INTERNET entrepreneurs from a Hale Barns school have been crowned Trafford Young Enterprise champions after the Altrincham business community embraced their new recruitment web site.

The Job Scouts website was the brain child of 12 business studies students at St Ambrose College and answers their own concerns, marrying primarily part-time job opportunities offered by employers to candidates in the age bracket of 16 to 18 years-old.

Already 11 employers have posted adverts on the Job Scouts website with 200 teenage candidates ready to pick up the work.

Managing director Daniel Hetherington, 16, from Timperley, explained: “It was our colleague Daniel Sloane's idea which we developed after a brain storming session. It was then important to define business roles in market research, web development, operations, finance, sales and marketing and then go out and sell the idea.”

Jamie Munn, 17, from Sale, who was key to the web development, added: “We had to design an interactive site to meet both party's needs and then take it to the market. Once we had a stand alone product the idea seemed to sell itself.”

The team has been supported by St Ambrose College's business studies teacher Catherine McClements and ICT coordinator Louise Haynes.

Mrs McClements said: “These young men have found a gap in the market and used their own cutting edge technological expertise to produce a high quality product offering.”

The St. Ambrose team won both the Trafford Company of the Year and the Best Presentation, awarded by the Mayor of Trafford, Cllr Judith Lloyd.

They now have plans to extend further their idea and hope to win the Greater Manchester and North West rounds before going on to the national finals.

Daniel Hetherington added: “We are designing a new app for speed and ease of use and feel we could develop the idea for other towns and older age markets, such as university students who also want access to job opportunities.”

Daniel, who wants to work in Finance, said: “I don't think young people are only interested in the digital market place; there are still massive opportunities for young people with good ideas in the physical world too. Whatever the idea the old adage we have learned remains the same: success is one per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration.”

St. Ambrose would like to thank Altrincham business ambassador Martyn Cockx for his guidance and anyone interested should go to www.jobscouts.