On April 18th 2012 the first ‘Forces to Business Career Transition Workshop’ was hosted by award-winning Recruitment Consultancy Jenrick IT.

The workshop, which was free to attend, was attended by a number of British Armed Forces personnel who have recently left, or are in the process of leaving the Armed Forces and are now seeking to explore the next chapter of their career in the Private Sector.

The all-day event was held at Jenrick’s historical ‘Clock Tower’ Head Office, in Walton on Thames, Surrey and was orientated around two interactive talks from ex-Forces personnel who have already made successful career transitions to the Private Sector.

Miriam Lee, a Government and Defence careers specialist at Jenrick IT, explained why the team ran this event:

“Our company was invited to attend several Defence Exhibitions in 2011 to act as a career and recruitment advisor to those leaving the Forces. It became quickly apparent that there were a number of information gaps regarding how the skills of Armed Forces personnel would transfer into the Private Sector and what the Private Sector was seeking in terms of skills.

The workshop was an ideal opportunity to help fill in those information gaps and equip the attendees with the skills they will need to succeed in the Private Sector.”

John Botterill and Andy Hayward, both of whom have built extremely successful careers since leaving the Armed Forces, led the morning workshop sessions. They covered a variety of topics, which were orientated around how they felt when they left the Forces, the mistakes they made in their job hunting approach and how they applied these lessons to refine their job hunting.

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