Survival Jobs in London

When you first move to London as a graduate, or a young professional, you might need to take a survival job whilst you’re looking for a job in your chosen company or industry.

What is a survival job?

A survival job is usually a low-paying and often customer-facing job that a job-seeker would take on a temporary basis in order to cover basic living costs such as rent, bills and food. Jobs falling under the ‘survival jobs’ category could include barwork, shopwork, waitressing, or a basic office admin role.

If you’ve recently finished university, or have been working for a few years prior to your move to London, you may find a survival job to be completely beneath you. You (and possibly your family) might have spent a great deal of money and certainly time on your further education and the last thing you ever envisaged yourself doing with your BA(Hons) degree is to be pouring pints. But try and keep in mind that there are positives to take out of accepting a job that you never expected to have to do.

First of all, the best place you can be living in whilst looking for a job in London is……. London. So if working in a pizza restaurant is a way of supporting yourself whilst going for graduate job interviews, then that’s got to be a lot better than attempting to apply for jobs from your far-flung home location.

As much as many of us dream about giving up work and sitting at home watching Jeremy Kyle all day (no, really), in reality, this is quite a depressing existence. So for the sake of your own sanity, it’s a lot better to get out of the house and into a workplace – any workplace – so that you’re able to keep yourself busy for the day. This can also help combat depression if you’re feeling that this issue is getting too much for you.

You may not want to end up being the regional manager of your local supermarket chain, but there’s a high chance that by doing a survival job, you’ll actually learn skills that you could use in your future dream job. You might be able to learn or develop customer-service skills, touch-typing, a professional phone manner, cash-till operation or new software packages. Try and look for the positive in any survival job that you decide to accept.

Of course, not all survival jobs are going to be suitable for fitting in with your ongoing job-hunting. If you end up working extremely long hours, then you may not have any time to go to job interviews or recruitment agencies. So make sure you know how many hours and shifts you’ll be expected to work before you accept a low-paid job. Also be aware, that some ‘survival jobs’ will pay better than others, so make sure you know the going rate at other companies in a similar industry before you accept anything too menial.

Remember that a survival job is only a temporary measure to help you get on your feet when you first arrive in London. So long as you don’t accept any job that’s illegal or that is against your morals, then you might even find the experience to be positive and rewarding. You could even meet great new friends who find themselves in a similar circumstance to you. In the meantime, upload your most recent C.V and cover letter for FREE to Monster and enjoy doing lots of cheap things that London has to offer.

Graduate Work From Home Job

Graduate work from home opportunities are thin on the ground at the moment, so that’s why Moove2London wants to make all graduates moving to London aware of a freelance graduate job with AQA.

AQA, or Any Question Answered, is a text-based service allowing any mobile phone users to text ‘any’ question in to 63336 for the price of 98p or EUR1.50 from Ireland. Your question gets delivered to a team of expert graduate researchers, who will speedily investigate your question and return an answer to your mobile phone.

No question is too obscure for AQA. You can ask them sensible things like ‘when is the next train from London Bridge to Sydenham?’ or more ego-centric questions such as ‘who is Joe Bloggs?’ or ask them silly things like ‘Why do men have nipples?’.

Now, at the moment, AQA are currently recruiting graduates to join their research team. The position is completely freelance and home-based. You communicate with other AQA members only by email and Yahoo messenger. You will be paid on a per-question basis. Selection for this freelance position is tough. You’ll have to take a researcher test, which is notoriously difficult to pass, but give it a go. The job won’t make you a millionaire, but it could be just what you need to earn a few pounds whilst searching for a more permanent graduate position in these times. Visit AQA for further details.

CV Writing Tips for Jobs in London

In this economic climate, it’s essential to stand out from the crowd when applying for jobs in London. You need to pay particular attention to the way your C.V is written and worded before you send it out there. Read through these top C.V writing tips and compare them to your current resume.

1. There is no need to state ‘Curriculum Vitae’ in the title of your C.V. Simply state your name in large font, followed by your contact details -address, email and mobile phone number. If you’re a graduate, you should certainly include the letters after your name.

2. Keep the C.V to a maximum of 2 pages of A4. A prospective employer will be unimpressed by waffling and won’t have the time or interest to read through all the different Saturday jobs you had when you were 14. Where necessary, use bullet points to make your skills and experience seem punchy, rather than longwinded.

3. Try and use an interesting but formal style font. Times New Roman and Arial are extremely popular and therefore, nothing special. Be careful that your font choice isn’t too casual though. It must look professional.

4. Many C.Vs and application forms are sent/attached online these days. However, if the company you’re applying for a job with, have requested a C.V to be sent through the post, then you absolutely must invest in some quality paper. Try looking in Rymans or another stationer. When sifting through a pile of paperwork, a C.V on quality watermarked paper, will stand out from the crowd.

5. When sending your C.V out as an email attachment, it can be tempting to send it as an Adobe .pdf document. Although .pdfs undoubtedly look more professional than a Word document, not all I.T systems will have the software to read them. You do not want to be giving a potential employer the unnecessary chore of having to download Adobe reader in order to read your C.V. That would immediately be a blackmark against your name. The same applies to zipping software such as Winzip.

6. This is an extremely obvious, yet often forgotten about tip …. spellcheck and grammar check your C.V. When you’ve done this, pass it on to a friend to proof-read, so that it’s also been checked by ‘human eyes’.

7. Unless specifically asked not to, always enclose a cover letter with your C.V. This gives you chance to spend a couple of paragraphs elaborating on relevant experience or skills for the position that you’re applying for. You might want to impress by displaying proof that you’ve researched a little about the company you’re applying to work for. It’s always a good idea to state the reasons that you would particularly like to work for an organisation, as well as what you will bring to the role.

8. Do not use C.V-generating template software. Although you should definitely read around and apply tips such as these to your C.V, you really should build it from scratch. Remember, the key is that you want your C.V to stand out from the crowd, not to look like everyone elses.

9. If you know that you’ll receive a particularly glowing reference from a former boss or college tutor (only if the degree subject is relevant to the job you’re applying for), then with their permission, list their contact details towards the end of your C.V. Ideally you should have two references listed.

10. Do not over-complicate it. Above all else, remember the golden rule, which is ‘If they didn’t hear it, you didn’t say it’. It must be concise, impressive, yet easy to grasp.