Dear valued stakeholder,

We wanted to bring to your attention a fantastic new initiative – the Youth Employment Program in the Victorian Public Service that will create more employment opportunities for unemployed youth. We have attached some information about the program and brief overview below – we hope you can share this with your young people and networks.  Please consider applying if you are eligible, or passing on to your networks.  The VPS is very keen to get a large candidate pool to draw from. What is the Youth Employment Program? The Youth Employment Program (YEP) is a government initiative to employ 400 to 800 unemployed youth.  Entry level roles are being created throughout the public service and can vary between 6 – 12 months fixed term – all necessary accredited training will be provided to the young person. Successful candidates can then apply for other roles advertised internally within the public service if they wish to stay on beyond the contract expiry. These jobs are open to people: •who are unemployed; and or underemployed (e.g. 10 hours casual shift per week) •are eligible to be employed by the Victorian Government; and •are aged between 17 and 29 years at the time of their application. To be eligible, an applicant must be an Australian or New Zealand citizen or a permanent resident and cannot have received a redundancy from the Victorian public sector in the last three years. Depending on the role, applicants may be required to pass a police check and/or Working with Children Check. There is strong support to consider culturally and linguistically diverse communities (CALD), women and Aboriginal candidates who are particularly disadvantaged during this period. How to apply: Opportunities are listed and filled via Sidekicker, an online platform and an application which you can download on your phone. Once registered candidates will need to complete their profile and set their parameters on distance and types of roles they want.  Attached is a tips and tricks guide on how to best use Sidekicker.  We have had feedback that Sidekicker can be a bit difficult to navigate, so please use the attached documents, or contact us if you need more help. Questions? We know that the employment process can be quite daunting and that not many people know about the wonderful opportunities in the public service. At the VMC, we are more than happy to assist your organisation and your young people should you have any questions or feedback in regards to the application process, or the types of roles advertised. Each role will have a direct contact from the Department listed for any specific job related queries, however we also want to ensure that any barriers for young people from multicultural backgrounds are reduced and that the experience is as inclusive as possible, so please do feel free to get in touch with us if needed. You can contact us through Lauren on lauren.townrow@vmc.vic.gov.au or Celia on celia.tran@vmc.vic.gov.au. Kind regards,