Member Article

Jobs mean double delight for Merseyside couple!

A young couple from Merseyside who, for the past three years, have relentlessly looked for work, are delighted to have finally found jobs – alongside each other at BT’s super-sized call centre in Warrington.

Jennifer Stolk, 22, and her partner Oliver Newton, 21, who live together in Wavertree, owe their success to Manpower, BT and Ingeus, which delivers the government’s Work Programme throughout the North West, matching unemployed people with jobs and working with employers to help fill their vacancies. Both Jennifer and Oliver were considered ideal candidates for customer advisor jobs in BT’s retention department. They were interviewed by Manpower on the same day and they learned of their success within hours of each other.

Having jobs means the couple can finally look to the future but, Oliver points out, the satisfaction of being in work means far more just than having money in their pockets. “Between us, we applied for thousands of vacancies in all kinds of industries and our confidence suffered,” he said. “We began to think we were unemployable and, whilst we desperately wanted to stand on our own two feet, the constant rejection knocked us over.”

Ingeus supported them as they prepared for work, including helping them write effective CVs and understand what employers looked for in their new recruits. They were both invited to attend ‘Mersey Futures’, a major employment fair for young people organised by Ingeus earlier this year at Liverpool’s Echo Arena. There, they met representatives from Manpower and BT and handed in their CVs. Shortly afterwards, they were both selected for job interviews and they willingly embarked on the rigorous recruitment process jointly managed by Manpower and Ingeus.

“We have worked in partnership with Ingeus for some time now to find the right people to fill our vacancies here at BT,” said Gill Wragg, HR Team Leader at Manpower. “Our confidence is high because we know Ingeus assesses its client thoroughly for the variety of roles we offer. They understand our business and the kind of people we need to make it successful, and Jennifer and Oliver are really good illustrations of our relationship working at its best.”

Tracey Parkinson is an Ingeus Employer Partnership Coordinator in the North West. “Our role is to work with employers and unemployed people and find the best match between the two,” she said. “We were confident that both Jennifer and Oliver had the right blend of skills and enthusiasm to work for BT. We are so pleased that Jennifer and Oliver have been successful but, having seen them in our office almost every day, we all now really miss them!”

Manpower was also able to benefit from the government’s Youth Contract, which provides a wage subsidy to employers who offer jobs to people aged between 18 and 24 on the Work Programme.

Jennifer added, “Ingeus and Manpower have supported us and helped us gain our independence through work. What they could do, they did, and it’s given us the step up in life that we desperately sought. Neither of us wanted to be unemployed and so we now feel as though there is real future ahead of us.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ingeus .