Finding work in London

• UK jobsearching: I'm 26, and having a tough time finding any job in London - let alone one that's a good career prospect. Do you have any pointers, and in particular, advice on how to get reliable, short-term work to cover the gaps? I'm in London, UK. My CV is https://docs.google.com/document/d/15aIf4tt5TAgyvrOaCXtHcSArulGSgKhnXq7wTg3O5dA/edit?hl=en&authkey=CMvXr4YP, if anyone wants to see. I have a great English BA, and respectable A-levels/GCSEs, along with just over 4 years work experience. The trouble is, I haven't really been too career-minded during this period and my background is somewhat spotty, vague and broad. After Uni I spent 6 months doing temp office jobs, then spent 2.5 years working at a small, but successful company where I handled all the day to day affairs - it was mainly me who talked to customers from end to end, got us new clients and contracts, scheduled, bookkept/ran the database, handled credit control, ran the small office, did misc. tasks for the MD, offered ideas on new products, new procedures, etc etc... I've been styling myself as "Admin/Sales Manager" but it's hard to know if I'm pitching it right given the mixed levels of responsibility and lack of a clearly-defined job description. I left that since there was no prospect of promotion or payrise, but then just fell into a mishmash of stuff - a long freelance editing gig, stints returning to my original job for a month or so to cover for people, an 8-month data analysis project at a financial group, and some temp work. I've done well everywhere I've been, and handled some quite high-level stuff in terms of management, business development, PA skills and more, but it's always been under the guise of a generalist or nominally low-level person. The only really specific skills I have are in stuff like MS Office, which is hardly a rare asset. The trouble is, most of the jobs this sets me up for are either very low-wage admin, or cold-sales-heavy stuff like recruitment, telesales, etc, which I want to avoid. So, I'm still wrestling with the best way to match this to a job with decent prospects - ideally building on the ~£25k I was earning at the financial group, but at this point I'd take anything above £20k really - and to sell it properly on my CV. I'd like to work in the not-for-profit sector, and I've made some inroads on gaining skills, connections and knowledge about that, but it's likewise tough to break into. In that sector and in general, my experience for the last couple of years has been agencies registering me but then never getting back or responding to enquiries, and job applications falling into a bottomless void. Anyway, I don't really expect specific CV tips or whatever without going into more depth, but any general ideas or suggestions would be welcome. I also have a couple of specific questions: * I've thought about seeing something like a "career consultant" who can go through my background, aims etc, tell me where I've been going wrong and what I can do right. But it's hard to tell who's going to be able to help me, who's selling vague bumpf, who's overpriced, and who's just plain useless. Does anyone have any experience using these? Recommendations? Suggestions on how to find a worthwhile one? * While I search, things would be much more secure if I could get some kind of reliable short-term work, even if it was low-paid. I don't have any bar/retail experience, and would ideally like to avoid jobs where I'm dealing directly with customers all day, but can compromise. Given that agencies don't seem to have even low-level data-entry work for me -- unless I'm just missing something -- what are people's recommendations about filling-the-gaps jobs?

• Answer:

  I would consider cutting down your CV. Not many people are going to read it - most will only skim it. Write it with the knowledge that you only have about two seconds of someone's attention before they move on to the next CV. Take a look at the http://prospects.ac.uk/the_cv_centre.htm website. They offer a CV review service for a few pounds and they do a really good job. I had my CV looked at by them out of curiosity and they made some great suggestions.