BACK TO TY:Sinéad Gibney

THE RUMOURS are true: Google is one of the best companies to work for in Ireland. Most of us rely on the internet search giant for basic information and research, but it also offers very attractive jobs to some of Ireland’s brightest graduates.

Sinéad Gibney is the Social Action Manager at Google’s European headquarters in Dublin, where she plans and oversees various charitable projects for Ireland, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Gibney undertook Transition Year in Loreto Abbey, Dalkey, and it was here that she first got a taste for volunteering and social action.

“That year, I volunteered with the St John of God respite home in Glenageary,” she says. “It was hard going, as I hadn’t been exposed to children with intellectual disabilities before, but it was also quite rewarding. I also used to visit older people in a residential home in Monkstown. It was always entertaining: I played the piano for them but mostly we’d just chat.”

Gibney believes that voluntary and community work, which form a major part of the TY curriculum, helped her to become more socially minded. “I really started to question the world around me a bit more,” she says.

Along with her colleague Geraldine Sherrard, Gibney is keen to enlist the unique skills of Google’s staff – including linguists, engineers, programmers and business people – to make a difference in the world. As well as offering free online ads to charitable organisations, the Social Action department is developing a project to help older people gain computer literacy.

“I think it’s critical for companies to be socially responsible, and I believe Google can make a very unique impact,” says Gibney. “Consumers are looking for it and staff want to work for companies with good reputations. Google is a great place to work. There’s a bunch of very hardworking and very talented people from all over the world, and we have lots of fun together.”