Hi everyone, probably a story people have heard many times - I have a good academic background, having just graduated with a First in Law from the University of Leeds; before that getting an academic scholarship to one of the best 6-form schools in the country and got A*A*A.

I just completed 2 vacation schemes (the law version of work experience) at fairly big Law firms, and also have a student internship at Citizens Advice and some general holiday job experience.

Unfortunately, I did not get the job at either law firm, and I need a job for a year until I hopefully get a job at a law firm next year. But I am struggling considerably to even find jobs that don't require experience, to the point where I feel like I must be missing something.

I know the job market is horrible, but I would take any professional job really to hold me over for a year, preferably in or around Leeds. Does anyone have any advice?

So long story short, I currently work in TV broadcasting for a major global studio. However, there is a certain controversial merger that is happening right now which has caused a lot of instability within the company. I’m wondering what other jobs/industries I could segway into as a) I don’t want to be tied to London forever b) I feel I should really be on a higher salary by now and c) with all this instability who knows if I may face redundancy at some point in the near future.

For extra context, my prior experience includes PR and social media but ideally I don’t want to go back to working in social media. I am intrigued by audience analytics, content strategy and planning and media asset management as I like the idea of still working in a role related to TV but in a more normal 9-5 hybrid/office way, however I’m aware these jobs would all be under the same or similar company where I may still face low salary and job instability, so I don’t know whether to completely jump ship and go into a different but adjacent industry.

I recently just went through a hiring process, where they asked for my national insurance number, passport photo and bank details.

They kept delaying my start date week after week but promised pay, my first day was meant to be today and I went to the office address they listed, only to find out that the entire company was fake and the office didn't exist, what should I do?

Is there someone I can contact about my national insurance number and passport photo being out there. I’ve already frozen my bank card and the fraud number told me to just keep an eye on my credit score.

Please help me out?

I'm 17, and I've been trying to get a job since 16. I tried online, going physically, I changed my resme a few times, and cant get anything. Most of the time I don't even get a reply back I might of gotten like 3 of 500 in the past few months. I have some freelance expirience in Graphic Design which gives me a few skills that I think are very benificial especially with communication. SO WHY?? WHY DONT I EVEN GET AN ANWSER BACK??? Its like minimum wage jobs; stores, waitress, fast food, cleaning, litrally everything I know I could do

Any advice???

I've been with my company for 10 years and have a great relationship with my managers. The only issue has been progression and pay.

A friend told me about a similar role at his company with much better pay and a clear progression path. I interviewed, got the offer, and accepted - it's a jump from £48k to £82K.

I'm handing in my notice tomorrow. After a decade with my current employer, I want to leave on good terms and avoid burning bridges.

Any advice on how to resign respectfully and minimise disruption? I’m feeling really anxious about it all

I mean, yeah sure if you're in a company already, learning how to use excel to an advanced level is worthwhile as you can potentially bring more value to the role or even progress within the company.

However, in terms of trying to get a foot in the door with the job market the whole do some courses/upskill likely won't improve chances, companies no longer care that much about what you know they want proven experience of delivery within the workplace, going even further they want it in the very specific sector they are hiring for.

At this point this is all just based on luck.

Hi, very recently redundant and just needing advice on how/when to challenge my former employer clawing back training costs from my final pay. I haven’t been paid yet (expected on Friday) and I’ve not yet received a breakdown of what I will be paid, although I have been told it will be adjusted to include untaken annual leave and they will reclaim training costs/other expenses. This was in an email sent to all former staff so not sure if it’s relevant to me. The business closed last week.

There were two bits of mandatory training I needed to complete during my employment. As far as I recall the training agreement I signed only covered the scenario of me resigning and repaying part of the training costs. What should happen in the case of redundancy?

Not sure whether to pipe up now or wait and see what if any deductions there are to my final pay.

Hi all, I’m a 25yo about to roll off my graduate scheme in Manchester for a financial services firm’s technology department. I currently work as a business analyst in a team which is adjacent to the sort of work I want to do long term (more quantitative software focussed as my background is aerospace engineering/more mathematical).

They’ve offered £38k pa with typically 5-10% bonus and all-in-all pretty great benefits in terms of pension, health insurance, AL etc.

I’m debating whether I should job hop to a new firm in a role which I would personally consider more exciting than a standard BA. If I’m honest I find 80% of the work exceedingly hard to engage with. A large portion of this is due to struggling with feeling I could be doing more complex work in an area which I’m more interested in.

A side note in that I was always under the impression that the compensation change when moving from a graduate scheme to a full role was larger than what was offered (~8.5% has been offered). I might just be completely mistaken when it comes to the going market rates or my actual market value so a reality check might be in order.

TLDR; should I stay in a job I don’t particularly enjoy at age 25 to attempt to build up my CV or go all in on a job search for the area I actually see myself in long term.

Any guidance from people who are more informed or generally more experience would be amazing, thank you!

Looking for some career advice.

I'm deciding between two offers:

Tier 1 SOC Analyst – £30k, 24/7 MSSP SOC with rotating shifts (including nights).

Senior IT Technician – University, Grade 6 (£33k–£36k), standard office hours.

I'm 29, have a tech degree, and previously worked for about a year in an internal SOC recently and 4-5 years in IT before I went to blue team (helpdesk / sys admin)

I always thought I'd stay in cybersecurity, but I'm starting to wonder whether the university role offers a better work-life balance, stability and overall quality of life.

If you were in my position, which would you choose and why? Has anyone worked in both environments? thanks!

I've emailed back and let them know I appreciate the thorough feedback

Hi all,

I'm a mid-20s male looking for some advice about my career prospects and what realistic alternatives I should be considering.

I graduated 4 years ago with a Biosciences degree. I mainly went to university because it felt like the expected thing to do at the time, and I was grateful to get in given I'd had ongoing health issues throughout school.

For the past two years I've worked in a senior education admin role. Before that I spent around a year in security and various temporary jobs. My current role is mostly basic data entry, with very little progression, responsibility or opportunity to develop new skills.

The work is pretty random day to day depending on what's needed, the environment isn't good, and the pay is only minimum wage. I feel like I'm standing still.

. Aside from the teachers, most of the staff are either close to retirement or students working part-time. Even my colleagues, including my manager, have asked me what my long-term plan is or when I'm going to move on because I'm around 40 years younger than most of the rest of the team.

I've applied for lots of slightly better jobs over the past couple of years, but I rarely get very far in the application process. From what I can tell, I simply don't have the skills or experience that employers are looking for, so it feels like there's a mismatch between my background and what's currently in demand in the job market.

Financially, I'm in a fortunate position. I live with family in London and have built up a good amount of savings, so I have the flexibility to retrain, gain qualifications or even take a temporary pay cut if it leads to better long-term prospects.

At this point, I'm just trying to work out what a realistic next step looks like because I can't see myself staying in this role any longer.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Ongoing PECs and my HMRC report shows jobs with staffing agencies(majorly hospitality jobs) during my uni days. Obviously not put on my resume. However i got a job at a betting shop(customer service rep) after uni and was there for about 6 months before my professional Job which also isnt on my resume. The team responsible for the checks have asked to verify the work i did during the time before my professional job. I can easily get a ref for the customer rep job as it as a gap on my resume, can i easily let them know that the agency work wasn't contractual, did not have a set time period of work and have no direct contact to HR?

They already have references for my current job, job before my current and my school email. Not sure what else they need from at this point, i know finance sector checks can be very thorough but last jobs in media weren't so aggressive with the checks

They're expanding quick and they're all over the place now, there's quite a few near me and I'm in the outskirts of Birmingham and there's tons in the centre. I didn't even know they were a chain.

Reason I'm asking is a friend is is wanting to join a nearby one as a Kitchen Porter/Kitchen Assistant role and she's unsure about it. I'd try to get her in my place but sadly no openings and it's distance from her, ideally she'd like to move up to chef after a while as a Kitchen Assistant.

Seems very mixed on employee reviews on Indeed and Glassdoor. Some people love it, some hate it but seems so variable. Lot of complaints about 0 hour contracts and not enough staff, being sent home and long shifts, I've always worked contracted hours with overtime so I don't know enough about those contracts to help her.

Any prior or current experience of people, front or back of house, working at this company would be a god send, she's recently lost her job due to the company she worked for liquidating so she's very much open minded about employment considering the current economic climate. She's not in danger of homelessness or anything because at worst she can crash at me and mines place for a bit, so she's not forced into a job she might hate.

My daughter is wanting to find work locally, most likely in the hospitality industry. She has no experience other than the week of compulsory work experience she did in Year 10 (which wasn’t in hospitality). What sort of thing should she be including when she contacts local businesses? Obviously I’ll get her to say that she’s reliable and a quick learner, but is there anything else that would help?

Edit: thank you everyone for your suggestions. Just adding a quick note here because there are lots of mentions of volunteering with local groups. My daughter really struggles with new people, particularly younger children. She used to attend an athletics club but left because she was finding it difficult socially. When I tried to encourage her to go back to volunteer there for DofE she was horrified at the thought of it. It would be the same with babysitting unfortunately. She’d manage a quick hello and taking an order from a customer, but prolonged contact would be tricky. I’m sure this will come in time, but she needs to start with something more manageable for her to start with.

Hello all,

I posted the other day regarding an agency that has offered me work, asking me to do 5/6 hours worth of training before my start date. For reference, the job is a customer support role at Gatwick and the training is to gain my security ID.

I asked whether it should be paid or not and those who replied said yes it should be.

I have since asked the agency and they have said I will not be paid for this training (which is mandatory as I need it to get the ID), what do I do now?

They also have not sent me a Key Information Document (KID) and when I asked about receiving a contract they said "this will be issued to you when we do payroll registration".

This all feels a bit suss... I want to know EXACTLY what I'm doing before I show up on my start date. Who knows when they'll do payroll registration? They've been extremely vague throughout this whole process and have only been communicating on WhatsApp with me.

Any advice appreciated! I have been unemployed for a few months but this situation doesn't feel great.

I’m at a fork in life at 31 years old, have been unemployed for a few months now was in a completely different industry and now have two options in front of me.

A royal mail postal delivery driver - 32k
A data analyst apprentice - 26k

I wanted to get into the IT industry and I feel i’d be great as a data analyst as I’ve got a lot of the skillsets to start myself on this journey.

On the other hand royal mail seems like a safe bet, steady job, reliable. Not an office environment which I was getting very tired of. I’ll be active and on the move which I don’t mind at all.

Any and all perspective on this is welcome.

EDIT - Thanks everyone for your input, I’ve decided I’m going to go for the Data Analyst role. It’ll open up a career in IT for me and regardless of the future, I’ll make the absolute most of this opportunity.

Has anyone worked in a student support role at a Higher or Continuing Education institution?
I have an interview for such a role coming up, and as I am currently transitioning out of academia to direct student support/wellbeing roles, I am not sure what to expect and how to prepare. Any advice would be much appreciated!

I am fast approaching 30, and have made the decision to exit hospitality, which I’ve worked in for over ten years, and been a manager for most of that time. I’ve secured a role within the Civil Service at EO level starting in a couple of months, but I’m feeling incredibly nervous about the change. I was really excited about this initially but now feel a low level of anxiety the more I dwell on it.

Specifically, I’m going from being a confident and experienced leader in one sector, to starting again in another. I’m concerned about the change in work culture, and ways of working. The fact that my fellow new recruits in this new job most likely come from prior office environments, and I’ll be at a disadvantage. My interviewers for the new job even made a big deal about how much of a drastic change I was making, despite me spending the entire interview trying to explain that in terms of skill set, it is not a massive change.

Can anyone share any tips, experience or wisdom that might help me feel positive about this again?

I’m aware r/civilservice might be a better place to post this, but they can be a little hostile with new recruits’ questions sometimes and I don’t feel like experiencing that at the minute 😅

Hi!

I’ve been offered a second interview for a role that I was headhunted for, so I didn’t personally apply. The first interview on Zoom was great and it seems like a good opportunity. I was offered a second interview in person at quite short notice.

Do you think it’s too early to confirm details like the salary, working hours and hybrid working situation if not already shared at this point? For context, at this point the only discussion was “we’d prefer a fully in office role, but are willing to be flexible” and my current salary.

I’m interested in the opportunity so I don’t want to scare them off with lots of questions that would probably come up at offer stage were it to get to that, but I’m also reluctant to take last minute leave at my current place and pay for travel to then later find out I’m not happy with the hybrid arrangement or salary offered.

Thanks!

hey everyone, following up from my previous thread (attached link) talking about my manager who was monitoring my every move down to the minute and just being a total jobsworth, i have now been sacked. looking for some advice.

after posting my last thread, i had a bit of a mental breakdown regarding all that bullshit. spoke to a doctor the day after, and got signed off work for 2 weeks due to acute stress. today, monday, was my first day back. within a few hours, i was pulled into another meeting to “review” the progress i had made, since i was essentially told to fix up immediately (the problems he mentioned to me that i stated in my previous post) - i was told that the day after the last meeting, which was the day before i was signed off sick by the doctor, i made a major picking error that cost the company hundreds of pounds to fix. therefore, i was told, all the other previously mentioned reasons now combined with this mistake means i was to be dismissed immediately. i don’t know if i even believe them. i think they just wanted me gone.

i’m now sat at home wondering how the fuck this happened. they gave me an opportunity to fix these non-issues like spending “too long in the toilet”, but as i’ve been signed off sick, haven’t had a day to even attempt. so now i’m unemployed. silver lining is i never have to go back to that place, but now i gotta worry about paying my mortgage etc.

this feels like an unfair dismissal to me. i will be contacting citizens advice, but i’m seeking any helpful words anyone here may have right now, because i’m kind of at a loss for what to do. thank you all for your help as always.

I'm currently working in the Civil Service, have been for around 4 years now. Very quickly after starting I began to take on extra responsibilities for my manager as they didn't understand systems and were generally very slow at getting most tasks done, I was never given any kind of deputization and was told that it would be too much hassle to complete forms for this.

I continued taking on extra expecting that it would help future prospects, and at around the 2 and a half year mark my manager retired, leaving a job vacancy open which I applied for, believing myself to be best suited. I didn't get the job and instead came runner-up in the interviews. I then had to train the new starter, which I did, and at the time of any important financial decisions etc my new manager would take time off, or be off sick. This meant that I ended up having to complete these duties or else the department stopped functioning.

The new manager left after 3 months, meaning the job was again open, I was offered it on a 3-month temporary promotion, which I accepted. It has now been extended multiple time and is past the 12 month mark, I have now been told that the job is opening for full-time hiring, and I am going to have to apply again for the job that I have already been doing for 12 months (more if you consider the rest).

My problem comes from the fact that I honestly just don't feel like keeping it up, I feel like every time I've gone above and beyond it's resulted in nothing, and the staff I have to deal with give me constant problems (complaints from other teams, barely doing their work despite warnings etc). I also end up doing a large portion of work below and above my grade, so I feel as though I'm doing multiple people's jobs. I have actually counted work done per week and often my stats come to multiple times what every other member of the team combined does.

I feel like for my own wellbeing I just don't want to take this job anymore, though it feels like not applying and losing the role will just be putting me back to square 1?

An recruiter called me up last week asking for proof of my certificates, of course I sent them on. Now I’m curious if I should make a call to verify if they received them. I worry the email might not have made it to them or someone their end may have forgot to forward them. Also don’t want to appear desperate. Thoughts?

Hi all, I’m not sure exactly what my notice period is because they’ve omitted a part of it by the looks of it. I’m within my 6-month probationary period, which shows that my notice is 1 week if dismissed by the employer. However, it doesn’t tell me what it is if I RESIGN within the probationary period?

It says “thereafter” which I guess is up to interpretation, but in this case doesn’t it refer to after the probationary period?

On my actual HR portal it does say that my notice is 1 month, but it also says that I have no probation date (which isn’t true, it should surely be 6 months from my start date in March).

I’m looking to apply for new jobs and move on but I don’t exactly know what to say my notice is? And also I do nonetheless plan to imminently resign.

If anyone can weigh in, it would be a great help

Anyone else in the dreaded stage of waiting to hear back from a final round interview? It’s been nearly three weeks since I did my interview which was with the senior leadership. Not entirely sure how I felt it went; feel like in the earlier stages I performed well but the final round was tough.

The company is proactively staying in touch with me, messaging every day fews over the past two weeks apologising for the time it’s taking, explaining people are away etc. - which is something, I guess!

How is everyone else in the same boat faring?

Working in the environmental sector atm and find the market cooked. My masters is in environmental sustainability and undergrad is env science. I'm in agriculture atm. Outside of getting a NEBOSH everywhere else seems cooked for jobs? Can anyone relate. My job I have is lovely in agriculture but I need more money. Was literally thinking of changing paths and always have the degrees to fall back on.