Getting that first job in Portsmouth

If you've just left school after your GCSE or A level exams and haven’t chosen to go to college or university, looking at the job market is the next step. Portsmouth jobs are available in a number of entry level positions so it’s about deciding the skills you have, the subjects you enjoyed most at school and the kind of job you'd like to do.

Many employers now offer training along with a job such as day release to college or a work-based NVQ. There’s also the national Apprenticeship scheme where you are trained over a period of time in your job and also have the chance to improve your Maths and English qualifications if you didn’t achieve grade A-C at GCSE.

If you're not sure what you want to do, here are some ideas which relate to local employers

Local government

Local government – also called local authorities or the council, give any school leaver a fantastic chance to learn about many areas of life. The council has a great number of departments which may have vacancies; education, social services, highways or libraries as well as the behind the scenes departments such as accounts, human resources and IT. There are thousands of staff who work at large local authorities and there are often schemes aimed at recruiting 16–18 year old. Working for a council will give you an incredible range of life skills such as customer services, learning about business planning and basic time management and organization

Healthcare

Working for a hospital opens up such a large number of roles, it is impossible to list them all. It depends if you want to work in a clinical area such as working on a warding treating patients or to be part of one of the many support services such as patient records, pathology, hematology or departments similar to the local authority; IT or finance perhaps.

Working in a hospital will bring you into contact with many people and can be incredibly rewarding. If you want to work on a ward, you can be either an auxiliary or Health Care Assistant and look towards working as a nurse or if you want to work in one of the other departments, there are plenty of opportunities to train for a fascinating career.

Transport

Portsmouth offers excellent transport links around the city and beyond. It has a large bus service network, more than one train station, a large international ferry port and is only 20 minutes away from Southampton Airport.

Working in transport opens up jobs such as looking after passengers, driving the vehicles such as buses and ferries, working in the offices taking passenger enquiries or being part of the network management.

Hospitality

Being a large city with excellent links to London to the north for commuters, those who want to visit the fantastic city itself and then through into the New Forest and Dorset means that there are many hotels for long or short stay visitors.

Working in hospitality is a wide industry sector and when related to hotels can mean receptionist staff, concierge services, events management or being part of the hotel bar team.

All these positions offer great career progression and working in one area will often mean an easy transition to another.

There’s a fantastic structure of nationally recognised hospitality qualifications available; these are often offered alongside trainee positions which give an overall introduction to the role and also the roles of those you’d be working with.

If you are not sure what area you are keen to work in but know you are ready to follow your dreams, experts at Key Recruitment advise that the starting place is to compile a CV or if you are not sure how to do this, look for online tips or to talk to one of the many training providers who can help – often for no cost.

There’s a whole world of opportunities in Portsmouth, jobs are available to anyone who is keen and hard working.