I contacted the National Careers Service in June 2019 looking support with updating and redoing my CV.
Prior to contacting the National Careers Service, I attended university, where I received some brief careers support.
At the time, I was working full time for the NHS and needed some more guidance and direction about careers. In addition to working for the NHS, I had been volunteering for Greenpeace and I informed Sue, the National Careers Service adviser, about my passion for environmental issues. I knew this was the kind of career I had hoped for, however I was not making any progress in finding work in the sector.
I worked closely with Sue for 6 months. During that time she helped me to search for jobs, write applications, and a new cover letter and CV. Sue assessed my skills and provided me with plenty of feedback. Sue told me that there were areas of my applications that could be improved, such as my writing style. I could type out my applications really quickly, however this meant I wasn’t entirely focused on what I was writing, and I did minimal proof reading.
Sue talked about my volunteering role and brought that into our conversations as an achievement. This enabled me to think more deeply about what I had achieved so far and gave me the confidence to apply for more jobs within the environmental field. My confidence had grown as a result of our sessions and it was the boost that I needed; having been told that I had done things that were to my credit, it gave me more confidence to search more widely for jobs, so began looking further afield and at jobs that I wouldn’t probably have considered before.
Sessions with Sue helped to solidify the career direction that I wanted to go in and to determine what kind of environmental causes I was passionate about. I began to have a clearer idea of where I was heading.
I would absolutely recommend the National Careers Service based on our work together, it helped to motivate me to think about a lot of things. The progress that I made with Sue, I would not have got from a website.
I have successfully secured a full-time position with Natural England as Support Adviser to the Wildlife, and I am really pleased. It is a start to the career of my choice.
The National Careers Service provides free, up to date, impartial information, advice and guidance on careers, skills and the labour market in England to anyone aged 13 and upwards. To speak to a National Careers Service adviser, call 0800 100 900 or use our webchat (8:00am to 10:00pm, 7 days a week.)
