End of week one: First success story for our young job seekers

Blog post #2 - Day 5

12.00pm --

Just got off the phone with Hanna at Reed Recruitment. She was super-friendly and we spent the best part of an hour prepping for my all-important phone interview this afternoon (for a position teaching foreign teenagers in some of England’s finest boarding schools this summer). She jumped right in with questions about teaching, why I enjoy it, what I could offer the employer. Most dauntingly, she asked me about my strengths and weaknesses. Always talk about your strengths last, because the employer will remember them, and spin your weaknesses into ‘development points’. Talk specifically about the position being offered, do your company research, ask good questions of the employer.

Above all she taught me that attitude is *the* most important thing in a telephone interview: you can’t make eye contact, you can’t gesticulate (as I am fond of doing) and you can’t waffle or be monotone - the worst thing to do is read from pre-prepared answers. All good tips for the interview this afternoon! She, just like Chris yesterday, said that I had to think exactly what I could offer an employer, what made me stand out. It’s easy to forget things you’ve done as a graduate and all the ‘soft skills’ you’ve acquired. Hannah helped me to remember some I’d forgotten and gave me the confidence I needed- and just in time for my interview - which is half an hour!

1pm --

Well, I have just had my telephone interview which wasn’t nearly as scary as the mock interview this morning and resulted in a job offer. Yes, a JOB OFFER! We started with small talk and bonded by talking about a shared love of Berlin, my interviewer talked me through the job, I tried to get my ‘positive points’ across, spin my weaknesses into strengths, (as Hanna at Reed had told me to do this morning), and hey presto, it worked!

I will be teaching foreign students English at Rugby School this summer. Excellent news - it’s *such* a relief to know that my unemployment won’t last forever. This job is definitely my passport to further teaching experience and a job teaching abroad. I’m off for a celebratory drink.

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Ashley Gray, 22, thinks of himself as one of the lucky ones. When he lost his job at the Hoover factory in Merthyr Tydfil two years ago, he managed to find bits and pieces of work and, until December, was taken on as part of the Future Jobs Fund. That paid him the minimum wage for 25 hours a week and enabled him to undertake training to be a youth worker.

In Merthyr Tydfil, which has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the country, finding work can be incredibly difficult. In fact, although he had been looking for work for three months when he started the programme with The Times this week, he has found work in the last few days, but he says many of the friends and colleagues he used to work with are still unemployed.

While not his dream job, he admits - working night shifts at a meat packing factory in the town - it means money to pay the bills. As a father of a two-year-old child, it is very welcome. He still dreams of being a youth worker, however, and is keeping an eye out for work in this field, but is not too optimistic in the short term:

I don’t think anything will come up, lots of people are being made redundant.

It’s hard, very hard. I was applying for anything- from celaning to factory jobs, to being a chef, but I didn’t hear back from most of them.

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Near where 20-year-old Siobhan Guyan lives in Portsmouth there is a high concentration of dental surgeries, though this has seemingly made it more difficult to find a dental nursing apprenticeship due to disproportionately increased demand. However, with a new CV in her hand, Siobhan yesterday met Nicky Faulkner from Reed recruitment company for some crucial interview advice.

Blog post #2 - Day 5

We started off going through my CV, talking about why I left each job and looking at my GCSE grades and discussing the job I was applying for.

We spoke about the role I was applying for (Dental Nurse Apprentice) and why I wanted to do it, then she went through interview questions with me as if she worked at a practice with a vacancy. Questions involved, “What skills do you believe you could bring to the role?”, “How would you deal with criticism?”, “How would you deal with an 8 year old who is nervous about their treatment?” and “An apprenticeship would require you to work and study simultaneously. How would you manage your time effectively?”.

The feedback I got was that I had all the right answers, I just wasn’t confident and took some time to actually get out what I wanted to say, so I will be working on this by practising mock interviews with family.

Things we discussed for interview techniques involved being organised, confident, researching the company with the vacancy, looking at weaknesses and ways to improve them, having confidence and believing that I am the right person for the vacancy and paying attention to details so I can be as accurate as possible.

Overall I found Nicky’s help very useful and it was great to get back constructive criticism to help me work on my interview technique.

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Zainab Mansaray, 23, was a couple of days behind our other young job-seekers, but met with Chris Davies, our CV expert from Graduate Coach, and Hanna Lewis of Reed in quick succession, and sent us a brief summary of her thoughts at the end of our first week. Watch the video above to hear more of her thoughts.

Blog post #2 - Day 5

Before I started this program I had lost my self-confidence and ability to build my career in marketing. However after meeting with Chris the graduate coach, with his expertise and his ability to stimulate people’s mind, I was able to eliminate the negativity and start feeling positive about where I want to be.

Yesterday, I had my first interview experience with a lovely lady called Hanna Lewis, and she was brilliant. We went through some interviews questions, and how to sell yourself in an interview, and I was able to identify my strengths and how to improve my weaknesses.

I left feeling a sense of achievement and I’m more determined than ever to make the most with these opportunities I have been given.

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Our CV expert was impressed with the determination 21-year-old Oliver Jones had to pursue his career in business sales, but advised him to gain some other experience in sales, perhaps in local call-centres near where he lives in High Wycombe, before attempting to head into his chosen industry. He sent us this note yesterday:

Blog post #2 - Day 5

On Wednesday I applied for tonnes of jobs online. I always get replies saying that, if I am successful in getting through to the next stage of the recruitment process, then someone will contact me. Well, I find it is something like two in 50 applications who call me back. Maybe I need to change my CV even more so people can get more of a hint of me?

Yesterday I went for a whole day interview and had to do a presentation on business-to-business sales. It was a very long day, but I think it was a good bit of experience as I really had to get involved with the other candidates. Hopefully I will hear back from them soon.

Today is my interview with Reed, so hopefully I can get some good feedback from them.