My first ever job was when I was at college – I wanted some
extra money so I could “keep up” with my friends, have nights out, just have a
little more independence. It was at a very well-known supermarket, working in
the staff canteen. I worked there for a year before I moved away to go to
University. For a long while I didn’t have a job and just lived off of my
student loan, but over Christmas was the time when everybody needed that bit of
extra cash, so I found employment in a well-known pub chain. I was only there
for a couple of months.

I developed depression in my final year of University so I
left early. I didn’t work for a while after coming home because of this, but
eventually I started work at a care home. Although some people find it an
amazing job to do, it didn’t take me long to decide it just wasn’t for me.
After this I had a brief stint of self-employment from home, making cupcakes.
But soon after this, J came along and I just didn’t have the time or the
energy.

Now J is 2 and N is here, as much as I love being a stay at
home Mummy to my two boys, I’ve decided that it’s time for me to find some form
of employment. To find some way back to being ‘Stacey’ and somebody else instead
of just ‘Mummy’ or ‘wife’ all day long. Of course the extra money is a great
persuader too.

I tend to look in a few places for jobs but one of the job boards I have come across recently is
City Calling. I often peruse job boards online rather than newspapers as they
have a much wider variety of jobs listed and usually contain a lot more
information which you can see at a glance to see if it is the right job for
you. Once you’ve looked, if it is then you can usually apply straight from
there rather than making telephone calls or sending CV’s through snail mail, or
if it’s not then you can simply look at the next vacancy.

City Calling is a simply laid out website which is easy to
navigate around, containing vacancies from lots of big name brands. I quite
dislike job boards where you have to navigate what feels like a hundred pages
just to find what you are looking for. A bonus is that they also have a mobile
app so you can job hunt on the go, or even in bed! (Surely I’m not the only one
who does everything they can do on their laptop, on their phone in bed right
after they’ve turned their laptop off?…)

I hope to be back in employment by the end of the year but it’s quite difficult to find something for my skills, having been out of work for so long, and that fits around hubby’s hours too as we just wouldn’t be able to afford childcare for both boys. 

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