A cold, wet November mid-morning. My Tuesday reception job, volunteering at Resource. Three calls came through, one after the other. David, aged 55, suddenly redundant after nine years as office manager for a firm of West End solicitors. In deep shock, his wife at home with a long-term disability and desperately worried about how he would be able to care for her and manage their overheads.
A work colleague told him about Resource. How its experienced advisors, all volunteers from a variety of professional backgrounds, help people in the Jewish community find and secure employment. And, he asked, was it true you do this absolutely free? Yes, I said, all true thanks to the financial support we get from donors. I took some details and made David an appointment with an advisor.
A cuppa, I thought. I’ll just make myself one, when the phone rang ….
It was Vicky, 43, mum to two teens. She had worked for a high street fashion chain since school before leaving to spend time bringing up her new family. She wanted to return to work, part-time for now, maybe back in retail but perhaps using the IT skills she had acquired while at home. I took some details and made an appointment for Vicky to meet an advisor.
Now for that cuppa. I’m gasping. Kettle on, teabag in, phone goes. Robert, 22 years old, recently graduated with a 2:1 in history. Apart from a few holiday jobs, mainly office-based although there were those four weeks in the beach-front café for his mate’s dad last year, didn’t know which direction of travel his career path should take. I told him we work a lot with students, going into schools to talk to sixth-formers about career options and running events for recent graduates. Took details and made an advisor appointment for Robert.
Kettle back on, cuppa made, quiet few moments to enjoy it, phone goes …..
This is a typical Resource morning. In our 30 years we have helped over 30,000 members of the community find new employment, never charging a penny. Clients are paired with one of our advisors who works closely with them on a one-to-one basis throughout. We run a range of seminars and workshops on every aspect of the job search, such as CV preparation, writing effective job applications, interview skills and rehearsals, IT training and psychometric profiling to highlight strengths and potential job and career paths.
For David, with no experience of using LinkedIn, a major entry point for work opportunities these days, our advisor encouraged him to take advantage of our courses, firstly for beginners and later, as he became more adept, for advanced learners. We helped him make his CV more effective and improved his interview technique with live sessions on camera. Eventually, David was offered two positions and accepted one of them as the administration manager for one of the top five accountancy practices. He called the other day, just to thank his advisor and tell him how happy he was in his new job.
Vicky was someone who, it turned out, loved working with children. Our psychometric profiler had helped bring to the surface her administrative skills and suggested she thought about combining the two. We gave her help polishing her IT capabilities and encouraged her to look into nursery work. Having passed the necessary checks, there she is now, in a local pre-school running its admin side three days a week.
As for our young graduate Robert, we helped him find work as a trainee journalist with a local newspaper. Robert had come to one of the networking events we hold to put clients and employers together. His advisor had spotted his gift for writing early on and encouraged him to look at journalism as a career. He’d got chatting to the news editor who invited him to apply for job at the paper where they have a graduate training scheme. Like my other two November morning applicants, Robert is thriving in his new job. So much so that, as he told us, he wants to give something back and has become a member of our Resource Community, past clients who mentor new clients.