More Life Chances employability success stories

‘S’ joined Poplar Harca’s Hive programme having left education at the age of 16 with 6 GCSEs. He had an interest in IT and Admin. After a lot of discussion, S felt that the best option for him was to look at apprenticeships. He was supported to create an effective and tailored, CV. As with many young people, S’s ability to recall the tasks that he had completed in his work experience was limited, so his Hive mentor carried out an in-depth session with him to really establish his experience – not only to ensure his CV was informative and competitive, but so he understood the skills that he has used and developed, and why such attributes are desirable to potential future employers. This also helped build his confidence.

At Hive he was supported to apply weekly for apprenticeship positions and, to address the gap since his last work experience, his mentor secured short courses in Team Leading Level 2 and UK Intro to Coding.

After a few applications, S started to be called for interviews, so work began on developing his interview technique. He was offered a position as an IT apprentice. Sadly, after only one day, the employer terminated the position saying they felt that they needed a qualified IT professional. As a result of this, Hive made a complaint to both the organisation and training provider, and made sure that S understood that the termination was not his fault so it would not affect his confidence.

With his mentor, S started applying for more roles and soon gained an interview, and subsequently, an apprenticeship position in the NHS. After issues with his ID- they wanted five proofs – Hive called the training provider and secured a comprise of two ID.

S has now been doing the job for a couple of months and is thriving!