How to Get a Job
[Unemployment Help]
A Guide to Find Work and get back on your feet
How to Find a New Job
As we know, Covid-19 has had a big impact on the economy in the UK, which has led to an increase in unemployment. Because of rising levels of redundancies many in the UK feel they need unemployment help In fact, the number of us in unemployment is likely to reach 2.6 million by the middle of 2022. The Bank of England predicts the unemployment rate will peak at 7.7% next year.
At SlothMove we take care of your home move and your home, but we felt this was too important to ignore. So, we’ve pulled together this guide full of resources and helpful links to support anyone going through a redundancy or unemployment.
This may not be the answer to all of your questions, but hopefully there will be something which you can find helpful.
This guide will show you how to find a new job in 2022.
Let’s jump straight in.
Navigate
Companies Hiring Right Now
LinkedIn produces a daily report detailing all of the companies within the UK that are hiring more than 50 roles right now (updated 28th November).
As we will see below, you can also explore LinkedIn jobs for other vacancies.
Accounting
- EY: 224 open roles
- Grant Thornton: 119 open roles
Biotechnology
- PerkinElmer: 200+ open roles
Broadcast Media
- Sky: 261 open roles
Building Materials
- Wolseley UK: 65 open roles
Civil Engineering
- Amey: 320 open roles
- Costain Group Plc: 84 open roles
- Jacobs: 234 open roles
- Mott Macdonald: 87 open roles
Computer Software
- Sage: 92 open roles
- The Access Group: 52 open roles (NEW)
Construction
- Balfour Beatty plc: 307 open roles
- Mace: 63 open roles (NEW)
Consumer Electronics
- Apple: 105 open roles
Defence and Space
- Babcock International Group: 258 open roles
- BAE Systems: 166 open roles
- Leonardo: 170 open roles (NEW)
- MBDA: 125 open roles
- Royal Air Force (RAF): 61 open roles
- Ultra Electronics: 50 open roles
- UK Ministry of Defence: 200+ open roles
Design
- Atkins: 216 open roles
Facilities Services
Financial services
- Barclays: 134 open roles
- Bloomberg: 73 open roles
- Checkout.com: 54 open roles
- Citi: 349 open roles
- Deutsche Bank: 136 open roles
- Goldman Sachs: 51 open roles
- JPMorgan Chase & Co.: 362 open roles
- Morgan Stanley: 90 open roles
- Nationwide Building Society: 66 open roles
- Revolut: 363 open roles
Food & Beverage
- Costa Coffee: 240 new roles
Gambling & Casinos
- Bet365: 97 open roles (NEW)
Government Administration
- Department for Work and Pensions (DWP): 51 open roles
- Derbyshire County Council: 232 open roles
- Essex County Council : 86 open roles
- HM Revenue & Customs: 50 open roles
- Leeds City Council: 190 open roles
Hospital & Health Care
- Barchester Healthcare: 884 open roles
- Bupa: 251 open roles
- Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: 100+ open roles
- Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust: 100 open roles
- Helping Hands: 330+ open roles (NEW)
- IQVIA: 272 open roles
- Maria Mallaband Care Group: 100+ open roles
- NHS: 10,000+ open roles
- Nuffield Health: 302 open roles
- St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: 76 open roles
Information Technology & Services
- BJSS: 115 open roles
- Capgemini: 199 open roles
- Capita: 221 open roles
- CGI: 63 open roles
- Microsoft: 119 open roles
- Qinetiq : 90+ open roles (NEW)
- Serco: 101 open roles
- Version 1: 50+ open roles
- Vodafone: 180 open roles
Insurance
- Aviva: 77 open roles
- Direct Line Group: 84 open roles
Internet
Leisure, Travel & Tourism
- Borne Leisure Ltd: 200+ open roles
Logistics & Supply Chain
- DHL Supply Chain: 121 open roles
- Royal Mail: 110 open roles
- XPO Logistics: 107 open roles
Medical Device
- Danaher: 134 open roles
Oil & Energy
- Wood: 60+ open roles
Pharmaceuticals
- AstraZeneca: 158 open roles
- GSK: 153 open roles
Retail
- Aldi: 200+ open roles
- Asda: 174 open roles
- Boots UK: 789 open roles
- Co-op: 274 open roles
- John Lewis & Partners: 126 open roles
- Lidl: 241 open roles
- Marks and Spencer: 129 open roles
- Morrisons: 100+ open roles
- Next: 1,777 open roles
- Ocado: 100+ open roles
- Sainsbury’s: 50+ open roles
- Specsavers: 1,007 open roles
- Superdrug: 149 open roles
- Tesco: 1,879 open roles
- Waitrose & Partners: 63 open roles
School
- University of Bristol: 81 open roles
- University of Cambridge: 50+ open roles
- The University of Edinburgh: 109 open roles
- University of Leeds: 60 open roles
- University of Manchester: 76 open roles
- University of Oxford: 121 open roles
- University of Nottingham: 74 open roles
Semiconductors
- ARM: 186 open roles
Technology
- Siemens: 71 open roles
Telecommunications
Utilities
- SSE plc: 79 open roles
How to find a new job in 2022
Here are a few facts you may not know about finding a job in the UK (PS – Top Resume have an excellent article on this, if you’d like to learn more)
1) 60 percent of jobs are found through networking
The first part of your job search should be through networking. This could be speaking to friends, friends of friends, tapping-up old contacts or even old-fashioned LinkedIn. Whether its creating new relationships or speaking to old contacts, start by networking.
2) 75% of applications don’t make it to the hiring manager
Only 25% of applications make it past the ‘applicant tracking system’ (ATS). To save time recruiters rely on artificial intelligence to sift through your CV based on keywords, qualifications and other criteria. Poor formatting or not using the keywords can negatively impact your chances of making it to the hiring manager’s desk. There is a great guide by Visual CV that explains everything you need to do to get past the applicant tracking system.
3) Three out of four recruiters rely on LinkedIn
According to the 2018 recruiter nation survey, LinkedIn is the most used recruitment channel. As we know, this is because it enables two-way communication between applicants and recruiters. The takeaway here, is that you should invest a significant amount of your time on LinkedIn. If you’re wondering ‘how do I create a good LinkedIn profile?’ Don’t worry, there are a tonne of resources online such as the video below that can help. Following these steps will help to reduce your the amount of time in unemployment.
So, we’ve learnt a few key insights. Now, how do you find a new job?
The first thing you want to do before you start looking for a job is to prepare for the process. The Muse has a good article on how to attack the job search. We’ll get on how to optimise your CV and interview in the proceeding sections.
Thanks to Talentridge, can find a list of the UK top 100 job websites here.
However, good advice would be to pick the top 3-5 and focus your efforts there. Most great jobs will be across all platforms (linked, Total jobs, Reed etc…). So, let’s start with 10 job websites you can start searching on:
So far we’ve covered exploring a job through your network, by applying directly and by using a job search website. In addition to these don’t forget to get in touch with job agencies. Agency Central is a helpful website in which will help you search all recruitment agencies in your area, making it easier to find out who you should contact.
Now we have covered how to find a job and apply, let’s look at CV advice.
How to write an amazing CV
There is a lot of amazing advice out there on how to create an excellent CV, so we’ll try to focus on the key points and link to some helpful resources.
1) Focus on the layout & structure
Firstly, decide how you’d like to design your CV. It may surprise you to learn that recruiters spend on average 7 seconds on your CV before making a decision. Therefore, it’s as important how it looks as what it says. Most people design them on word, but if you want to stand out be creative you can use a platform like Canva (see example below) and take advantage of their CV templates. Canva is drag and drop and provides a lot of editability.
2) Size isn’t everything
The general rule when it comes to CV length is to keep it short. Recruiters generally won’t spend 30 minutes reading through your CV. Said another way, ‘make your CV long as it needs to be providing you are concise and succinct’. Experts emphasise that your job is to make it as easy as possible for the recruiter to understand why you’re fit for the job. Generally, most CV’s are two pages which is a good rule of thumb but there is still debate. As long as you’re concise and are presenting the information clearly you will be OK.
3) Use the winning formula
So, what is the best way to write a cv? What’s the winning forumla? According to Laszlo Block, founder of Humu it’s:
Accomplished [X] as measured by [Y] by doing [Z]
In his LinkedIn post he provides the following explanation:
“In other words, start with an active verb, numerically measure what you accomplished, provide a baseline for comparison, and detail what you did to achieve your goal. Consider the following two descriptions of the same work, and ask yourself which would look better on a resume:
a) Studied financial performance of companies and made investment recommendations
b) Improved portfolio performance by 12% (£1.2M) over one year by refining cost of capital calculations for information-poor markets and re-weighting portfolio based on resulting valuations”
Try your best to always attach a number to your achievement because this makes it quantifiable.
4) Tailor your CV, don’t spray and pray
‘CV Gurus’ advise that it is better to send 5 tailored applications off than 50 un-tailored applications. Read through the job description for each role and pull out the 5-10 key words or phrases you see. Then, go through your CV & covering letter and mould your CV around those competencies. You can read through a comprehensive breakdown on writing CV’s from the great team over at the CV library.
When it comes to covering letters, there are some interesting approaches you might like but the key thing is to not repeat the content in your CV. Keep it short and enticing and remember it’s a two-way process
How to ace an interview
Once you’ve got the interview, a huge congratulations 🎉
Most of the time this means they believe you can do the job, so the hard work is done. There are lots of articles on how to do well at interviews (such as 10 interview tips by Monster, 50 tips from the Telegraph etc..)
As always, we’ll try to pull out the key insights that will help and cut out the fluff.
1) Practice non-verbal communication
It may surprise you to learn that 93% of communication is non-verbal. Non verbal communication extends beyond the typical body language, sitting confidently, making eye contact and a firm handshake. Think about how you can use non-verbal communication to deliver your interview examples better and show that you are actively listening. This is important because is non verbal. You can check out the below video for more information on this and some interesting insights
2) Upgrade your psychology: The interview is a two-way street
There is a fine line between being exciting about an opportunity and being desperate. Desperation never sells. View the interview as a conversation in which you’re both exploring mutual fit. You’re exploring one another to see if it’s a good fit. An interview is as much about you seeing if they are a good match for you as the other way around. Thinking this way will enable you to become more confident and make a stronger impression.
Bonus fact: The psychological principle at work here is something called prizing. If you’re interested in this psychological aspect of interviews, here is a great starting point.
3) Use a framework like STAR for competency questions
When it comes to competency-based questions (eg, can you give me an example of a time when…) there are many methodologies for answering. A popular one is STAR (situation, task, action, result). If you’re not familiar you can check out this excellent article on how to use STAR to deliver knockout interview answers.
Beyond STAR, the key to success is to read the room and change your answers based on the non-verbal feedback you’re getting. If you see the interviewer’s eyes start to glaze over, speed up and so on.
4) Complete solid research and prepare 2 good questions
Understand the company, the role and think about likely questions. Being able to pre-empt questions will enable you to answers them a lot more succinctly in the interview. You want to end the interview on a high. Best practice is to not ask questions about salary. You can see over 50 example questions if you’re unsure what to ask.
5) What should you do if you answer a question poorly in an interview?
No body is perfect. We all make mistakes and that happens in interviews too. One of the most impactful things you can do in an interview if you make a mistake is to call it out. At the end of the interview this may sound some variation of:
“Before I ask you a question i’d like to first acknowledge that my answer on X was poor. Despite having good examples my mind went blank in this instance. If it’s OK with you I’d like to follow-up with an example of this after the interview“
The reason why this kind of statement is so powerful is because it demonstrates self awareness, which is a highly sought after quality. It also demonstrates how you work in practice (ie, you made a mistake, identified it and you’ve set in place an action plan to overcome it)
And finally, remember that your interviewer really wants you to do well. If you’re a great candidate it makes their life easier.
Benefits & Support
If you’ve lost your job you may be entitled to benefits to help support you. The amount of benefits you can access will depend on a couple of factors such as your National Insurance Contributions (NICs), how long you were working for, when you left your job and your household circumstances.
You may be wondering, what benefits am I entitled to? The first place to start is to use an unemployment benefits calculator website, where you enter your information and it will show you all of the unemployment benefits you’re entitled to. Start by visiting Turn2us or entitledto.
The Money Advice Service also has a lot of helpful resources around benefits and debt help that you may find helpful
If you have lost your job the principle benefit available is called new-style Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA). There may also be support beyond JSA, including childcare, housing and others through universal credit. Universal Credit replaces the majority of the different benefits into one payment and one scheme (including Housing Benefit, Tax Credits etc…).
Let’s look at the types of benefits:
New-style Jobseeker’s Allowance
You may be able to claim the new style jobseekers allowance if you have made enough Class 1 National Insurance Contributions in the last 2 years.
If you are eligible, you can claim JSA for up to 6 months. JSA is not income-assessed, so your spousal or household income doesn’t affect your eligibility. This is agreat starting place for redunancy support.
Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance is one of the benefits that is being replaced by Universal Credit. You will be able to apply for this benefit if you fit any of the two criteria:
- 1) get the Severe Disability Premium, or are entitled to it
- 2) got, or were entitled to, the Severe Disability Premium in the last month and are still eligible.
Meeting these criteria means you won’t need to apply for Universal Credit for this benefit. The other call-out is that savings over £6,000 will affect the amount you can claim through Income-Based Jobseeker’s Allowance.
Universal Credits
You may also be eligible for Universal Credits. As explained on Gov.UK’s application page you may be eligible to claim Universal Credits from HMRC if:
- you’re on a low income or out of work
- you’re 18 or over (there are some exceptions if you’re 16 to 17)
- you’re under State Pension age (or your partner is)
- you and your partner have £16,000 or less in savings between you
- you live in the UK
You can find a full guide
Useful Resources
Council tax reduction (explore)
Help with mortgage interest payment (explore)
Welfare & educational grants (explore)
Your redundancy rights [redundancy help UK] (explore)
Debt support (Citizens Advice, step change debt charity, National debt line)
How to start a business
Also known as ‘redundant-preneurs’ an increasing number of people are looking to turn redundancy into an opportunity. in fact, many great entrepreneurs founded their company following a redundancy.
If this is something that excites you, start by casting your eye over the 170+ grants available on the government’s website for business finance support. Those grants are a creative and positive place to start when looking for redundancy help.
How to find a co-founder🔬
If you feel you would benefit from another person in your startup team but don’t know anyone, fear not. There are websites online that will help you find a co-founder. You can check out Founders Nation, Founders2be, and the Launch.
How to start a business 🤔
There are lots of outstanding resources on how to start a business online. Here a few links to some very detailed guides (read a couple and refine your preferred strategy)
15 step to start a business with no money (read)
Step-by-step to starting your business (read)
British Business Bank advice (read)
And for balance, here is a ‘higher level view’ from Elon Musk which you may also find helpful
Develop your customer value proposition ✅
Everybody has different approaches to growing and scaling a business. One of the questions you should be able to answer confidently is your value proposition. This asks ‘why would a consumer use this product? What value does someone get by using you instead of another service?’
Create your Minimal Viable Product (MVP) 🚀
Your minimal viable product is one of the most important concepts in setting up a business. The concept was made famous in ‘The Lean Startup‘.
So, what is it and why is it so important? As Agile Alliance explained:
Eric Ries, defined an MVP as that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. This validated learning comes in the form of whether your customers will actually purchase your product.
A key premise behind the idea of MVP is that you produce an actual product (which may be no more than a landing page, or a service with an appearance of automation, but which is fully manual behind the scenes) that you can offer to customers and observe their actual behaviour with the product or service. Seeing what people actually do with respect to a product is much more reliable than asking people what they would do.
The below graphic from Lanars illustrates this concept well:
Creating an MVP allows you to test your business idea works and that customers want to buy your product or service whilst spending the least amount of time and money.
Business ideas 2022 💡
So you want to start a business or a side hustle but are lacking inspiration? Here are a few starting points to help give you inspiration.
60 business or side hustle ideas curated by home protect (read)
100 business ideas you can start today (read)
100 Startup business ideas (read)
10 small business ideas that need to be created (read)
Businesses don’t need to be revolutionary to be successful. And here are 3 examples if you are looking for quick-fire inspiration:
1) A Business on Fiver or Upwork
With online marketplaces such as Fiver or Upwork you can sell your skills to a global market place. You create a profile, set your price and you’re off to a good start. Marketable skills vary wildly; you can be paid for customer service, sales, blogging, copywriting, coding and hundreds of others.
2) Buy and Sell on ebay
Tread with caution, but if you have expertise in a particular area you can look to transfer your skills into a buying and selling marketplace. Take excellent photos and do a lot of research (10 tips for new ebay sellers).
3) The art of the side hustle
If you have a car you can start looking at earning some quick cash with Uber. With a bike you can start looking at Deliveroo. You could even make money completing surveys for institutions such as YouGov.
Join a community 👨🏼💻
Great businesses are not built in isolation. You’ll dramatically increase your chances of success by building a solid community of likeminded people, entrepreneurs and mentors. r/startup is an active online community on reddit where you can field questions and learn more. You may find it helpful to google ‘local incubators’ or ‘start up support’ to find nearby programmes and accelerators.
How to save money
We’ve focussed everything on the income side of the equation, now let’s turn to the other side: your outgoings.
Here are 5 ways you can reduce your household expenditure:
1) Reduce the cost of your bills
The quickest way to shave hundreds a year off your bills is to see if can save by switching providers. You can compare the market for energy, broadband, insurance, mortgages and lots of others. In some cases this can be over £500 a year. You could be on the best deal, but it’s certainly worth checking. From an energy perspective, you can also look at being more efficient to reduce your bill. If you’re not sure what the average in the UK is for your household, you can see our guide to the Average UK energy bill.
2) Upgrade your budget
One out of three people have no budget whatsoever. If you have a life-changing event it’s important to revisit your budget and create a new one if you income has changed. You may find the below graphic helpful. You can see more information on our guide for ‘how to budget‘ if you’d like to learn more.
3) Switch-up your spending habits
Nobody enjoys spending less necessarily, however making a few small trade offs can have a huge impact. This could involve switching you regular supermarket to a low-cost challenger such as Lidl or Aldi. Instead of buying coffees out every day, you may prefer to scale back and make more at home. You may wish to incorporate a ’30 day rule’ which says you have to wait 30 days before buying something you want, not need.
4) Consolidate your debt
If you have a series of debts you may find it financially advantageous to consolidate several of your debts into one with a lower interest rate. Step Change, one of the largest debt charities in the UK have a detailed guide on debt consolidation if you’d like to learn more. You may also want to check out the National Debt Advice website.
5) Invest & make your money work for you
Money sat under your mattress or in a general savings account won’t be making much in terms of interest. Think about which types of accounts of investments you could place your money into to start growing. You’ll want to keep an emergency fund of 3-6 months first to help provide stability for the worst case. The sooner you do, the sooner you can start to benefit from compound interest. See the below example from Dave Ramsey on the power of compound interest.
How to change careers
After leaving your job you may be of the view that you’d like to embark on a new career path -and you’re in good company. In fact, career change online’s research shows that people change careers 5-7 times across their life.
Changing careers will require time investment and commitment. And the advice for changing careers will be different dependant upon what you would like to do. Before you make the decision, consider if you could do work in this field for the next 15-20 years. Also ask yourself if you believe there will be a career for you there in 20 years.
Here is a list of 10 jobs automation may remove in the next 10 years. Thinking about this upfront will pay dividends for your future.
Since the advice of changing careers can be quite specific, we’ll link to some guides to shape your thinking below. After reading these, a great next step is to speak to someone who does the job you would like (Reddit & linkedIn are great places to start). They will be able to help you understand what skills you need and how they got into the industry.
How to change careers when you don’t know what you’re doing (read)
How to change your career and secure your next job (read)
How to change careers according to 50 people who did it (read)
And that concludes our guide on unemployment help, how to bounce back from COVID-19. If you have any thoughts on how to improve this guide or ideas, please let us know here. We look forward to seeing you when you next move home.
And if you’ve not used SlothMove yet and are wondering who we are: we’re the home setup service where you can tell everyone you’re changing address and set-up your new home within 5 minutes. Save hours of time, hundreds of pounds and even get rewards for moving.If you’re moving, you may find this guide on house prices useful.