Jola Bednarska
Customer Service Course
Skills conditionality has been designed to give people the skills they need to find sustainable employment more efficiently.
As part of skills conditionality, and based on sector-focused employability toolkits developed by Sector Skills Councils, Kensington & Chelsea College (KCC) offers several courses to individuals on Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) or Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).
Customer Services is one the courses on offer and gives clients the opportunity to gain a recognised qualification and the skills required to deliver efficient and reliable customer service in the workplace.
As part of the course participants also attend a college ‘Work Club' which specialises in providing support in finding employment. Among the support offered through the work club is the advice and guidance of an enterprise coach who is able to assist with career choices, prepping for interviews and helping write CVs
Jola Bednarska
Jola Bednarska moved to the UK a few years ago and has always been in employment – until recently when she lost her job as an Administrative Assistant. It had been a frustrating period as Jola was not used to being out of work and her confidence was dropping.
On being referred to KCC and Jola enrolled onto the Customer Service course. During the course Jola had been invited to a job interview. To support her through the interview Jola completed a mock interview with the Enterprise Coach. Having received constructive feedback she went to the interview with increased confidence. She was however not offered the job as the previous employee had withdrawn their resignation.
This was quite a blow, but for the coach it meant even more interview practice to boost Jola's confidence. He also pointed out that Jola was bilingual (English and Polish) – and encouraged Jola to approach Polish companies operating in the UK as her language skills would be an asset.
Jola soon responded to an advertisement made on a polish ex-pat website and was offered an interview. She completed another mock interview with the coach and as her confidence grew she performed exceptionally in the real interview and was offered a full time position for the applied job.
