Terry the first Mayor to have own database of jobseekers

Date Published: 06-May-2013

By Bernie Ní Fhlatharta

The Mayor of Galway City has become the first mayor in the world to have a database of jobseekers in her native city.

Mayors4Jobs.com is a new initiative that shows mayors being proactive in helping jobseekers in their communities and it is hoped that other mayors will follow suit.

The initiative follows on from a website, ICanWork4U.com that was launched last Autumn, the brainchild of two local businessmen, Tom O’Connor and John Herterich.

To date, up to 100 people have returned to work through using the site and it also has details of 468 people looking for jobs in Galway alone, in anything from IT to banking to catering. The database also includes a list of employers who have signed up to it.

Up to now the Mayor of Galway, Cllr Terry O’Flaherty didn’t have the detailed knowledge of how many jobseekers there are in her city, says Tom O’Connor of O’Connors Bar in Salthill.

“She is the first Mayor to sign up for this and a filmed message from her can be seen on her page, which is linked to the ICanWork4U site.

“She now has that knowledge to use in her everyday life as a mayor who obviously meets people from all walks of life and also current and future employers in the city,” he says.

In the long run, if 100,000 people sign up for the site, it is hoped to make it a more commercial venture through advertising but Tom says it is early days yet. He has devoted the best part of a year to creating the website and remains excited at the prospect of helping people find new jobs.

He believes the site is easily negotiated as it is broken up into areas and sectors. It is free to join and is not just geared to the unemployed.

“Between 30% to 50% of jobs are never advertised with many getting to hear of jobs by word of mouth. We hope that more and more people will register obviously and we believe that this has global potential,” he said.

Read more in today’s Connacht Sentinel