Assured Skills Academies: delivering skilled employees through pre-employment training courses

Assured Skills Academies offer the opportunity to work closely with the Department for the Economy (DfE) and Invest Northern Ireland to recruit high-quality employees.

Assured Skills Academies typically involve a six to eight-week pre-employment training course, designed and delivered by a local Further Education college or university to upskill individuals to meet the skills needed for current job vacancies.

Guaranteed a job interview with the company on successful completion of an Assured Skills academy, participants leave the course ready to fast-track their new career.

This approach is versatile and flexible and has been used to help companies recruit staff in sectors such as:

• IT
• professional services
• financial services
• manufacturing

Benefits of Assured Skills Academies

Assured Skills Academies has benefits for both employers and participants:

• Provides an opportunity for employers to see the suitability of participants prior to assessing them as potential employees.
• Allows participants to gain an insight into the work of their potential employer while learning new and transferable skills.
• If an academy candidate should be unsuccessful in gaining employment with the participating company they will still have gained industry-relevant skills.

Find out more about Assured Skills Academies.

If you would like to speak to a member of the Assured Skills team you can contact them by:

• Tel 028 9041 6972
• Email assuredskills@economy-ni.gov.uk