Very recently my son came home on a Friday afternoon saying his contract wasn’t being renewed and that he was basically fired. He had been late for work that morning, only a few minutes, but he had been given a chat previously about being late in the past. He was gutted; it was his first full time job from leaving college and had enjoyed working at this place for just over a year. As he grew more confident and gained experience he would complain about the less experienced agency staff who were paid more than him. Also the fact that some of the people would talk and doss about a lot of the time but he really did work and was fast at producing finished work. The company expected a lot of overtime and many weeks he did 7 days. I thought this was far too much for him. He still wanted to go out with his mates on the weekend which is understandable.

But with all the work and no rest every 6 weeks or so he would accidentally lay in. He being so keen was his downfall to an extent. He did as much overtime as he possibly could but never used his holidays. He would clock in and get straight to work. If he had stood around chatting with the others he would have read the notice board and realised if he wanted to book any holiday around Christmas he would have to do so before a certain date. He missed all this being too keen to get to work. So when Christmas came he didn’t get much of a break. By the time a year had passed he had not had one week off but had been late 10 times in about 14 months. Luckily he had the last laugh.

After he sat down and explained why he lost the job I gave him a pep talk to cheer him up. I said not to worry we would find him another job in no time. He was experienced now so surely it couldn’t be hard to find a new job. I suggested we put his CV on a few recruitment agencies which is what I did. He went off up town to sign on and I submitted his CV to one recruitment agency. Within 10 minutes the agency rang asking for him. They told me he could start a new position the following Monday which he did. He was out of work for about 3 hours in total. Now he is working for a much higher hourly rate. The only down side is he has to start an hour earlier. This was his karma I believe, but he is still there now and enjoying a higher income.

So if you have become unemployed for whatever reason you are now in a better position than ever to get back into work. The internet has changed the way most employers advertise their jobs. The beauty of recruitment agencies is that they normally don’t charge the job seekers. They make their money from the employers who pay them to find suitable applicants for their job vacancies.

Employers use these agencies for many different reasons. Some employers want to save money on advertising costs. Some would just rather not advertise publicly. But mainly because they are looking for particular skills and they know that specialist recruitment agencies only list relevant candidates.