My career so far Part 2

Back a couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about my career so far and boy oh boy did you guys enjoy reading it! I had loads of comments & tweets about it - so I thought I wouldn't delay the 2nd part too long for you :)

In the last post it ended with me being made redundant from my job in Legal & General (L&G), so I'll pick up from here.

We're in 2009, it's the 17th May and my last day in L&G.  After 7 years of hard work it's time for me to leave, and boy oh boy was it an emotional day.  With my redundancy cheque in the bank and no job to go to it was time to hatch a plan.  My training was in graphic design, so after lots of thought and discussion with the hubby, I decided to put everything I could into getting a job as a designer.  So I enrolled in some bespoke training in Flash & Dreamweaver and sent out a letter and my CV to every design agency in Cardiff (over 70 of them!) asking for the opportunity to do unpaid work experience there.

After 2 weeks no one had replied.  This is when I started following up with emails.  One agency replied and gave me one months' work experience.  From there I managed to get another 2 weeks at a different agency, but that would be the last time I work as a designer.  With my redundancy cheque dwindling away my mother in law gets some temp work for me at the local hospital where she's a sister in operating theatres.

The job is just inputting lists of equipment needed for operating trays.  I get a couple of days work a week doing that for a few weeks and eventually get more work on the reception of the operating theatres, again as a temp.  I spend a few weeks doing that and eventually get a full time job there actually working in operating theatres, I start in October 2009, but only last 10 months.  It was easily the most interesting job I'd ever had, but I was also spoken to and treated worse than in any job I'd ever done.  Not by Doctors but by mid-range nurses who were incredibly rude to me.  So after leaving work in tears most days I decided to hand my notice in with no job to go to, not something I ever thought I'd do.

*All images are my own artwork

That night I applied for about 15 jobs.  A week later I followed one lead up with a large UK car insurance company, I had a quick telephone interview which was followed up with an assessment centre and interview.  I got the job :)  It was a combination of two jobs I said I'd never do - working in a call centre and selling.  My job was to renew people's car insurance and offer them other products like breakdown cover etc.  Despite it being a job I never saw myself doing, I actually enjoyed it and excelled in it, winning a department award that basically said I was the best on the phones in the department (the highest % score when my calls were monitored) and that was in 2011.

After being there for about a year and a half, I saw a job come up working in SEO in our sister company, an insurance website (I won't go into too much detail!), but after 2 interviews I landed a job there, that was over a year ago now and I've been super happy there ever since, happier than in any job I've ever done.  It's a great company to work for, I get to dress down in jeans every day as well as lots of other great perks.  It's nice to finally have a job that I really love :)

So that's my story so far - hope you enjoyed reading it :)

This months Bigest-Pixi3 advertiser is the lovely Shang from The Feminine Crusade

 

Written by Georgina Kent