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Struggled to find a job since graduation.
Comments
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former_student wrote: »Hi Everyone. Thanks for all the good advice which I received from this thread. Many on this forum have told me to get my foot on the employment ladder so I got offered a position within a large insurance company. My job will involve giving out quotes over the phone etc and providing general customer service to customers. The pay is okm at £13000 p/a although I could have done this job without my degree. I am happy to be employed but do people on this board feel that the experience I will gain within a position like this will benefit me down the line?
Is it a standard call centre job? Is there an opportunity to work yourself up through the company?
*Customer service=people skills, communication skills, also can get something about equal ops from this (e.g. hearing impaired clients dealt with by text/email etc), anger management, working under pressure, strict time restraints, team work and so on.
*You get a good insight into how a company actually works when you're at/near the bottom: you see where most of the money's made and lost, you see what reduces and increases customer satisfaction and the like.
*You get recent work references which is important
*On the whole it looks better to be employed than unemployed. Plus IMO it's less boring than hanging round the house with no money all the time
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Is it a standard call centre job? Is there an opportunity to work yourself up through the company?
*Customer service=people skills, communication skills, also can get something about equal ops from this (e.g. hearing impaired clients dealt with by text/email etc), anger management, working under pressure, strict time restraints, team work and so on.
*You get a good insight into how a company actually works when you're at/near the bottom: you see where most of the money's made and lost, you see what reduces and increases customer satisfaction and the like.
*You get recent work references which is important
*On the whole it looks better to be employed than unemployed. Plus IMO it's less boring than hanging round the house with no money all the time
Hi and thanks for that response and thanks to Lusignan as well.
The job pretty much is call centre work, the company employs several hundred people and there are oppertunities to progree although I have to be with the company for 6 months before I can apply for a different job. The position really involves taking customers insurance calls and reading from a script and giving the customer their quote, there are strict criterias that have to be met and I think the job will be tough but so far I'm only in training and quite happy, I hope this job will be one where I can utilise my potential.0 -
Something you may want to look at (or get someone else to look at) is your application form and CV as if you aren't even getting an interview with a decent degree there must be a reason and the only other one I can really see would be in the application process.0
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I'm about to graduate, but I have took a year out and have worked. From there I have built up some personal skills to survive the interviews. There are a lot of jobs that don't ask for experience. Whats important is your personality and how you can answer the questions in the interview. Altho a job in from ya studies is still hard to find, but you need to find a stepping stone. Like working for a ISP or something. If you just want to improve your personal skills, there are plenty of jobs at agencies. I recommend checking reed. Also just gotta try very hard... Visit career fairs, and keep looking in the paper...0
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call centre jobs are easy to learn, and its a good place to start. But damn, its the most boring job ever....and I cant stand working there too long. others may disagree.0
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I know quite alot of graduate recruitment people, so get told what they're looking for, and which candidates are rejected/given interview.
SOOO many students are getting degrees now, which means companies get hundreds of candidates for each "graduate" job. They tend to look at A Level grades, then reject people who didn't get 3 GOOD A Levels (i.e. at least 3 Cs in sensible subjects - this depends on the company), then after that they look at your degree subject and grade. (they can't discriminate against which uni you went to!)
This will eliminate alot of candidates, so they also look at experience, and whether you'd "fit in" with the company i.e. are you outgoing
Your CV needs to make you stand out from all the other candidates. Degrees don't have the same power/recognition as they used to, so you need to find other methods to distinguish yourself.
just ask yourself "What makes me better than all those other candidates in that HUGE pile of CVs...?"
Good Luck!Should've = Should HAVE (not 'of')
Would've = Would HAVE (not 'of')
No, I am not perfect, but yes I do judge people on their use of basic English language. If you didn't know the above, then learn it! (If English is your second language, then you are forgiven!)0 -
If I thought my degree would only get me as far as a call centre I would shoot myself!
Is that quote not a little unhelpful and unneccessarily snobbish. The op has stated that s/he has found it difficult to get onto the career ladder without any real work experience. So s/he has opted to take on a job to pay the bills and get some much needed experience to boost their self esteem and future career prospects, I for one think they have made a good move.
Alan Sugar has a profit in excess of 800 million today and started off on the bottom rung of the ladder so maybe there is a lesson in that for all of us.0 -
Is that quote not a little unhelpful and unneccessarily snobbish. The op has stated that s/he has found it difficult to get onto the career ladder without any real work experience. So s/he has opted to take on a job to pay the bills and get some much needed experience to boost their self esteem and future career prospects, I for one think they have made a good move.
It might not be helpful, just my opinion. I would not like to have wasted three years of my life to end up in a job that I could have done when I was 12.Alan Sugar has a profit in excess of 800 million today and started off on the bottom rung of the ladder so maybe there is a lesson in that for all of us.
As far as I was aware Alan Sugar didn't go to uni, and started his own business when he left school. It's a bit late for the OP to do that.0 -
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