"You've got the job, so when do you want to start?"

Some good news! I had an interview last week and I got the job. Hip hip hooray!

Three months of unemployment. Three months of continuously writing, improving my CV, writing covering letters, researching jobs, interviews, rejections, feedback, mock interviews.... and I dare say..the list goes on.

So I now have a foot in the door. I'm hoping that things will be easier for future employment and I hope that the job market will be more stable the next time I look for work.

My plan is to share with you my processes in finding work and help current and future graduates get their foot in the door in a graduate job in their chosen field(not call centres, retail or bar work).

My next few posts:
- Searching for work: How versatile do you have to be to find your future job?
- Get yourself noticed by recruiters and have things to put on your CV to look better
- Adapt your skills to match your dream career path

I hope to have these out in the next few weeks.

I am also still working on my piece about work experience, which I hope to have up for you all by early October.

H

Conclude my week of work experience.

I realized that it really wasn't feasible to write about each of my days as most of the information I looked at was confidential. So a basic summary of what I did and my conclusion.

This being my second draft, as I realized writing a break down of what I did every day would be tedious. So in short: Monday and Wednesday I was out with clients and/or insurers. Tuesday and Thursday I was in the office either attending meetings and/or learning about other roles within the company. Friday was a short day with a client adviser.

From my week I learned that brokering involves many varied and specialised roles. I was shadowing a client executive which deals with the relationship between the client and the insurer, so very people and presentation based. Over the week, this particular role became apparent to me that this is the role I think I would be most suited for. There was a specialised client executive role for professionals and finiancials, but I was told that specialising too early could hinder me having transferable skills. These two I found the most interesting and will be reviewing at a later date.

What I suppose I can discuss in a bit more detail is that I was very pleased with the overall experience, I never felt like a loose end and everyone was very polite and easy to get along with. I never felt forced into conversation and things seemed to flow very naturally. I believe this is very important as I want to work within a company where the other employees are people I get along with and share similar personality attributes(not necessarily interests as that was very varied). A particular job can sound great, but I expect it's the people you work with which makes it more of an enjoyable experience and more likely to be something you look forward to coming into work for. In conclusion the company, the roles and the people all made a great impression on me. I am very much looking forward to spending more time with Marsh in Leeds.

My second week of work experience is coming up, this time at Dickinson Dees in Newcastle in HR. I have had a fantastic week with Marsh so I am hoping a renowned and successful company like Dickinson Dees can match Marsh in their hospitality and roles. Will keep you up to date.

I would like to thank Marsh for their hospitality and giving up their time for me.

H