Job searching for a childcare job help?

DeafLeopard

I'm in my final weeks of college studying childcare and education.
I'd like to look for a childcare job but I have some problems.

• I'm in a retail job currently, I have no idea of how to write a resignation letter
• I haven't had any jobs in childcare but have had 6 placements in childcare settings

So I'm not sure how to create a Cv and how should I go about searching for a job whilst being at my current one?

It's been almost 2 years since I had to look for a job.

Thank you

DomRavioli

You can find good examples of resignation letters on google. Don't give in your resignation until you have another job though!

You could also approach your college careers advisor/department for help with your CV - you can put your placements on your CV and list other work as well.

Sncjw

Remploy do a cv thing and also you can download it and tweek it on word to make it better. It's good for setting up basic cv. Ask parents as well to look at it see if they give any pointers

whodathunkit

Sncjw wrote: »

Remploy do a cv thing and also you can download it and tweek it on word to make it better. It's good for setting up basic cv. Ask parents as well to look at it see if they give any pointers

Better to use the professional service offered by the college - parents' ideas (if they have any) are often very dated.

National_Careers_Service

Hi DeafLeopard, congratulations on getting to the end of your course, now to get you into work! Firstly it’s great to hear that you’ve completed six placements in childcare settings. They should really help to bolster your CV and will give you plenty to talk about in any interviews that you get.

Firstly let’s cover how you’re going to write your CV. As a starting point I’d suggest taking a look at the CV advice on our website. The advice is broken down into what you should include in each section of the CV.

As you will have just completed your course I’d suggest including the following 4 sections first and do try to keep your CV to two pages.

Personal details

Centre your details and include contact details like so:

Julie Jones
32 Any Street, Birmingham, B1 8AB
077915577788
[EMAIL="julie239@email.com"]julie239@email.com[/EMAIL]

Personal profile section


Write a short personal profile around 5 or 6 lines which should include:

• Information about recently gaining a relevant qualification
• A brief mention that you have completed six placements in a childcare setting
• A sentence that conveys your passion for working with children
• Your career aims

Education section

Next up include an education section where you can include the full details of your course and other qualifications. If you have many qualifications in a variety of different things don’t feel that you have to include everything. Do however ensure that you include any qualifications and courses that would be relevant to a childcare employer.

Work experience

Following that you could include a work experience section where you can give details of each placement, your responsibilities etc. The reason I suggest including this section before a work history section is that this will be your most relevant experience to the roles that you’ll be applying for. The employer needs to be able to quickly see that you have the right qualifications and experience.

Have a good look through the CV advice on our website for more info on completing the rest of your CV. I just thought it was worth going into a little more detail about getting the really relevant information on the first page.

Now I’m going to go into a little information on job searching for childcare roles.

Job searching

With regards to your job search, are you currently working full time or part time? If you’re working full time it’s going to be a case of fitting it in when you can. Searching online would be a good start and will be easier to fit around your work, but don’t let it be you’re only strategy.

You may find the following sites useful for searching for vacancies.

Nursery World
LGjobs
Children & Young People Now

The next thing to consider is approaching the organisations where you completed your placements to see if they have any opportunities coming up. As they already know you, they may be more willing to take you on and give you a chance.


Once you’ve exhausted that line of enquiry I’d suggest approaching nurseries in your area in person. You could either give the nursery a call to ask if you can arrange an appointment, or you could just pop down on the off chance armed with your newly written CV. This is a great way to find out about jobs before they are advertised. The good thing is that a lot of nurseries are open till 6 or 7 in the evening so you should be able to fit your direct approaches around your current job. You can find a list of nurseries in your area by using this postcode search.

Resignation letter

When it comes to resigning you may not need to write a resignation letter. You may just be able to inform them of your plans verbally.

Have you considered whether you are going to do this before you’ve found a job or whether you are going to wait till you have a job in place? It might be worth checking what sort of notice that you need to give in advance of resigning so that you know. As DomRavioli mentioned it may be a good idea to hold off on your resignation until you’ve managed to secure a job.

If you do find that you need to write a resignation letter there are some good examples here.

I hope you find this information useful and please ask any questions if you’re unsure about anything.

Good luck

Leo

DeafLeopard

Thank you so much for that information,It really is useful.
I work "full time" but only 4 - 12 hours a weekend depending on my shifts.

I will wait until I get another job,
but I thought I could start practising writing one so when I do have to write one I'll know roughly what to write.

I like my job now although it's not what I want to do,
and I need a stable job with more hours and more opportunities.