Football clubs can kick off your career with apprenticeships and training
Clubs including Spurs, Liverpool and Southampton are transforming the lives of their communities by offering work schemes
COULD your local footie club help you get a winning career?
With the World Cup kicking off in Russia next week, the focus will be on the game’s international impact. But closer to home, clubs are transforming the lives of people in communities who are looking for work.
More than 70 big-name sides across the country, including Newcastle United, Liverpool and Southampton, now run their own foundations. They help to place local people into club-related jobs and provide apprenticeships, training and “back to work” skills such as CV-writing and how to interview for jobs.
Some football clubs such as Spurs are taking it even further, using the game as a way to get ex-offenders back on track.
They often work in some of the most deprived communities in the UK.
The club foundations provide a lifeline for people struggling in society, including youngsters who have fallen out of education, and unemployed people with learning difficulties or mental health problems.
Are you keen to sign up to your local club’s scheme?
Clubs take referrals from sources including local auth-orities, grassroots community organisations, colleges, the Probation Service, health advice and support providers, Jobcentre Plus and businesses.
Contact your club or look on its website to find the best way to get involved.
You can also log on to and visit .
SPURRED INTO NEW ROLE
JORDAN MATTIS has gone from job-hunting ex-prisoner to rising star at Sainsbury’s after signing with the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation.
The programme is helping to fill around 3,500 jobs in fields such as retail, construction, hospitality, IT and security, created as part of the North London club’s new stadium-building project.
Jordan, 21, from Tottenham, says: “The support I have received has changed my life. I spent 20 months in prison. I am naturally confident but the barriers I faced on release knocked my confidence down to almost zero.
“I thought I was going to be in a loop where employers looked at my CV and saw just a criminal record. But the support I have had from the foundation has helped me rebuild my confidence, especially at interview.
“I was given a mentor, plus work skills support, and in the space of ten months went from jobless and hot-headed, having ambition but not enough drive, to getting a job at Sainsbury’s, being promoted to a manager – and qualifying as a personal trainer.”
- JOBSPOT: SUPERDRUG is recruiting for more than 370 roles nationwide, from sales advisers to store management. Apply at
Ways to boost your CV
EACH week you can quiz an employment expert to help you climb the career ladder.
This week, reader Katie Barnes, from Horsham, West Sussex, asks Sophie Andrews, CEO of friendship charity The Silver Line and former national chairman of Samaritans: “I have been out of work. Can volunteering boost my CV?”
Sophie says: “Employers are now looking wider than qualifications. They take into account skills and experience from volunteering.”
Here are her tips:
1. Look for organisations within the sector you want to work in so you begin to make the right contacts.
2. Volunteering can offer training. For example, fundraising volunteers can develop transferable project management and sales skills.
3. Be a force for good. Firms are increasingly promoting corporate social responsibility issues. Volunteering shows you “fit” this profile.
4. Network. Volunteering brings you into contact with a wide range of people and will help you find more opportunities for work.
5. Consider your next step. Volunteering for an organisation can offer a stepping stone to paid employment within it.
6. Send your questions to [email protected].
Find love at work...
IS your workplace hotter than Love Island?
Employees are more likely to meet a new lover at work than any other way, according to a study from Totaljobs.
It found 22 per cent have done so, compared to 18 per cent who met through friends and 13 per via online dating, in a bar or at a club.
- JOBSPOT: THE new Bear Grylls adventure park near Birmingham is hiring “adrenalin advisers” to test the attractions before it opens. To apply, post your recent adventure video or photos to Instagram page using #AdrenalinAdvisor
LODGE YOUR CLAIM
TRAVELODGE has 1,785 jobs up for grabs this summer across its 546 hotels.
Of these, 1,167 are permanent and need filling immediately.
Roles on offer include hotel managers, assistant managers, bar assistants, housekeepers, cleaners and receptionists.
Entire teams are needed for new openings at London City; Telford, Shrops; Welwyn Garden City, Herts; Redruth, Cornwall and Gainsborough, Lincs.
There are also 36 head office positions in Thame, Oxfordshire in IT, revenue, HR, marketing, customer services and sales.
Craig Bonnar, chief operating officer, said: “Travelodge opens the door to training, coaching and career progression.”
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Twelve per cent of all adults have managed to do this but for the under-35s that figure jumps to 20 per cent, with a further 17 per cent poised to do so.
Top sectors are tech (15 per cent), music (11 per cent) and food and drink (ten per cent), the poll by Microsoft shows.
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