After being furloughed and then made redundant from her job at Heathrow due to the pandemic Zeynab was referred to GRoW and has now started work as a Customer Service Desk Manager at Tesco Kensington Travel Money.
Zeynab said “My prime goal has been to get back into work but due to the current situation it’s not been easy. I was working at Heathrow at Travelex but was made redundant last September due to the ongoing pandemic. I was referred to GRoW from my Jobcentre and I have found it tremendously useful.
I have taken part in many of the activities GRoW has to offer, such as the weekly Coffee Morning and the Preparing to Work in Schools Programme which was really interesting. I would like to work in a school in the future as I feel it would give me and my children a better quality of life if I can work term-time.
I also took part in the CV Workshop and the Interview Workshop with Sonia. She helped me so much by giving me some really useful advice about how to introduce myself. She also ran through examples of typical questions with me such as how I work as part of a team and how I manage my time. This was great because I was able to think about how I addressed these points in my previous job and made me feel more confident about how to give good examples of real-life scenarios during a live interview.
I have felt really engaged with GRoW, checking the GRoW app daily, booking for their events and looking at the jobs they send out too. When a friend told me she had heard that Travel Money at Tesco Kensington were hiring I felt confident about going online and applying. They contacted me for an interview and offered me a part-time job working 16 hours a week as a Customer Service Desk Manager. I started this week and had my induction yesterday and they have already asked if I would be interested in working more hours.
All of the activities and support GRoW has given me has been fantastic but what they gave me most was hope. I always felt I was in good hands, could ask whatever question I wanted and know I would be given good advice. With the support from the GRoW sessions I’ve felt more motivated and it has given me the confidence to move forward.”