Glasgow Commonwealth Games looks to fill 800 jobs

Clyde will join the jobs bus. Picture: Michael Gillen

Glasgow 2014 created 1,400 vacancies and 450 different roles to ensure the event runs as smoothly as possible and hope to fill them by early next year.

Search recruitment, a partner of the Games, has already filled almost half the roles and is launching a drive to find 800 people to work in jobs such as managing and maintaining the venues, recording and collating results during competition, staffing the international press centre and overseeing travel arrangements for arriving and departing athletes.

Clyde, the Glasgow 2014 mascot, will join Search on a ‘jobs bus’ in Glasgow today as staff advise people how to apply for the jobs.

Earlier this year, more than 50,000 people applied for 15,000 volunteer roles at the Games with interviews continuing until the end of this year to find the best candidates.

Applications

Organisers wanted “Games makers”, in the style of the volunteers from the London Olympics and Paralympics, and asked for people with specific skills such as medical training and specific sports knowledge to apply, although they said the majority of roles required no previous experience.

Initial applications for tickets to the Games, which start on July 23 next year, closed earlier this week but many sports were heavily oversubscribed.

More than 2.3 million requests were made for just around one million tickets and ballots will take place to decide who gets seats at the most popular sports, which include diving, swimming, athletics, cycling, gymnastics and judo.

Applicants will hear if they have been successful in the first week of October, while unsold tickets will be offered again in a general sale later this year.

Glasgow 2014 thanked the public for their response which they said makes the Commonwealth Games one of the most popular events in Scotland’s history.