Renfrewshire Council and Connaught name their new recruit

Published by Gary Bolton for Connaught Plc in Housing and also in Education

A young person from Renfrewshire was stunned to hear the words ‘You’re hired’ as the winners of a highly competitive recruitment scheme was announced.

Nicole Wilson heard the surprise news at a black-tie finale event hosted by Radio Clyde’s George Bowie to mark the end of The Recruit, a summer-long The Apprentice style recruitment programme. As a result, Nicole, 17 of Park Mains High School, will commence a position with Connaught Partnerships Ltd working as a Housing Liaison Trainee as part of the kitchen, bathroom and central heating improvement programme.

The Recruit was run by Renfrewshire Council in partnership with local businesses and organisations to give young people practical experience and advice on starting a career in business. In total, 26 young people, all fifth and sixth year pupils from Renfrewshire schools, have spent the last 12 weeks taking part in The Recruit with the aim of earning a job.

Since the beginning of June the young people have worked in five separate teams and taken part in seven business challenges, as well as presentations and Q&A sessions with top entrepreneurs. They also took part in courses in customer care, stress management, presentation skills, assessment centre and interview skills as well as raising funds for charity. However at the finale event, in Paisley Town Hall, it was revealed that not one but seven jobs were in fact up for grabs.

Renfrewshire Council Leader Derek Mackay said: “All of the young people who took part have shown fantastic initiative, commitment and enthusiasm. They have stepped up to every challenge thrown at them and at no point did anyone say there was something they could not do. We’ve seen them all grow in confidence and watched them develop skills some of which they may not have even known that they had. They should all be incredibly proud of themselves, as we are of them. I’ve no doubt that every one of them has a bright future ahead and this is very promising for Renfrewshire as a whole. I hope this year’s Recruit contestants have inspired other young people to take part in this innovative project in future.”

Kerry Condron, Connaught customer experience manager, said: “We are delighted to welcome Nicole to the team helping to deliver improvements to hundreds of homes across Renfrewshire. The Recruit has been an exceptionally competitive programme of an impressively high standard and Nicole has done fantastically well to succeed.

“As a local girl Nicole will undoubtedly bring good knowledge of the area as well as enthusiasm to the team and we are all looking forward to working together on the improvement scheme.”

Renfrewshire Council and Connaught Partnerships Ltd are working in partnership to deliver approximately £15million of kitchen, bathroom and central heating improvements as part of a planned four year investment to properties in the area.