Parity helps high flying graduates onto the career ladder

Graduates from all disciplines and backgrounds are being given a chance to get a foot on the career ladder with a helping hand from Parity. In partnership with Envision, Parity has recently been chosen, by Invest Northern Ireland to deliver their exciting, new Graduate Export Development Programme - ‘E2’.

The Exporting Excellence programme (E2) replaces Invest Northern Ireland’s previous graduate export development programmes. The first cohort is currently underway with a number of graduates already placed with companies right across Northern Ireland in export marketing roles. Parity is known for its IT Training and IT recruitment services.

This exciting new initiative provides marketing and exporting training for graduates from all degree backgrounds. Training is accredited by the Marketing Institute of Ireland and is designed to develop the personal and professional skills necessary for a graduate’s first step on the export marketing career ladder.

Victor Jordan, Director of Business Improvement Services, Invest NI said: “The call went out for graduate participants last month and we are delighted with this positive response to the new programme. There is a demand among graduates for a programme which offers export training and support so that they can develop the necessary business skills and companies can explore export market opportunities with a strong support network behind them.”

He added: “With almost 10,000 students graduating each year from Queens University and University of Ulster we have a wealth of talent in Northern Ireland. The E2 programme is designed to ensure Northern Irish graduate talent boosts the local economy while also allowing graduates to explore a greater range of business disciplines and markets across the world.”

The E2 Programme involves a ‘matching process’ to ensure graduates and companies complement each other perfectly and that each company and graduate gets what they need from the programme.

With the first cohort underway, graduates are encouraged to continue applying for E2 as there will be further intakes in January, March and June 2007.

The E2 programme is available to graduates and Invest NI client companies from across Northern Ireland. Parity’s team will recruit, match and place graduates with local companies who want to develop their export capabilities both in the UK and Ireland as well as in the global market. The graduates’ export marketing skills will be developed by Envision’s expert team who will also develop managers within the participating companies to exploit their exporting potential and ultimately win new business.

Graduates can contact the E2 Recruitment team on 028 9024 0780 or apply today by visiting www.e2programme.com.

Companies interested in the new E2 programme should contact companies@e2programme.com

Editorial notes:
Parity, uniquely for its size, offers a full range of IT services to major companies including:

• Business process consultancy
• Change management training
• Management training
• Technology training
• Programming training
• Development and management of complex IT systems
• Oracle and Microsoft technology and application skills
• Permanent and temporary IT staff

Customers across the group include Alcatel, Allianz, AT&T, British American Tobacco, CISCO, Department for Education & Skills, Department for Work & Pensions, HBOS, Hewlett Packard, HM Revenue & Excise, HSBC, IBM, ICI, Ministry of Defence, NASA, National Programme for IT at the NHS, O2, Perot Systems, Reuters, Royal Bank of Scotland, Royal Mail, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, The Cabinet Office, The Met Office, and T-Systems.

Contact details:

For more information on Parity, visit www.parity.net or contact Suzanne Waddell (s.waddell@parity.net)