Careers Fortnight Brought to a Close by Scottish Chambers President

One of Scotland’s foremost business leaders brought the West Dunbartonshire Careers Fortnight (#WDInspire2021) to a close recently.

Tim Allan, President of The Scottish Chambers of Commerce, welcomed more than 40 guests to Dunbartonshire Chamber of Commerce’s Building Bridges Business Breakfast on the final day of the programme - which was put together by partnership working between West Dunbartonshire Council, DYW West, Skills Development Scotland and Dunbartonshire Chamber of Commerce.

The two-weeks of activity featured a range of daily virtual events and resources including live virtual workshops, industry insight videos and recordings, Q&A sessions covering a variety of sectors and support for CV writing and interview techniques.

The support of local businesses to connect private enterprise with schools has been at the heart of the activity with “Skills Champions” contributing to the success of the fortnight to provide “careers inspiration” for young people in West Dunbartonshire. Aggreko, Babcock, BAM, MoD, Glenhead Engineering and European Circuits were just some of the businesses that got involved to support the programme.

Damon Scott, Chief Executive, Dunbartonshire Chamber of Commerce, said: “The Careers Fortnight is an excellent example of collaborative working and agility to respond to the challenges the pandemic has thrown up. It is important to recognise the commitment and enthusiasm of all the partners and businesses involved to make this happen under challenging circumstances.”

“We were delighted that so many businesses could join us at our Business Breakfast. Along with the other partners we hope we can continue to build the participation and reach within our wonderful business community to develop the skills of our young workforce to meet the needs of the local and Scottish economies.”

Sharon Colvan, Operations Manager at Glenhead Engineering and a “Building Bridges Champion”, added: “The Business Breakfast was an excellent event with lots of representation across a range of sectors! It was really good to see so many companies keen to help young people achieve a positive destination. I was also delighted to represent the Engineering sector for the focus on STEM and share some of my knowledge and experience to help some of the young people with their career choices.”