STI's recruitment arm sees need for more Pinoy nurses abroad

For an estimated five million jobless workers in the country today, the government's pronouncements of generating 1 million jobs this year is truly something to cheer about. The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) recently provided a portent of great things to come when it said that deployment of land-based workers would to continue to grow with the development of new labor markets abroad.

 

DOLE acting secretary Manuel Imson reported that the number of Filipino workers is likely to increase by 6 to 9 percent each year (that's 42,794 to 60,725 additional jobs in actual terms). Fact is, as long as we Filipinos continue to possess qualities that set us apart from other nationalities, we would always find jobs overseas.

 

In responding to the challenge, STI, the Philippine's largest network of colleges, together with its affiliate recruitment agency, Global Resource for Outsourced Workers (GROW), Inc., has come up with a breakthrough formula that aims to provide up-and-coming professionals with the right training that's at par with global standards. Dubbed E2E (short for Enrolment to Employment) system, this new strategy aims to develop globally competitive professionals through innovative learning and career planning methodologies. It also covers every student's needs from the time he enrolls in STI up to the time he applies for a job. A support mechanism in their employment endeavors, STI's E2E system ensures that job opportunities will be available for the students when they graduate -- a function which has been one of the major focus areas of GROW.

 

Mr. Raymond Catane, general manager of GROW, reveals that the company was initially put up as a means to provide employment opportunities for STI graduates abroad. With the steady growth for recruitment of nurses overseas, the company soon focused on the nursing profession, forging strategic linkages with nursing schools, training providers, review centers, hospitals and other medical facilities to help candidates survive the rigors of actual work environment. Together with I-CARES, STI's web-based online recruitment program, and STI-UWI, which offers certification programs to ensure that STI graduates are 'job-ready', GROW has successfully placed a large number of workers ranging from nurses, teachers, engineers, medical staff and other IT-skilled professionals in various locations worldwide. Early this year, the company has also forged strategic linkages with Adventist Health Care (AHC), Inc. for GROW to provide a consistent, long-term supply of registered Filipino nurses at its large assortment of facilities in the US.

 

The AHC agreement serves to kick-off institutional efforts to address the US nursing shortage by matching present and future needs with a stable supply that's consistent with global demands for qualified nursing professionals. To date, GROW has already secured recruitment contracts for a large number of nurses who will be working in the U.S. for AHC in at least five of its affiliate hospitals, and are still working out training and acculturization programs for close to 300 nurses now in its fold.

 

"This year, we're actually looking at expanding our source to cover the need not just for nurses in the U.S. but also in other countries. We foresee the opening of new markets in Singapore, and even in Japan where the need for caregivers is high. We're also looking at deploying 1,000 registered Filipino nurses each year," beams Mr. Catane. "We are also anticipating a demand for more Filipino nurses in the next 10 years, with existing demand going up to 130,000 in the U.S. alone. Current nursing job vacancies worldwide is estimated to reach up to 300,000 and can balloon up to 500,000," he adds.

 

A human resources expert owing to his extensive experience as General Manager of JobsDB.com, an online interactive recruitment network, Mr. Catane reveals that GROW is now looking at other ways and means to be able to continue to supply a large portion of this market. He says that his company hopes top achieve this goal by way of an integrated model that offers a rigid process of candidate selection, review and training as well as clinical immersion programs to help Filipino nurses acquire competencies while still in the country.

 

In recent years, the company has also been forging tie-ups with local hospitals like Delos Santos Medical Center, Ospital ng Makati, Manila Sanitarium and Asian Hospital, along with nursing schools such as Delos Santos-STI College of Health Professions and AHC-affiliated institutions such as Adventist University of the Philippines, Mountain View College and the Mindanao Sanitarium and Hospital, College of Medical Arts Foundation, Inc., for these establishments to provide training through clinical immersion programs and actual job employment.

 

Today, it's one leap forward for nursing students from STI and its affiliate schools as GROW is also set to put up a special process automatically facilitating their participation in the application for overseas employment as soon as they graduate -- subject to passing the standard operating procedures for screening and pre-selection. With the Commission on Higher Education (CHED)'s recent approval and accreditation of nursing courses in 20 STI campuses nationwide, GROW is confident that it will soon be able to harness a wider range of IT-enabled graduates for its nursing recruitment needs.

 

The need for hundreds of thousands of registered Filipino nurses for employment abroad in the future, notwithstanding, Mr. Catane invites prospective applicants for jobs in the US to undergo short educational courses at GROW for them to be able to expand their capabilities and gain an edge over the others. Companies who wish to have world-class IT professionals in their staff may also enroll them to undertake a special retooling program or boot camp so their soft and hard skills may be enhanced further.

 

Aside from the Middle East, North America and Europe, nine other countries were recently identified by the government as emerging prospects for the next wave of Filipino skilled workers and professionals – healthcare workers for Slovenia, New Zealand and Australia, technicians and circuit assemblers for Korea and Japan, as well as hotel and casino workers for Macau, Cayman Islands, Barbados and Croatia.

 

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About GROW

 

Global Resource for Outsourced Workers (GROW), Inc. is a premier overseas recruitment and staffing agency based in the United States. It recruits, selects, and deploys highly skilled Filipino professionals in the field of ICT, healthcare and education to meet the temporary and permanent staffing needs of companies all over the world.

GROW Inc. opens its door of opportunities for employers and candidates to find their right match. If you are interested to be one of its fulfilled employers and successful candidates, you may contact them at: G/F & 4/F Bankers' Center, 6764 Ayala Avenue, Makati City or call tel. no. 893-5267 to 69 or 887-8447. For more information, you may also check out its website: www.growinc.net