In a week that has seen very real concerns about skills shortages in Ireland and with applications from students falling for disciplines such as Engineer and Technogoly .

Ireland now finds that the world battle for talent is hotting up with New Zealand out of the blocks with their version of Back 4 Good .

New Zealand are offering free trips to Wellington for skilled professionals to attend interviews for careers in New Zealand’s growing Tech sector

New Zealand have created their own version of Back 4 Good call LookSee with a budget of 850,000 New Zealand dollars around 500,000 euros .The cost of the campaign is paid for by a combination of taxpayers money and contributions from employers .

With Wellington’s Tech sector growing at over 14% per year over the past 5 years the demand for Tech talent is at an all time high .

The LookSee campaign was first promoted in Tech Hubs such as San Francisco and about a third of applicants are from the US .However LookSee is coming to Ireland in a bid to lure our Tech workers to Wellington.

Successful applicants on LookSee get free flights to New Zealand and free accommodation during their four-day stay .During their visit they are expected to apply for 3 jobs based on their cv which is supplied to Wellington in advance.

The LookSee process is simple with candidates registering on the LookSee portal and employers nominating  their chosen candidates ,these selected candidates fly to New Zealand and meet with employers ,job offers are made and the candidates move to New Zealand .

Back 4 Good submitted a similar model such as this to the Irish Government in 2015 whereby we would hold interview sessions in a number of selected locations in Ireland and in other relevant cities in the UK,US,Australia and New Zealand .The funding proposal was a mx between some state funding and contributions from employers .We await a response from Government.

As Ministers travel the Globe next week promoting Ireland as a place to visit or work ,Ireland is lagging behind in the battle for Talent and we require support at Government level to meet the Global competition for this Talent