A worrying trend has emerged in Ireland in the last few years. Ireland’s booming economy in the mid-90s and the plentiful career opportunities that existed here then meant that the number of Irish graduates looking to the EU for employment reduced dramatically. As a consequence of this, there is a real worry that not enough Irish people are rising through the ranks of the EU; and that if graduates don’t start feeding into the system now, the Irish will find themselves grossly under-represented at the higher levels of the EU civil service in a decades’ time.  

As one of EM Ireland’s lead campaigns of 2010, the goal of the Grad Jobs in Europe campaign is to make Irish graduates more aware of the opportunities available for them in the EU system and for more Irish graduates to consider the EU as a place where they could fulfill their career ambitions.  This campaign has enjoyed enormous success throughout the year, from coverage in the Irish national media to the launch of the Green Book Volume 3 in Brussels last month.  The final phase of this campaign is now underway, as Executive Director Andrea Pappin travels to third-level institutions all over Ireland to talk to undergraduate and graduate students about the internship and employment opportunities available both within and outside of the European institutions.  At a time when unemployment is rife, and so many students worry about their career prospects after college, these talks have been developed to show students the vast scope for career development that the European system has to offer and to try and encourage those who are considering emigrating to look to Brussels and Luxembourg as an alternative to the US and Australia.

More than anything else, European Movement Ireland is working hard to help Irish graduates overcome the biggest barrier to their succeeding in Europe – confidence.  Jobs in the EU are highly competitive, but as the current Secretary-General of the European Commission, Irishwoman Catherine Day, and recently-appointed Chief Operating Officer of the new EU External Action Service, Irishman David O’Sullivan, have clearly demonstrated, the Irish are well able to take on the competition, beat the odds and excel in Europe; when the Irish get to Brussels, they do extraordinarily well.

The feedback we have received from the students and lecturers we have met so far has been overwhelmingly positive and we look forward to chatting with hundreds more students over the coming weeks.  

More information on the Grad Jobs in Europe Campaign is available from the EM Ireland offices: info@europeanmovement.ie and volume 3 of the Green Book is available to download now from the EM Ireland website.