Finding a job after redundancy

When Simon decided to move back to Birmingham after spending his 20s working in London building a successful marketing career, he didn’t struggle to find a new role in product marketing for a software giant.

However, after relocating to Manchester and working 4 years for the same company, Simon was made redundant due to organisational restructuring and spent months applying for jobs. "I had registered with all the high street usual’s, several marketing specific agencies, plus a couple of job boards. A NIGHTMARE to manage as every person will tell you who is looking for work."

Simon hadn't heard of Aspire before and came across the company having applied for a role online. It was only when someone in the team called Simon that he got to hear about the great ethos the Aspire team had. "Bridget and I instantly hit it off over the phone and so I was eager to meet with her in the office to get registered and hear more about the role that I had applied for."
After a lengthy conversation, Bridget told Simon about several roles available that suited his experience and gave him a couple of job specs to have a think about before formally applying.

“Bridget was great. She took an interest in my career, wasn’t in a rush to quickly qualify me as a lead for a role, but took the time to properly understand my situation, experience and career goals. Plus, she was super friendly which helped develop a connection. After our meeting, I was left feeling that I could trust her, something I hadn’t gotten from any other agency. In fact, most other agencies didn’t even bother to call me with feedback, let alone take the time to meet me. And that was a breath of fresh air after 8 months of job hunting.”

Being made redundant can knock your confidence, leading to a period of questioning yourself and your own capabilities. Often this means that your CV and job search can be chaotic. And a lack of clarity in what you want to do next can add to the uncertainty without even mentioning concerns about the future and your financial stability, which combined can easily turn job interviews into a life or death situation, or at least it seems.

“Needless to say, I was incredibly nervous when it came to the interview time, but Bridget helped me to understand what qualities they were looking for and she took the time to send through some techniques which helped me better prepare. She even came to meet me before the interview as well. That helped no end to ease my nerves.”

Simon was invited to the second stage of the interview process for the Commercial Marketing Manager role he had chosen to apply for. “I was even more nervous but again, Bridget met me, gave me some advice and took time out to run through my presentation to make sure I’d covered the brief. I don’t know any recruitment agency that invests that much time in their candidates these days!”

Within 2 weeks of meeting Bridget, Simon was in that new role.

Too often modern-day recruiters are hard pushed salespeople and as such, have lost sight of the value of really getting to understand their candidates. “From my point of view, that level of investment in the relationship was invaluable to me, because it made me feel like I mattered, and it made me feel like Aspire were the team that would get me that elusive perfect role. I think you’d be hard pushed to get a candidate elsewhere to say that they trust a recruiter with their career.”