Lina Marščionkienė
Kaunas, Lithuania, 2016
After finishing school, Lina gained the speciality of tailor and worked in this industry. She was quite successful.
After some time, Lina got married and started a family. When her daughter was born, she had some easy physical disability. In order to help her daughter, Lina started to learn to make a massage for her, as little child needed it.
Lina finalised two years follow-up Course in the Karalius Mindaugas vocational training centre and gained the masseur qualification.
Lina with her family lives in Kaunas region, it is remote area. She has two teenage children and takes care of her family and brings up children. Lina do not work for a long time already. One day she thought that already now was the right time to start looking for a job. Lina started to look for a job and was facing difficulties in completing CV and cover letter, as previously she have never done this.
When Lina learned about the project JOB-YES she thought that it would be a good opportunity to improve her skills in CV and cover letter writing. It was a good opportunity to go deeper into her abilities, to work on her weaknesses and develop the soft skills needed for employability.
Lina discovered new learning method for her: face to face meetings with facilitators and online training sessions. She was pleasantly surprised that it works well for her. During online learning by performing OERs recommended for her Lina gained new knowledge and developed her skills.
Her profession requires good communication skills, empathy and ability to demonstrate good attitude, as well as work ethic, patience and tolerance. These skills could be developed with the help of JOB-YES project online learning tool.
During face to face sessions it was possible to discuss learning results with the facilitator as well as to share her experience with other participants. During JOB-YES training by performing tasks course Lina developed her computer skills/digital competence.
Lina was very pleased by the training time in a comfortable and friendly atmosphere. The help of professional facilitators was provided in case she needed it.
The participation in the JOB-YES training course was very useful for self-evaluation of her competences and related soft skills; this deepened her self-awareness on strengths and weaknesses. By answering the question about the training course content Lina said: ‘this training 
course gave me possibility to see and even estimate in figures improvements of my soft skills. It was new for me’.
Talking about her achievements Lina emphasised: ‘I learned to present myself in verbal and written form - to write CV and convincing cover letter. Especially helpful for this I found video based exercises’. Lina wrote her CV for the first time, so it was a new experience for her.
In her opinion ‘the JOB-YES non-formal training program is very detailed and easy to understand; exercises include clear questions, answers and detailed explanations. Lina got a lot of answers to her questions’.
Lina gained courage, has increased self-confidence, learned a lot of important topics useful for employability and entrepreneurship. She has new goals in her life and motivation to achieve them. Lina wishes to work and be useful.
Talking about her experience in non-formal Job-Yes training course she says: ‘It was useful for me to leave my comfort zone and take the first solid step towards finding a job or starting my own business.’
‘I believe that the participation in Job-Yes non-formal training would be beneficial for everyone in professional life. I even already recommended it to my friends and relatives’, Lina says, -‘I have also recommended Job-Yes online training program for my friend living in United Kingdom as very handy tool to prepare yourself for a job search. My friend was interested in the training, she used OERs created during the project and she was satisfied with practical materials. She got employed soon. I think Job-Yes could be a good help for other job seakers as well’
The interview was taken by the facilitator of the training Aušra Variakojienė, Social Innovation Fund.