The Agri Careers Fair which is run by the Irish Farmers Journal in partnership with Open Eir is back with a bang for 2017 and we will be revealing the details about what you can expect at this year’s event in this section over the coming weeks.

Last year, 7,000 people turned up for the 1,120 jobs available on the day with approximately 50 exhibitors. This year, we aim to bring more exhibitors, more jobs and more people, and we’re very excited at the prospect of a bigger and even more exciting event.

The vast majority of the roles at last year’s Agri Careers Fair were in Ireland, and generally rural Ireland.

And this is the story behind the stat that one in eight jobs in Ireland is supported by the agricultural sector.

IMPACT

Many small companies located in very small villages and towns across Ireland create perhaps one job, or two jobs each, but it’s when we count all of these roles that we really see the impact the agricultural sector has in terms of the employment it creates in this country, particularly in rural areas.

Roles being hired for in Ireland at the fair last year ranged from mechanical engineer to maintenance manager, to innovation chef and assistant dairy farmer and you can expect to see similar roles at this year’s event.

There were some interesting vacancies abroad too – in locations as exotic and far flung as St Petersburg (Fyffes were looking for a financial controller there) and Ghana (Kepak were looking for an operations/sales manager there).

Niamh Bambrick was just one attendee at last year’s fair and she speaks very highly about the event: “It was very good. There were lots of different companies with jobs and opportunities on offer.”

The Kilkenny native, who is a graduate of UCD where she studied Animal and Crop Production, felt she learned a lot from the talks alone at the fair: “I found the talks very good, there was ones about CV preparation, and others where people spoke about their own experiences.” Niamh was also amazed with the amount of new companies she discovered at the fair: “I learned about many companies which I wouldn’t have known about really, I had never even heard of them, never mind know they had jobs on offer.”