Twining helped me fulfil my dream of a professional job!

Hamid came to the UK 12 years ago – initially just for a holiday, but then couldn’t return to his home country which meant he lost everything and needed to start a new life.  This included looking for work so he could support himself and his family.  Hamid tells us how following a deterioration in his mental health due to the challenges he was facing, he found Twining Enterprise and his Employment Specialist Amina, who turned his life around.  Here is Hamid’s story in his own words…

To find work in the UK I started by volunteering for a charity and learnt English; I then tried to find a paid job but was not successful.  I ended up applying for thousands of jobs but only got one interview and didn’t get the job.

I decided to do some study here in the UK and successfully did an MBA course, however, this didn’t help me to find a job here either.  I decided I needed to begin with a company and get my foot in the door. So, I started working for a big household name doing deliveries, with the hope of finding a more professional role within that company.  However, the company didn’t accept my desire to move within the company.

During that period of time my mental health got worse and worse and worse, and I eventually lost the ability to leave the house and I had to stay at home, because I literally couldn’t leave my house.  I couldn’t even do my normal daily jobs.  Everything was affected by the deterioration in my mental health.

During this time my GP and the Jobcentre plus helped me a lot; one of the things they did was refer me to Twining Enterprise.  I quickly had contact from Twining and then I had my first meeting with Amina.

The meeting was incredibly helpful and I got some critical ideas from Amina.  The first idea was that I have to focus on only one job – not apply for lots of jobs, but focus on just one.  I was then able to prepare myself to answer interview questions in relation to that specific job.  Amina continuously worked with me to teach me to be ready for interviews and how to prepare myself to answer different interview questions.  She also helped me to prepare my CV, so after a few months with her I had an organised CV and more confidence to answer interview questions.

I then applied for many more jobs and got some interviews too.  However, I was still unsuccessful in actually getting offered a job.  I asked for interview feedback and was pleased to find out that I’d made the top 5.  So, I had made progress, but it wasn’t quite good enough as I still didn’t have a job offer.

Amina helped me to understand that if I’m applying for jobs, but not getting them, then maybe I was going for the wrong job.  I thought about what I am good at, and what I have experience in, and I got onto a training course in data analysis.  After the course I updated my knowledge of the job market in this area and I went back to Amina and practiced my interview skills again.

I then applied for around 200 jobs and got several interviews and… I finally got a job offer!!  This felt amazing…  I know this job is the first step on the ladder, but I’m on the right ladder now, and I know I can progress quickly.  I am also still waiting for other job interviews to come back to me to see if I have more job offers!  I might even find myself in a position to choose a job!

My dream last year had been to start in a professional job with a good company – and now I have achieved that!  It's now the beginning of a new career for me and I know I can do well.  My mental health can still be challenging, I still can’t leave my house, but my new job really matches my situation.  The company trusts me and knows I can do the job, so I can work from home which minimises triggers to my mental health. 

The support that Amina provided me with was of a much higher standard than what I was expecting from someone in her role of ‘supporter’.  For example, I had a support worker during studying for my MBA, to help me get a job, but the level of support I got from Amina was something else – she supported me like she would support a brother.  I really, really, owe her a lot.  What I have achieved now is all thanks to the help that she gave me last year.  She gave me confidence, telling me “Hamid you can do it” and I used all the skills she developed in me and help she provided me with.  She was the reason I got the job!

Amina said, “Hamid is such a deserving person that the time I have spent with him was always well spent because he always took stock in a humble way of what I taught him and put it into practice; Hamid is a wonderful, incredibly talented individual and I wish him well in his new career.  He will be a real asset.”

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