Career Development Loans 2006/07 article Discussion Area

Just a little experience - I've applied for a Career Development Loan today on the phone from Barclays, as even though the National Careers people are sending me a pack in the post, they said to call Barclays who can act on the application more quickly since I bank with them, and my course starts this month.

You need to be extremely well prepared before you make this phone call - they wanted minute details of income etc. over the phone, which in my case due to combined jobs, freelancing etc is very complicated to convey. Expect to have to tell them every single regular outgoing you have as well, in detail. Another major problem is that the call centre staff speak with very heavy accents so making yourself understood is very difficult, as is understanding what they are asking.

Prepare to set aside at least an hour if not more. It's taken me most of the day back and forth with them and they also kept asking for details about the course such as the exact end date (which the university didn't really know to the day! It's a 2 year course is all they could tell me.) :wall:

I'm not feeling at all confident in this application since I'm not sure my financial situation is adequately or accurately represented, since the person won't read it back to you to check it's correct - all she suggested was that I should call back later - so you have to make a loan application without having seen the application with your own eyes.

Personally this makes me uncomfortable, but then I am phone-phobic in general so possibly this would not be such an awful experience for everyone.

Hi all,
my husband wants to go do a specific skills course for 6 months in the US - I assume that overseas companies are not usually on the Register...
is it possible for foreign companies to apply to join the Register? And has anybody done this before?
Cheers,
Winnie