Countless job applications and 7 rejections later.. I HAVE A JOB!

Applying for  jobs was becoming a hobby, the end result of actually getting a job started to become less important. The first thing i would do and the last thing at night was to apply or search for a jobs.  The majority of interviews and the job i got was found on Gumtree. A lot if people don't give it a chance but i would recommend it. Also Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter each found me a potential job to apply for.
 We all have experienced in our lifetime the sheer prep there is in applying for job. From filling out an application form, writing a covering letter, researching the company, preparing for the interview. It's a lot of work in itself. After the seventh rejection i was certainly feeling down and out. I stopped telling people i had interviews for places, as my superstition kicked in.


With only £20 left of my overdraft, the heavens opened and the sun shone and i finally heard those words. 'We would like to offer you the job'. Relief, disbelief and happiness was the first things i felt all rolled up into one. My insomnia sleeping pattern suddenly had a rude awaking to the early bedtime routines. It replaced a 40 hours week with weekends to appreciate.

Where I work....

I would at a printing company, based in Ancoats who's main focus are B2B. My role within the company comes under the title of  Customer Service Representative. Don't underestimate the job title, there is a lot more than meets the eye. I will revised this blog in due course with some of my duties.


Everyone is really friendly and helpful, the whole team are professional and produce quality products for their clients. I've only been there a week today so I can't tell you much at the moment but i will definitely will keep you informed. I feel i will be happy there for a number of years and excited of where i could go within the company.



Some advice i can give to people who are looking for a job is just to keep going. I'm not saying i didn't have weeks of having meltdowns, doubting my abilities or secluding myself from the world. When i snapped out of the mode it was full steam ahead for the next couple of weeks. It's been two years since leaving university and i finally got my foot in the door. I can safely say that my experience on my cv, not having to many gaps it in really helped. Be proactive.  Did i mention i cant wait for pay day!!

#Hashtag Twitter Chats

I've been on twitter for almost 3 years and has never followed and be involved in a 'hash tag twitter chat' until now!  A couple weeks ago I followed chat, it was all about how to market your business around holiday events to drive sales. i.e valentines day, christmas, easter. The main focus was around Valentines day as it was approaching. It was sponsored by Amazon and had people who were experts in marketing, business owners, graduates, students and ordinary folk from around the world answering 9 questions that were put to the participants.  If you want to look back at the chat the hash tag used was '#smbvalentine'

Anita Campbell,  a Forbes Top Influential Woman for Entrepreneurs had some great answers as did the other participants; so much i downloaded the whole transcript. Whether I set up my own business, a consultant to a start up or working in a agency these tips and tricks would going to come in handy. 


As I didn't major in marketing, it has been a learning curve and the chat pointed out some things i would of never thought about, for instance a marketing calendar. Here's one i found displayed as an infographic. Note that when you make a generic calendar and list all the holidays doesn't mean you should use them all some may not compliment your business. Another tip I learnt, you don't have to be so obvious marketing ideas around Valentines day doing a ' love your customer event'  'Wrap your purchase with love', realtors using Valentine’s Day theme “Fall in love again … with a new home.”

. If you were using location based strategy you could collaborate with a restaurant or flowers shop ' Spend over £30 and get 20% off at Fiona's flower shop' 

I never knew that Facebook allows targeting based on relationship status for laser-focused ads. All in all i really enjoyed the chat and best of all it was free and I didn't have to leave my house or change out of my pajamas! 

This got me thinking also if you were a small business getting feedback from customers and potential customers would be key. I have in the past have started a blog on projects, however as a really small team it was very time consuming but hold a tweet chat every month on different fun topics that would entice them and in turn get you get feedback you can analyse is a win win. Plus you would be creating a community through social media.


As this blog is called Get a life I would love to host a twitter chat on a hot topics so we can all bounce and learn of each other.

Get a life: Friends venturing out around the world

The last two years the amount of friends that have gone abroad for either a new life or for a gap year is unbelievable.


All of them have a similar reasons of why they are packing up and leaving everything behind. They believe that there is more opportunity abroad, that more employers will give them a chance when it becomes job propects. Number one reason is lifestyle change. They want to live life instead of existing in life.


It's quite sad to think so many people want to leave the only country they've ever known to go out into the unknown. It sad to think the country doesnt offer what they want which isnt much.

However. one of my friends Josie, left for Hong Kong last year January, but sadly returned to the uk in October. Read why from her person blog. On the other hand Louise  loves Hong Kong and is there for a year as part of her Business course at Manchester Metropolitan Univeristy. She vows to come back to England graduate and find a job somewhere in the world other the England. She's had a taste and wants more.

Others have gone to Australia, France, China, Thailand, America just to name a few.


How do you feel about your home country? Have you took the plunge and left your native country and settled somewhere else?  Did you settle somewhere else and now back in your homeland?
I want to know your thoughts let me know.

Get A Life: Finding a opportunity in everything

Sometimes i'd wish my brain would switch off and stop conjuring up ideas or soultions for problems, but then i wouldn't be me!!

So my dearest mother is from Barbados and every week she gets their national paper called The Nation. It's just another way of keeping up to date with things. Anyway there was an article in there titled 'We need new ideas" well you know my attentiveness grew and i wanted to know more...


To cut the long story short is was all about them needing new ideas brought to the table to entice more tourists to the island, as the number have dwindled since the recession. After reading that article ideas came to like night and day. Whether they were over the top ideas i just wrote then down.
I didnt stop there, people have said in the past once im hooked on something i will research so much i could tell someone i invented it and they would believe me!

In the article it mentioned the president of tourism for Barbados, my investigative soul couldn't help but the use my catch-phase i've been using for years that i used to get bullied for in high school! 'Google It' How the word changes, in your face! I found him on Linkedin and sent him a short message with a few rough ideas, i never thought he would get back to me. He did! He liked what i had to say (i think he like my initiative approach more than anything) He passed on my details to the new president of tourism as he was finishing his term.

A nervous wait, but soon she got in contact and quoting her words... 'I had a look at your ideas below and I think that many of them are really good and worthy of further discussion.  I believe the best idea would be for me to forward your ideas to our Marketing Committee Chairperson so that you can meet and determine the best way to move some of these ideas forward.' 

Well this had made my night, as at that moment of time i was sat in bingo trying to pay my next phone bill. It made me feel like maybe i did had a skill to offer to organisation. If you have been in my shoes after a while you start questioning yourself and your abilities if no company will give you a job. Especially in the creative world, when your skill can't be physically seen like a web designer, graphic designer, fashion designer etc. 

It gave me an extra boost and incentive to show someone what i'm made of.  

Tip: Make your own opportunities, if you have an opinion about something or a suggestion to solve  a problem don't just keep to yourself or tell your friends. Tell that person/organisation what have you got to lose? What you got to gain? Well in my personal circumstance they now know my name, who I am, I have shown that i'm not afraid to voice my opinion, that i want to help solve a problem and i have gritty determination.


Find out what my next step was...

Get A Life: Looking further afield

As you know from the previous blog I graduated in July 2011, brimming with excitement doing everything possible to get noticed. I went to numerous networking events, with my final group project i was one of three who went out to numerous companies to pitch so i was collecting business like i was collect shoes. By January 2012 my optimism was wearing thin, people telling me how brilliant i was was getting hard to believe because the ultimate way to show this wasn't happening. I was still un-employed. I either didn't have enough experience, even though what i did have for just being 5 months out of university was pretty good. My writing skills weren't good enough, I can't really blame my dyslexia fully. I was over qualified for the position i was applying for. Someone had more experience than me. It's not what you know, it's who you know ringed in my mind a few times.

I knew a lot of people at the time were moving aboard or moving cities as they had secured jobs or decided to take the plunge and look elsewhere. As much as i didn't want to move, not because i would miss Manchester but the finer details of finding somewhere to live, finding a job, building new friendships would be hard work.

Throwing caution to the wind nerves me, ask anyone i'm a planner but March came round and application to America and Barbados starting flying out. Why these two places you say? Well my friend went to New York for 3 months; she's a fashion photographer her experience of meeting people and been given chances to showcase her talents in the industry; made me think. My sister's friend left for the big apple 10 years after emailing a company with her ideas, got job and then eventually set up her own successful business.

Barbados, the sun, sand and beach for one. Two I just believe there's more that be can be over there to exploit the island. I googled every sort of creative agency there could be, not thinking there would be many. However  i was wrong. I then started emailing them all asking for an internship or work placement with their company when i return to the island. Within 3 days I had over 6 replies expressing their interest in taking be on for a few days a week. I was amazed, as I had been constantly emailing companies for any sort of job in England and had no replies, not even to say I didn't get the job. I wanted to hop on a plane and go then!

It was something to focus on, even if nothing came out of it. They replied, which implied my cv was good or my opening spiel in the email caught their eye. I started to feel positive again, I started to feel my luck may finally change.

Tip: Be flexible, it would be nice to stay in your hometown but sometimes when the tough gets going, you just have to cast your net a little further. Make yourself known go to networking events in your area, sign up to twitter and have a business card handy.

Who am i?

Alisha Forrester. T: @maverick2design

It's been a long time I've been signed up since March 2011, i'm not a big blogger but I've decided to try and start. If it's not work, life, love or trying to gain a degree its having a cocktail in my right hand and a interesting book in my left that stops from getting started on my blog. So let's by having a little background on the one and only shall we.....

Born in the late 80's surrounded by noise from 3 older siblings and nephew, the constant pirate radio station playing the latest reggae and calypso tunes and a mother whos trusted best friend was her cake making machine and sewing machine.  Ever since i can remember,  i was always the type of person that liked plan my life out, i decided i wanted to be a computer programmer. Not knowing what that involved i was adamant that was my job role plus a ranger rover parked outside my house that was the size of buckingham palace.

Fast forward to the days when Britney spears was toxic and 50 cent was 'in da club'  still my job role was to become a computer programmer so I took information Technology as a GCSE which wasn't the greatest.
    College, I studied a btec national diploma in ICT, each module covered every aspect of ICT and that's where as if a light shone bright above my head, I decided I wanted to become a Website designer.  Why? because i enjoyed making something astehically pleasing to the eye.

In 2007, I enrolled at the University of Salford onto a course that unfortunately was all geek and no design. I stumbled onto the course I graduated in called Design Futures, which was right up my street. From being on this course i came to the conclusion that there is more to design then designing something and that there is more behind the scenes and more roles to produce art work or a product.

With all the projects we were given, it gave me the chance to 'play' different roles in an organisation and that eureka struct! Marketing strategies, business development and idea generation are my passion and even before i graduated i started building up my portfolio with a 3 month internship at Photolink Creative Group. Working with another intern, on then a new venture which has sky rocketed, Little Black Dress, we worked together coming up with ideas and Stephanie writing fantastic content.

From there on i did a few more paid work for them and got myself a mentor, who happened to be the founder of NorthernSoho. Time went by and my positivity and enthusiasm slowly was fading as every headline in the paper was 'Students coming out of university will have a hard time finding a job'. The economy was taking a nose dive and getting any type of job was hard. That was then(graduated 2011). That is still now, the end of 2012 and all i've managed to secure is a one day a week job. Keeping myself occupied in the mean time i have been doing some freelance jobs, writing a marketing strategy for a jazz band, Yasmin and the Wild Things.


My entrepreneurship has never left my side. I tried to set up a networking organisation, Creative Championships,which had great feedback on the idea however the team all found jobs and couldn't commit which i fully understood.

So thats me really, you're are now fully up to date with my 23 years of existence. If you want to know how it came about me travelling aboard in a few weeks to try and impress important to maybe land a job just read my next post!


p.s Apologies on the aesthetic at the moment, i'm a newbie!