By Louise Johnson, Employment Coach
I met client 033 at the end of August 2019; she had a degree in social work which she gained in her hometown in Portugal. Over the past 3 years since being in the UK she has completed a business admin master’s and has worked as a family planning officer. Her main barrier was not having her social work qualification recognised in the UK.
Maria has a young family and was ideally looking for part time work. She was happy to work any job which related to social work so she was able to gain the required hours of experience before she could transfer her qualifications to the UK.
We created a CV for the client and had a few appointments to complete job applications focussing on what makes a good personal statement. She started to get interviews and she said she didn’t require our support anymore. After a couple of months the client got back in touch and said although she was receiving interviews, she hadn’t received any job offers. I suggested we set up a mock interview to review her current interview style and work through what employers are looking for, we had a mock interview on 27th November 2019 and the client had an interview on 28th November, the job was to support Romanians to integrate in local communities in the UK. During the appointment the client demonstrated good experience and knowledge supporting Romanians and addressing barriers to social inclusion. Her delivery was very ‘matter of fact’ and missed important steps she’d made to make a positive change. We highlighted her skills, key points from her interactions and discussed how to give a detailed overview to steps she had taken in order to gain the result. After the session she felt much more confident going into the next interview.
The client called me after her interview on 28th November and said she thought she’d done great. The following Friday she was offered the job and starts work on 17th December 2019. She is so pleased that the job is part time and will fit in with her family commitments and means she is going into 2020 in a much better financial situation.