Matthew’s
Story

Matthew is someone who likes to spend time with his family and friends. He was staying at home and going out with friends also finding little jobs to help his dad with at home. Matthew lacked direction and felt like he was stuck in a rut also he lacked confidence and was in a position of struggling to find work. The main reason for this seemed to be Matthew’s confidence in interviews.

Matthew was then referred to the Youth Employment Service directly from the DWP. After explaining his situation to our Youth Employment Coach Matt, they booked some 121 sessions where they could focus solely on Matthew’s needs. They began by doing some sessions centred around interview skills and mock interviews focusing on the popular questions and how to break them down. They even roleplayed them and rotated the questions for each scenario. Matt could see from this that Matthew’s confidence was starting to emerge. He could see he wasn’t so worried about each question that he was going to face.

Matt and Matthew also had a session where they were able to look over Matthew’s CV making a few minor adjustments so that this would stand out.

While all of this was happening, Matthew was also going through some personal challenges and during a 121 with Matt, Matthew was visibly not himself.  Matt made it his focus this session to be a listening ear and provide him with any extra support he needed as he could tell that Matthew was going through a tough time. This session was very important for Matthew and helped him to continue moving forward with all the new skills he had been learning in his other 121 sessions.

From this Matthew got busy applying for jobs he had seen, and he did receive invitations to a few additional interviews from this.

Not long after one of the employers offered Matthew a job working as a kitchen assistant/pot washer at a restaurant called The Last Anchor. he now works 20 hours per week and they have offered to teach him the ropes in the kitchen with the potential to learn so much more.

His time with YES meant that Matthew was able to build up his confidence huge amounts and now finds himself not so worried about speaking to new people. This not only has helped him in the world of work it has also allowed him to make new friends in the process. Because of YES Matthew was also able to learn a lot of new skills including improving his confidence which he was able to use to his advantage in interviews.

Matthew would like to thank Matt his coach for all his support. He would also like to thank his friends and his parents for pushing him to keep on going and get himself a job.

Coaches Comments:

“Matthew is really flourishing in his new role as a kitchen assistant, and I visited him in his new place of work it’s a really nice restaurant on Quay in Ipswich and met some of his team who were really accommodating of my visit.”