Skint Graduate Year 1. Finding My Way!

2004 - After graduating with a BSc Hons in Sport Science I spent a summer working in Greece. In December of 2004 I took a job as a recruitment consultant. With my outgoing, bubbly character and good education apparently I was exactly the type of person they were looking for. Good with people and with great communication skills I was trained intensively to become a hard working, go getting, pushy sales person. It seemed like I worked all hours possible, early starts, late finishes. No time for a personal life and constantly stressed and upset with my poor performance at work. After 9 months I decided I could not continue doing a job that made me so unhappy. I got a job as a temp, doing very dull administration work at a local university. To be honest I was not sure what was worse, doing dull admin or being stressed and too busy as a consultant.

Christmas Eve 2005, my temp job was finished and I still did not have work confirmed for the start of the new year. I was upset with the situation I had got myself into and feeling totally fed up. My Dad took me and my siblings out for a drive and to visit our Grandmother, who unfortunately I very rarely get to see anymore since leaving home. Dad was talking away in the car about his job and how he got started in it. It sounded exciting and interesting. It suddenly dawned on me that I was imagining myself doing his job, as a Police Officer. Something I do not think I had ever done before.

Dad had been in the Police forever! He and Mum met when they were cadets. Though Mum had left a few years later, Dad had carried on and was now an Inspector. I started asking him questions about the job and if he thought I could do it. I was surprised by his reaction saying he thought I would be very good at it as I had such good people skills, along with a list of other attributes he thought suitable to being a Police Officer. So January came and I got another 3 month Temp job. Again in Admin.

I started looking into careers in the police and other areas such as immigration and customs. I applied for a couple of jobs but was unsuccessful. The local paper was advertising for Community Support Officers, so I got an application form. Then I saw that they were trying to recruit for Officers too. I printed the application form and started to draft my answers to the questions.