Employment support for mature aged people

CTA Program helps Christine to secure work during pandemic

Christine Press had just moved from South Australia to enjoy a new life in Coffs Harbour and then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Arriving in the midst of the heavy restrictions in place, she found it difficult to look for work.

“Nobody knew who I was here and it was hard for me to network when we had to isolate. Back at home I had a good reputation having worked with Centrelink for 11 years and with the Royal Flying Doctors for over 9 years, but here I had to start all over again,” Christine said.

Christine tried job searching in the local area by herself initially but had no success.

“I hadn’t applied for jobs in over 20 years as I had been working all that time. So I was out of my league when it came to Resumes, Cover Letters and Interviews,” she said.

Knowing that she needed some help, Christine approached the ETC team.

“My Jobs Advisor Kylie quickly identified that I had good work ethic and skills, but we needed to identify how this could transfer over to a new role.”

Christine was referred to ETC’s Career Transition Assistance Program (CTA) which aims to help mature aged job seekers build their skills and confidence to become more competitive in the job market.

“CTA is usually delivered face-to-face in a training room, however due to the pandemic we had to change this to a virtual training room via Microsoft Teams,” said ETC CTA Program Manager Gerard Klinkers.

“The CTA participants were able to see each other and our Trainer from their devices and access our training materials remotely during this time.”

Christine said the CTA course was invaluable and resulted in her gaining three interviews and securing two jobs locally.

“I learnt how to identify my transferable skills to help sell myself to an employer, addressing selection criteria, preparing for interviews, identifying my strengths and weaknesses. The networking was also really good – in fact, I met my new employers mum through this,” Christine said.

“I enjoyed the course being delivered virtually. Our trainer Peter was always actively involving all of the class members, providing encouragement and helping our confidence.”

“I have to say well done to all the participants for giving it a go, particularly those who weren’t familiar with this kind of technology. I have not used the Teams app before and I understand that it is becoming more used in government departments and other business’s so this is helping me understand how it works and what types of things it can be used for.”

Christine is loving her new job at the local Quarry where she is currently working casually with a view to becoming full time.

“I’m studying a Certificate IV in Human Resources and will use this combined with my previous experience in Work, Health and Safety to work towards becoming the Quarries WHS Officer,” she said.

“Given the situation I was in (moving to a new area during the pandemic), I feel really lucky to have found employment during this time. I’d like to thank the team at ETC and the CTA Program for helping me to become confident and have some clarity on what I could achieve.”

Career Transition Assistance (CTA Program)

ETC’s Career Transition Assistance Program (CTA) is a new initiative to help mature aged job seekers (45 and plus) build their skills and confidence to become more competitive in the job market.

At ETC we understand that adults come with real-life experiences. Therefore our focus is to empower individuals to grow and develop through our interactive and supportive career transition services.

ETC’s CTA Program includes:

• Personalised career assistance to help you prepare your resume, job applications and cover letters based on your skills, strengths and experiences
• Increase your motivation and resilience in looking for work
• A focus on digital technology such as smartphones, tablets, Apps, social media and computers to help boost your IT knowledge and skills and expand your job prospects