Justine is in her mid thirties, and for the last 10 years she has been a nanny for a few families in theWimbledon area. Recently, she has felt unfulfilled in her job, and decided to make a complete change in her career. She had little or few qualifications from when she attended school in the early 80’s. These would probably do little to help her gain new employment in 2004. Consequently, when Justine first came to see me, she didn’t feel particularly confident about making a break from the past.                                                                                                                                          Justine has always been interested in working on the railways, an interest that started from listening to her grandfather’s long stories about his work on the Great Western line. She had seen a job recently advertised for a customer service assistant on the Bakerloo line.  I encouraged her to go for the job. A week later I scanned the completed draft application form, suggested a few changes, and she sent it off. Despite her disbelief, she was given an interview for a date in early December. However, she looked horrified! She had never been through a proper job interview before, and she was terrified at the prospect of going through a rigorous selection process.                                                                                                           We arranged for the following week to do a job interview role-play where she could have a chance to answer some tough questions, to prepare some spot-on questions and to practice positive body language. Justine was very relieved to have had the opportunity to go over a mock interview, because she could now approach the day with a more realistic idea of what the whole experience would be like. It also filled her with a lot of confidence because she could now see that the whole job was very much within her abilitytogain.                                                                                                                She faced stiff competition. The two positions on offer drew over 600 applications, out of which only 12 were offered interviews. Whilst writing this case study, Justine called as promised to say that she had been offered the job! Christmas had come early!

Vladimir arrived in the UK in  late 2002. His first wish for employment was to continue with his career as an air traffic controller, which was his career in Russia for over 15 years. However, he quickly discovered that his Russian qualification was not accepted in the UK.  When I met Vladimir, we first tried to discover if he could take a short conversion course to qualify him to continue working as an air traffic controller. After many telephone calls we discovered that he would in fact have to pay over £15,000 pounds to enable him to pass the first round of qualifications. Unfortunately this was way beyond what he could afford                                                                                                                    The two of us then sought alternative careers and Vladimir chose Electrical Installation. Working closely with Merton Asylum Welcome (part of Merton Voluntary Service Commission – MVSC) I helped secure for him the necessary funding qualify as an electrician. Two months on, he is still confident that he will find work soon. I keep in touch and contact him about advertised jobs.

Vladimir's own words:  

For the last five years I have been trying to apply for the Air Traffic Controller position. I have been unsuccessful all this time. I was told that some people can help me with finding jobs, and was referred to Charles Humphreys by someone I know. Charles from nextstep, researched all private colleges to which I can apply that can help me gain appropriate qualification needed in UK. However this was too expensive I could not have continued with this plan.

After this he helped me see my situation clearly and advised me to re-qualify as an electrician. He advised me how and where to go and who to talk to. I enrolled on an electrician course, part of which had additional courses that were expensive. Charles helped me find the funds for this. This has improved my qualification and made me a more competitive in the electrical labour market. Currently I’m hearing about many job opening form him, and advice on how to go about in the searching for jobs and the kinds of jobs to find.

Charles has also helped my wife in assessing her qualifications in UK and advice on what would be the best next action and who to talk to about certain things. He also advised her to apply for courses at Learn Direct in order to improve her skills and knowledge.

Charles also helped my daughter with making a great CV and how to find an appropriate job and where (providing websites).

Thank you

Vladimir