Help with jobs please!

Brightspark87

My lovely husband works for a national retailer and is looking to move out of the retail world.(He is a high end manager of a world famous store).

We recently got married and booked our honeymoon through a very high end company.

He has always travelled and adores helping people plan trips so when this company had vacancies he was so excited to apply.

He went to an open evening, and then was called straight back to the final interview. This was some way from where we live, and he spent nearly £100 attending, including having to use a days holiday because he couldn't have had this day off work.

However, he has today found out he hasn't got the job.

This is the email:

Dear ,

Thank you for taking the time to visit *** last week. I really enjoyed meeting with you and learning about your work and travel experience to date.

Having now fully considered your application in line with the competencies of the ****, I regret to inform you we will not be progressing your application further on this occasion. I would firstly like to say that we felt you did well at gathering information on the phone with the client and asking open questions. However, unfortunately overall we felt that your sales experience and ability to convey your passion isn’t quite to the level that we currently require for the role.

It is an incredibly demanding role and we would encourage you to gain some travel sales experience and to re-apply in the future. We felt that you would need to learn to put across your passion and enthusiasm for the country and develop your sales skills, specifically within a travel arena.

In terms of the exercises you completed, your letter writing was a fair effort. With the 15 mins aptitude test, you scored 36/50 correctly. Please also find attached a copy of the feedback report from the psychometric survey you completed.

I trust this feedback will assist you for the future and would like to take this opportunity to thank you once again for all you time and interest in working for *** We all wish you a successful future career and we hope that we will hear from you in the future.

Best regards


Any advice? He is devastated, they gave him such high hopes etc I just don't know how he can make this move from retail or get experience without working for free?

Errata

(He is a high end manager of a world famous store).

What's a high end manager?

McKneff

I think he has been fortunate in getting all this feedback and suggestions as to how to get a job in travel in the future.


In fairness, he did apply for a job where although he had retail experience, he didn't not have the experience in the field which the job required.


But good luck to him in the future.

theoretica

If he wants sales experience could he get it from self employment part time? Any hobbies he could turn to good use, selling either an item or a service, or helping out a charity ('selling' the cause)?

gettingtheresometime

Errata wrote: »

What's a high end manager?

A manager that's watched too many episodes of the apprentice????

Sounds as if the high end travel company was telling your OH to go away and get some experience with a low end company before applying to work for them

James_B.

That's really detailed feedback, more than I've ever had from an application myself, so at least he has something to work from.

My advice would be to find a way to work towards the missing skills, or just to try for a similar position in another company.

He can re-jig his CV, to emphasise skills such as "internal selling " ("I had to deliver a project, it was not popular, but I was able to sell the advantages to the key audience, and gain acceptance of what was a challenging shift in company policy and practices..."), and think how to emphasize the right features more next time.

Interviews themselves are a learning opportunity. If this really matters to him, then he should not be put off at the first stumble.

Brightspark87

Errata wrote: »

What's a high end manager?

they have 4 levels of management. Hence the 'higher end' of management.

Brightspark87

Thanks guys, I'm grateful your feedback. Its just he does have sales skills (having built his way up from a temp to higher management), and how can he get travel sales experience without someone giving him the chance? He can't afford to work for a lower end company that pays less as he wouldn't be able to live! It just seemed that they kinda brushed him off.

tykesi

Brightspark87 wrote: »

It just seemed that they kinda brushed him off.

Your biased view is incorrect.

As has already been stated that is highly detailed feedback which has taken someone time to put together, no way on earth could that be classed as a 'brush off'. Looks to me like there are two options - carry on doing what he's doing or take the necessary pay cut to get the experience they want from him, his experience clearly isn't 'high end' enough for them.

PS - Is your surname pronounced Bucket or Bouquet?

Takeaway_Addict

Brightspark87 wrote: »

Thanks guys, I'm grateful your feedback. Its just he does have sales skills (having built his way up from a temp to higher management), and how can he get travel sales experience without someone giving him the chance? He can't afford to work for a lower end company that pays less as he wouldn't be able to live! It just seemed that they kinda brushed him off.

With the greatest of respect, why wouldn't they brush him off? He doesn't have any relevant experience and is not willing to work from the bottom again on a lower wage?

36/50 is not great in an aptitude test either I'm afraid, they would be wanting at least 40 plus if not higher.

saintjammyswine

Brightspark87 wrote: »

He can't afford to work for a lower end company that pays less as he wouldn't be able to live! It just seemed that they kinda brushed him off.

That's how it works though. You can't expect to go from one industry to another with no experience and go in at either the same level or for the same level of prestigious company. You either go in at a lower level for a better company or a higher level at a worse (or smaller) company to gain experience and work up again.