SALE makes a difference. Although the number of higher education graduates is the highest in history, the unemployment rate among this target group is as high as never before. In Europe we are facing unemployment rates among higher education graduates between 14% and 22% since years, which means that the potential of around one fifth of the highest educated people in Europe cannot exploit their potential in an adequate job. One might think that only few jobs for highly qualified candidates are available but a lot of job vacancies are provided especially via social networks asking for exactly these qualifications. Interesting enough that the right people do not occupy those jobs as no match between the job requirements and an ideal candidate can be found. HR managers are proactively searching online to find ideal employees. Now it is the responsibility of the higher education graduates to present their skills in an appealing way online and to get in contact with HR managers. Considering the amount of social media users one should expect that almost every graduate knows in depth how to use such networks. But once higher education graduates should use such networks in a strategic and focused way for their employment, a lack of usage skills becomes obvious. SALE aims at developing an interactive training course for unemployed higher education graduates. Participants will learn which tools are the most relevant to use in order to find a job online and how their individual skills need to be presented to be attractive for possible employers. SALE aims at training the trainees on how to use social media proactively for their self-presentation and participants will learn how to approach companies, when jobs are announced or even if positions are not published. The main activities which have been accomplished to reach the outlined goals are the following: • Creation of an interactive training course tailored to the needs of the target group • Informational regional round tables to get to know the needs of the target group • Development of training material for a duration of approximately 30 hours • Execution of 6 pilot trainings. From the 90 trainees as promised in the proposal a total of 113 people has been trained in 6 different European countries. • 30 trainers have been trained in 6 piloting countries to generate multiplier effect • The learning material is available to the public through the SALE homepage and was distributed throughout the whole piloting phase in all participating countries • Establishment of cooperation with local/national employment services and training providers for long-term usage of the training materials • Round table event at the project end to raise once again the awareness among the target group and experts from related fields The main activities have been implemented by 8 project partners coming from 7 different European countries, all experts in their respective fields. SALE did not only generate a short-term impact but also supports technically qualified graduates with a lack of usage competences in social media. The SALE project team has risen awareness of the topic and increased the quality of using social media for job search. The project team created high quality training materials, established an extensive network all over Europe by integrating companies, the public sector and multipliers from all possible areas. SALE contributed to create useful training tools for high potentials and offers opportunities to reduce the number of job seekers amongst higher education graduates in Europe. All countries report a high demand for social media courses related to job searching among unemployed academics. The evaluations from the pilot phase have shown that the material was adequately developed and fulfils the needs of trainees.
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