What’s your name and position?

I’m Charley and I’m the Employment Liaison Officer here at Strive Training.

What did your career look like before you joined us?

I started out in recruiting after completing my degree in Events Management and Hospitality. After graduation, I went to work in student recruitment. My career took me on to join an IT recruitment agency – it was highly sales driven and challenged me to be very engaging with new clients and learn topics at speed. 

As fun as it was, I wanted to be a bit more involved with my community, so I joined a tuition agency where I was responsible for ensuring children with special needs or who received Free School Meals got top quality tutoring. I felt like I was making a real impact on children’s lives and helping them to succeed in their schooling career.

I then joined REED recruitment, where I was able to work both in Education and the Business Support industries. I gained lots of useful and extensive training about client support and management – even building and developing business with new clients in the local area.

Tell us, what does a typical day look like for you?

No day is the same, which is what I love! Most days you can find me talking to our learners, and providing valuable 1:1 support and encouragement with job applications. I’ll also be helping with researching the job market, sharing recruitment events, finding new ways to engage with employers, hosting and creating training webinars and sharing learners with our current partners. It’s a fun and varied role, and incredibly rewarding to see everyone meet their careers goals!

 What are your biggest professional challenges?

With a role as busy and varied as this, it’s hard to get everything done in a single day. There are so many opportunities to grow professionally by, and so many brilliant learners and businesses to talk to. I could talk for days about what we do – so I have to reign that in from time to time.

Have you met any particularly inspiring learners lately?

So many learners given COVID-19 have been incredibly inspiring. They’ve lost their jobs, home and lifestyle – yet their positivity and motivation to keep applying for jobs and get back out there prevails. Watching them go out there and want to make a difference, even in industries or roles totally new to them, has been amazing. 

What do you want to achieve over the next six months?

I want to create some amazing workshops and webinars for our future learners to meet more employers and agencies who can support them further. I’m determined to help our learners find success in their new role and see all their hard work pay off!