beginning of the internship.

For Alex, the intern I’m supporting, pushing these boundaries has involved delivering high quality presentations, writing an evaluation report, supporting colleagues to develop promotional materials and working to deadlines.

These experiences built confidence and the foundation for being a valuable future employee. If Alex is an example of the talent we have in Moray, then the future is bright.” - Robin Paterson - Project Manager (Education)

As an organisation, we’re proud to continue supporting young talent in this way, and it underlines our commitment to investing in the next generation.

You can find out more about the impact internships have on young people here. We are still recruiting for Mentors for the next programme so if you would like to learn more about mentoring a young person, please click here.

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