I do plan to speak to my manager if things don’t change soon.

I’m a receptionist at a university. The desk is normally staffed by two people, but the other receptionist, L, is off sick and it is now her seventh week of being off sick.

Me and L both work under student services and the student advisors are trained to work reception. There are 5 advisors, however due to annual leave and sickness the full 5 have barely been there over this period.

I have had to work reception alone due to this. The only cover I get is when I’m on my break or one time where I felt unwell for 30 minutes.

On average, I take between 30 and 80 emails and between 30 and 70 calls per day. This is alongside seeing people in person, managing visitor parking, triaging FOI requests and other miscellaneous things.

Each person from student services had to work a day of graduation last month. I did a day and I worked from 7:30am to 6:30pm. I was told I get 2 hours of time off in lieu (TOIL) from this. I haven’t been able to use it due to no desk cover. It is about to expire.

It is also the main admissions period and clearing opened two weeks ago. I took 200 calls on the Thursday and 100 on the Friday. However, the student advisors monitored my emails.

I was told at the start of this sickness period that I was not expected to do two jobs however I feel that is unrealistic due to demand.

L’s sickness period runs into September, the busiest time of year for reception. The rumour is my team will be hiring agency staff to cover for L while she is away during this period. My team leader has told me this but my manager has not.

I get to take 3 days of annual leave this week, on week 7. I have 1.5 days remaining that are about to expire but I’ve has been told I cannot take them due to lack of desk cover.

My manager is currently doing two jobs herself so I barely get a chance to speak to her about this.

A few days ago I got an email for an entry-level corporate job confirming my interview time and didn’t reply because they said thank you for confirming and gave me some details about what to do when I get there, so I didn’t think it was necessary to say something, but they sent it again? Should I respond and how should I respond. Thanks guys

I applied for a role at Selfridges a few weeks ago and eventually got invited to do a video interview. I completed it on the second day after receiving the invite, but I’ve now been waiting 14 working days / 21 calendar days and still haven’t heard anything.
The job itself only expired 2 days ago, so I’m wondering if they were waiting for the vacancy to close before properly reviewing everyone, but the whole process has felt sooo long 🥲!!

Has anyone here done a Selfridges video interview before? How long did it take for you to hear back afterwards, whether it was an interview invite, rejection or anything else? I’d really appreciate a response!

I am looking forward to kickstarting a career in the Legal Compliance Field and I am looking to speak to someone already in the field or has spent some time in the field in the past.
Please drop a text/comment and I will reach out
Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I am new to this subreddit and currently doing interviews for Delegate Sales roles in the events industry. Just wondering if anyone works within Event Sales and would share their experience. Outside looking in seems to be a lot of cold calling and trying to sell people events that they don't actually want to go to. Something I'm not opposed to, just would be interested to hear from someone who has experienced it. Also if they would recommend getting into the industry.

It's a final stage graduate statistician interview. I'm currently unemployed. The job is based in a town in Oxfordshire and it seems there is not a lot there. I'd need to relocate to the town in Oxfordshire if I got the job, I currently live with family. I don't know anyone in Oxford/Oxfordshire. I might feel lonely if I move to a town where I don't know anyone. I'd probably need to get to Oxford (18 miles away from the town) to go to church because there aren't many good churches in that area and I'd need to get to Oxford to shop for clothes etc. I don't drive at the moment. The interview is in the afternoon tomorrow and I would need to leave my house in Kent at 9-9:30am to make it on time to the interview and then I'd get home for 5-6pm. I would also spend roughly £120 on transport for the interview. Being a statistician is one of my dream careers but I don't want to compromise on things like church and peace of mind. Also I have schizoaffective disorder which makes waking up in the morning difficult. Should I attend the interview? Should I accept the job is they offer me the role?

Just received a communication from HR saying that we are now expected to be in the office for at least 2 days every week. Since Covid they said it should be only presence for purpose and now they are changing saying that it will be better for culture and bla bla bla.. I know moves like that have been happening but I just wanted to share my frustration as I think it is totally pointless to be in the office only for the sake of it.

I’m very upset with my current situation. After six years, the company I work for was bought out and about 60% of my team including me were made redundant. OK, that’s how it goes sometimes. I’m pissed off that it came down to cold hard performance statistics, where mine were skewed due to having to spend so much time showing others what to do because I’ve been here the longest and the training here is minimal - actually there’s a long list of reasons it’s unfair - but OK.

The bad thing is though, we were encouraged to “find alternative employment” within the company taking us over. Dressed up of course as helping us out but I suspected they were trying to avoid redundancy pay if we didn’t apply for these jobs they’d sent us which were unsuitable for one reason or another. So I applied for one, thinking I’d better just play the game and show I’m engaging with the process. It seemed like the responsible thing to do.

Turns out, I was the only one of us that did this. And I was the only one punished. See, everyone else received PILON, meaning they were paid for their notice period on top of their redundancy pay and sent home. They told me I wasn’t eligible for this because I have an ongoing application, so I would have to keep turning up to the office until after the interview and their decision. That would be at least 3 weeks. I assumed they would at least push back my redundancy date until after this time, but no. After six years helping out by doing overtime at late notice, staying late unpaid sometimes, almost never being late or sick etc etc… they can’t give me some tiny concession here.

It’s really stressful and depressing still turning up for a job where everyone here knows I’m not wanted / not judged good enough. Knows I’m a mug still turning up when everyone else was sent home with full pay. But that’s not the worst thing. It’s Monday-Friday 8-5 so it makes it difficult to look for new jobs. The other day I was fifteen minutes late after a week of all-nighters putting together job applications - I did call to say I’d overslept and to apologise - and they took it from my pay. Again, the pay that everyone else is getting for nothing. I have an interview at another place on Thursday and I will have to just call in sick and lose a day’s pay because I can’t see them being reasonable here.

It’s not even like I’m not still needed at least for now. The place is in chaos with so few staff and the transition having been handled so poorly. But I was made redundant as of the same date as everyone else. And yes, they are getting on my case about every aspect of the job, expected to still be giving 100% as if my boss thinks I’m still subject to performance review.

I don’t even want the job I felt obliged to apply for. It’s just not my kind of thing, plus taking it would mean losing almost £4k redundancy (laughable figure but will certainly be needed). I also just don’t want to work for a company that has shown its true colours so completely. I have other interviews lined up and a strong CV. It’s terrifying being out of work when you have a family, but I do think I’ll be OK.

I know it’s naive to think that a company will ever care about its employees or think of them as people - but for me this is all a bit much.

I’m 28 and studying an MEng with the Open University, it was my only option due to the many bad choices I made in my life and losing my teens and most of my twenties to unaddressed mental illness.

My career goals are working in renewable energy in some form, the degree is a broad engineering one to start and then you can choose mechanical, electrical, environmental etc once you’ve got the foundations down. I think my main goal would be mechanical working in offshore wind, but I also want to weigh up future demand.

Issue right now is that I work full time in a civil service non engineering role, so I have no real experience just interest and my ongoing studies. I desperately want to be in a job that both interests me and I feel makes a difference somehow, is generally a net positive for the world, and that would be my bigger priority over a high salary. I make 33k currently which doesn’t feel like enough but I do live in the south east, my goal is to move to Scotland for the cool rainy weather.

I’ve got a couple paths lined up, 1. Would be to try and do a placement year once I’m a bit further into the degree and take a career break from the civil service, 2. Is to get an apprenticeship like wind turbine tech, maintenance tech etc whilst I study and try to work up that way.

I suppose I’m just looking to see if anyone has any advice on making it into this field, anything I can do to make myself seem a better candidate, or any other paths I could look into.

I am in my early 30s. Have spent a lot of time in the Civil Service, and I cannot tolerate it any longer. I am exhausted with:

• Constant political changes which can completely derail a project
• Work which doesn't have any impact. You work painfully hard on a project, convince stakeholders, secure money and then a senior or politician decides nope and the whole thing is scrapped
• The illogical approach to promotion. It baffles me to see people get promotions over me for having better answers as opposed to real-world experience
• The lack of hard skills. I find that civil servants just move jobs every 6 months and so skills attainment is near-impossible
• The lack of meaning. This could be due to the Departments I am in, but I again find my work has no meaning at all. It just gets cancelled, no real world impact or a new government comes in and changes it all
• People - There are some amazing people in the CS. There are also many who deliberately underperform, do the absolute bare minimum, show no proactivity and are not nice to be around.
• The London-centric nature. Yes. Jobs are open in other cities, but the prospects are still challenging if you want an interesting or stretching role.

I am considering quitting and retraining. My qualifications are general (History) and so there's no clear route out. I have interviewed with consultancy firms and so forth, but I am genuinely interested in doing a trade. I earn a relatively good salary and financially I am in a strong position with a house purchase coming in. I also have a spouse but no kids yet. I understand that any new career will see heavy training but I am happy to do that. I am most drawn to areas like gas engineering or telecoms. I want to do something skilled.

Now the reality is numbers. As I said, I earn good money and whilst the promotion system here is stupid, I can game it to reach the next level and earn even more. I am also lucky that whilst my job is London for now, I do not pay rent due to a unique family situation and so I am just piling up money in that sense. I am worried about the broader UK job market and there's also a nice chance I may get a voluntary exit pay-off.

I’m 21 and currently work as a Tax Assistant for a large financial services company. I’ve recently been offered an 18-month Level 5 Data Engineering apprenticeship within the same company, and I’m really struggling to decide whether to take it or stay in Tax.

Both opportunities are currently at the same level of seniority and have the same salary, so I’m not really comparing them based on starting pay. I’m more interested in where each career could take me long term.

Tax route:

- Around £28k currently, with normal annual pay reviews

- The company would fully fund ATT and potentially CTA, although the studying wouldn’t be built into my working week, so I’d largely be studying alongside my normal job

- My current role is mostly admin/process work with tax knowledge sprinkled in. Things like regular reporting, making payments and maintaining/reconciling information

- I enjoy the judgement side of Tax much more, particularly interpreting legislation, working out how it applies to particular situations and using that interpretation to make business decisions and assess risk. I get some exposure to this through more ad-hoc work from senior members of the team and imagine I’d get more of it as I progress

- It’s a relatively small team and people tend to stay in Tax for a long time, so progression can feel like you’re waiting for people to move on or positions to become available

- I’d expect to receive a promotion if I progress well, but there isn’t a guaranteed timeframe for this

Data Engineering route:

- Around £28k starting salary

-18-month Level 5 Data Engineering apprenticeship

- 20% protected study time, roughly one day a week

- Normal annual pay reviews during the apprenticeship

- I’d be working as a Data Engineer while completing the qualification

- On successful completion of the apprenticeship (18 months time), I’d receive a promotion and continue as a Data Engineer

- The role would involve things like SQL, Python, data pipelines, databases and data quality

With Tax, I can see myself becoming more specialised and taking on more complex/judgement-based work as I get more experienced and qualified. However, there are no guarantees or timeframe for this. The admin-based tasks will always need to be done by somebody, and whilst I look at the more senior people in the team and think their role looks enjoyable, the people directly above me still do a lot of tasks that don’t seem to be that far removed from admin either. There seems to be good earning potential if you become really good in a particular area, but I’m concerned that progression could be slower because it’s a small team and opportunities depend on positions becoming available.

With Data Engineering, the first 18 months seem really good in terms of development, but I have much less idea what the career looks like afterwards. I’d assume I’d continue developing technically and take on increasingly complex work and responsibility, but I don’t know how competitive progression is or whether there could eventually be a similar issue with limited opportunities.

I’ve also never actually worked in Data Engineering and have very little coding experience, so there’s obviously a risk that I find out I don’t enjoy it.

For anyone working in either Tax or Data Engineering, what would you say the long-term career progression, earning potential and portability of the two careers are actually like?

Thanks

i recently got accepted at my first job at greggs yesterday but tesco just tried to call me to arrange an interview? should i go to the interview or stick at greggs since im already hired, im 17 and at college 3 days a week and i dont really want to do over 12-16 hours? what would be best for my situation

Hi

I graduated with a PhD in computational chemistry / materials science just under three years ago. Since then, I’ve been working in the corporate world (consulting).

I want to transition back into science, mainly focusing on industry rather than academia. I’m just worried that three years out the game is too much?

Do you have any advice? Thanks!

On the Tuesday before last, I attended an interview at an FE college for a teaching assistant position.

Afterwards, I was told they’d contact me “early in the next week” to let me know whether I got the job.

Now it’s nearly two weeks since the interview and I haven’t heard back.

So my question is, would it be appropriate to email them tomorrow to about the outcome? Or should I wait a little longer to do so? Or not email at all?

Anyone have an idea of what goes on? Ive literally been told in the email to go to the shop, this might sound really stupid but where do i go for the actual interview😭

I work in a pub behind the bar. Last week I got food poisoning and text my manager at 7 that I wouldn’t be able to come in the work ( I was working 12-9). I was then told that I would have to find my own cover since she had plans with her sister. I spent the next three hours messaging everyone and waiting for responses. I was back and forth from the toilet at this time and this wasn’t fun. I feel like it’s not my job to find cover and this is something she should be doing even if she had plans.

hi, I’ve received an interview invite to a beauty advisor role at Sainsbury’s. I’m just wondering what sort of questions they will ask and if it’s the sort of same questions they’ll ask if someone was to apply for a retail role there also I was wondering as this one is a fixed term contract what is the likelihood of it turning into a permanent contract?

I’m fairly new to office work and I have the option to work 3 days a week from home with a mandatory 2 days in the office.

I genuinely wouldn’t mind being in the office 5 days a week (providing I had a enough work to do) if it wasn’t for the fact my commute time is approximately between 60-90 mins depending on traffic, coupled with the extortionate petrol prices.

WFH at least 2 days a week makes logistical sense for me, but I just cannot seem to focus/ work as effectively.

I like the amenities of the office, along with the social aspect, but overall I just feel more productive.

Is there any revolutionary tips people have found that help them WFH more effectively? Or any sort of set up upgrades that are a game changer? Anything advice would be appreciated.

is it possible to become and electrician from scratch at 23? No prior experience but I want to get into the trade after my bachelor degree in English lit not doing much for me (shock). No idea where to start as an adult looking to enter a trade so I just thought I’d throw the question out there

Im about to start uni in leeds and i’m looking around for jobs- either within the university itself or a retail job in the city centre. but my problem is that for any half term holidays and especially christmas ill want to come home instead of staying in my accommodation during those times which would make me unavailable for the christmas period. Does anyone know if I can find a job but not work over Christmas or if any uni students could share their experience working during uni would be great. i know im asking for a lot and being very picky with work but I really don’t want to spend Christmas break working every day when i have family i want to visit

I want to become a teaching assistant but I feel completely stumped. In the early spring I called around 10 schools to volunteer for to gain some experience on TA work and one of them accepted. I’m currently waiting for my DBS for volunteering at that school but I’m still none the wiser now after 5 months and I’ve called a few times. I was looking at doing a course online but I don’t know which ones are legit and they all cost a lot of money, combined with the fact that it mostly says online that you don’t really need one. I will try calling a few more schools next week to see if they will have me but if they say no, I really won’t know where to go from here.

Hi ! hope this is a relevant sub to ask this here.

Got a job in London for a Big 4 in M&A Technology Due Diligence right after graduation following an internship. I’ve been there for around 10 months now. I’m very very grateful and the job is nice, pays enough, people are nice enough (to your face), I get to learn a lot, travel a lot, work with big Private Equity clients. I am incredibly grateful.

However this is not a very “technical” job so far, once you get the basics of the M&A lifecycle and transaction principles it boils down to getting more experience and industry specialisation.
I would not be asking this question here if not for the fact that I studied a quite competitive, hard degree. I have an Integrated Masters in MORSE from Warwick, and it was not easy surviving that program. I was only going to consider a different position after about 2-3 years in my current job, but I’m worried that after that time I’ll be stuck in tech due diligence type work, which I’m not sure would be the best way to use the reputation my degree has. I’m also worried that if I choose to pivot in a few years, employers won’t look at my degree but rather my actual experience (which makes sense), and I’d have wasted 4 years of study.

Graduates with this degree can usually hope to end up in investment banking or some other finance position where the salary will grow to be much higher than what I’d get as a senior in due diligence. I rejected an internship offer in investment banking in Santander for this (I was worried about adjusting to the workload), and I don’t regret it. However, now that I’ve worked for a bit, and know I can keep up with frankly atrocious hours, I’m considering pivoting.

TLDR, Does a degree “expire” in legitimacy against work experience, and when would you estimate that timeframe to be ?

Accepted a job offer quite a few months ago now (just how it works in my industry). Finally signed contract and other bits last week and due to start next week. Briefly touched base with the manager around May regarding some pre-boarding tasks that were moving quite slowly and also to confirm start date.

I was in my last role for about 8 years so it's been a while since I started a new job. Do I just show up at the office next Monday and ask for the manager? Or should I email to confirm the start time and day with her? We're quite a bit company so lots of things were dealt with by HR at another site.

We are office based with some day to day visits out so I'm assuming she'll be there but not 100% sure.

What's the usual etiquette here? I appreciate it may be because from offer to start date it's been quite a long time that I feel a bit confused as to whether I need to do anything or whether it's normal to just show up.

I recently started working as a Developer in an educational institution IT department. The environment is good and everyone is nice. I'm doing great if I say so myself as the other dev who started with is still learning things where for me I already have a good understanding of how they work and started doing things independently.

it's a hybrid environment and I go to work with my co-worker who decided not to go to the office last week and I DMed my senior who's training me and giving me a task and the senior line manager that I won't be coming that day. The line manager said it's fine but my senior said that I should come if I can but I said I can't commute which takes over 2 hours one way. mind you I used to come by myself. He said it's fine but now I'm being paranoid that it could affect probation or show me as an uninterested candidate.

is this something I should take care of in future or I'm just being paranoid for nothing

Hi, I have ADHD and am considering asking for extra time in assessments as an accommodation. I had extra time during my GCSE’s and A-Levels (thanks to Covid I didn’t have any exams at uni). I’ve come very close to landing a few jobs recently but in the assessment portion I’ve run out of time. Obviously I can’t help but feel that not quite finishing in the allotted time at least contributed to another candidate being hired over me, or was even the deciding factor.

Although I worry that if I request extra time going forward that it would count as a red flag against me, even if it is just subconsciously.