Higher Options Careers Conference
 The Higher Options Conference which is an annual event held in the RDS, is run by The Irish Times in conjunction with the Institute of Guidance Counsellors. This careers event is attended each year by over 25,000 leaving certificate students and their career guidance teachers from all over the country. This year’s conference ran from 16th to 19th September.
Careers talks are held during the 3-day event, covering different career options. Careers guidance counsellors this year demonstrated a keen interest from students in the field of prehospital. This year’s talk was divided between the nursing and paramedic’s profession with up to 300 students attending on each day.
Shane Mooney, who gave the talks, provided students with information on a typical day in the working life of a paramedic while also giving a brief outline of the skills needed for the job, the training programme for new entrant paramedics, the current salary scales and the various routes of entry. At the end of each session, students were given the opportunity to ask questions, which they availed of wholeheartedly! ‘There were a lot of interesting questions from the group, on a variety of topics ranging from the interview process through to day-to-day operational issues’ said Shane following the conference.
Speakers for the nursing profession, who shared the Working in Nursing and Paramedics talk’s sessions with Shane were delighted to have the ambulance service represented as they had been inundated with queries regarding pre-hospital career options at previous conferences. There was great synergy and energy linking both career talks and PHECC looks forward to facilitating and expanding on this initiative in 2010.
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