Employability Skills Oliver

Oliver was pleased to find that the course really met his needs to apply for and get the job that he was most suited to.

I started the course in February of this year, and it covered business and administration skills, and learning employability skills such as improving your CV or how to create a good impression at an interview.

I have been long-term unemployed and so I did come to the course with some sense of apprehension. I hadn't been in education for a long time – I am surprisingly older than I look! It was all new and I had to learn to work with other students and organise my work. But the course gave me structure to my day and gave me goals to aim for.

You work often in with a group of other students, so a lot of the work is collaborative. You might think that business skills, admin skills, what are they? but often there is a lot more than you might initially think. For example organising a meeting. It sounds simple but some of the tasks were very complicated including booking a number of people to attend a meeting at a certain time. You have to include organising transport, overnight stays, scheduling rests, planning the meeting and the outcome of the meeting. Often in the tasks I would think well I don't know how to do that, but with the support of the trainer and working with the other students as a team, we always achieved a good result.

And then when it comes to applying for and trying to get a job, the support is there again. We would do practice sessions of conducting an interview where each student has a role, either as the interviewer, the interviewee or the person observing and making notes. The feedback from the trainer and the team is invaluable because you often don't realise how you come across.

The opportunities the course gave me included applying for and successfully winning a job here at LSEC. I will be starting an apprenticeship as a receptionist next week. This has completely changed things for me.

I can see the course helped a lot of my fellow students to apply for and get new jobs and careers. The course is more than just a certificate, it's setting you up with the skills to get the job you want. I would recommend everyone has the second chance I have been given, because you don't know what you can achieve until you try. 

Oliver Newberry-Martin
Business Administration and Sector Based Academy
Trainer: London South East Colleges