Career Skills Competition
CareerSkills Competition
Language Category for 2024
This year, Languages Connect is delighted to be supporting the CareersPortal Career Skills Competition with the second year of the specialist award for language skills. The competition, developed by CareersPortal, has been running for over ten years and promotes the importance of career skills, while also encouraging the value of career research. It provides students the opportunity to reflect on skills developed during their work experience and asks them to consider how such skills can help in their future careers.
The Languages Connect Award for Careers with Foreign Languages was a new addition to the competition in 2023. To enter, students must undertake a work experience placement which uses foreign language skills or complete a career investigation based on a career where foreign languages play an integral role.
The aim of the competition is to encourage independent career research among second level students and to foster awareness around the importance of Career Skills which can be developed as a result of completing a work experience placement.
Students apply to the competition within the relevant group, whether it is for TY, Leaving Cert (LCA and LCVP) or Vlog and the entry will automatically be eligible for any of the main prizes as well as being included in the Languages Connect category, if relevant. Entry deadline is March 22nd with the awards ceremony due to take place in early May in the Clock Tower in the Department of Education and Skills. The winning students and their teachers and principals will be invited to attend. Find out more here.
Foreign languages can open doors to many different career opportunities. More than ever before, employers need people who are adaptable, resilient, and good communicators. Learning languages gives you all these skills and so much more. Languages is also needed in more careers than ever, from Translation and Interpretation to Business, Fashion and Agriculture to name just a few! If you’d like to hear more from people who use languages in their jobs every day, check out the Languages Connect YouTube Channel
Congratulations to Ana Isabel Cámara Gutiérrez from Our Lady’s College, Greenhills, Drogheda, Co. Louth who won the Languages Connect Award for Careers with Foreign Languages at last year’s careersportal.ie Career Skills competition. Ana was a Transition Year student who investigated a career in Translation.
In her investigation Ana researched how she could study translation at third level highlighting the many benefits languages could have in her career . In her entry Ana noted, “I love learning languages. They open the door of opportunity to us, we can travel around the world, be more confident and know more about other cultures. Being able to communicate in another language fosters an appreciation for the traditions, religions, arts, and history of the people associated with that language. It can also help you to have an advantage in terms of getting a job or a promotion”
Ana was presented her award at a ceremony held at the Royal College of Physicians and attended by Minister of Education Norma Foley TD.
