Humble Beginnings

September 2018. Finished my Bachelor’s degree in Physical Geography, received a 2:1 and could finally put the nominal next to my name – BSc. I wasn’t proud of myself, but I was incredibly relieved that it was all over.

No one ever tells you how difficult university is, or at least no one ever told me.

“You’ll have so much fun.”

“You’ll make new friends and learn new things.”

“They will be the best years of your life.”

I don’t disagree with those statements because they were still true for me, but not many people highlight the trauma that one can go through whilst attempting to achieve a degree. But that’s a concept for another post. For now, I’ll give you an abridged version of the past 10 months of my professional life.

September 2018

• Attended a Customer Service Training course with Twin Group (I still have not received my certificate. Yes I did call them up about it – nothing).
• Applied for a graduate job at a tech company. Got to the interview stage and didn’t show enough conviction for the job applied for.
  • Was told that my skills and talents would be suited for Customer Service but there were no available roles.

October 2018

• Took a break between completing my degree and beginning my full-on job search.
• Applied for Universal Credit to cover my living costs whilst I was out of work.

November 2018

• Worked as a Temporary Booking Administrator for a Christmas party company. Was dismissed two weeks into a four week assignment but was considering quitting anyway because the manager was abusive and inconsiderate. Still upset that they beat me to it.

December 2018

• Applied for Geography related graduate schemes. Received no responses.

January 2019

• Successfully secured and began an internship with a well-known Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) organisation in the IT department.

February 2019

• Finished internship and decided not to apply for an apprenticeship at that company for Business Administration.

March 2019

• Applied for a Data Analyst role at a retail consultancy firm advertised on the government service website “Find an Apprenticeship”. Got invited to an assessment centre to join the agency hosting the position; Arch Apprentices. Successfully completed the assessment centre.

April 2019

• Got invited to a telephone interview for the Data Analyst apprenticeship, passed it. Got invited to a face-to-face interview, passed it, but the company was not able to accommodate a candidate until July. They sent a message over to the recruiter that they would be happy to hear from me again for the position.

May 2019

• Attended an employability short course on job searching, applications and interview technique (achieved a pass and received a certificate of completion this time).
• Applied for another Data Analyst role, this time with an advertising firm.

June 2019

• Got invited to an interview for the new Data Analyst role, fail the interview because I wasn’t able to make myself stand out against the competition and apparently answered half of their questions wrong in the written test. The test was said to have no bearing on the outcome of the interview, but that might have been added to put the candidates at ease.
• Worked as a Leaflet Distributor for a day and decided not to continue with it.
• Contacted recruiter about the previous Data Analyst apprenticeship and inquired about the availability of the role. Was told they had moved onto to second stage interviews without me and there was no way for me to be considered.
• Applied successfully to become an online transcriber on a casual basis.
• Signed up for a 3 week employability workshop with a charity called Making the Leap.

July 2019

• Scrapped the whole idea of Data Analytics and decided to launch my career in Digital Marketing and Social Media Management.
• Attended the 3 week workshop and gained the courage to finally build my website and write this blog.
• Started to get back on track with starting my career in tech.
• Applied to an agency to look for temporary administrative roles or possibly find a permanent role that could work for me.

So those are the main events from the past 10 months leading up to this point. There were obviously more applications submitted, more jobs considered and more meetings and opportunities but they were not considered to be critical turning points for me.

The beginning of a journey doesn’t have much action but that should change, so stay tuned. I will go into more detail about my experiences, or at least the ones that are worth expanding upon. For now, have a good day and consider subscribing to my mailing list below, and following me on social media (Links in the navigation bar).