Job hunting in London - where do I start?

September 26, 2012 10:22 AM

I'd like to work in London but I have no idea where to start! I'm a British citizen, age 30, but I've grown up in Australia. I'm looking for any kind of work that pays the bills. Policy work would be especially nice (I have some experience there) but temping/office jobs would be fine too. Can you recommend me some agencies and websites where I can start, and also any other hints and tips for first-timers to the London/UK job market! Thank you!
posted by EatMyHat to work & money (5 answers total)

I was in the same situation six years ago and got my first London job through Badenoch and Clark. I'm still on their books and I get the odd phone call from them although I no longer work in the UK. They seem to know their stuff.
posted by Logophiliac at 11:30 AM on September 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm American living in Sydney... I temped a lot here while waiting for my spousal visa to come through. A number of the bigger, posher temp agencies have offices here in Sydney AND in London. Try Adecco, Hays, Drake Intl, Julia Ross (?) etc... Good luck!
posted by jrobin276 at 1:28 PM on September 26, 2012

I've been working through OfficeTeam for a while now and they've been great. Mind you, I'm in Canada and I can't guarantee they're as good in the UK.
posted by fullerenedream at 6:42 PM on September 26, 2012

London has a lot of specialist temp agencies - I work for a media company and we hire ours from Judy Fisher, as does ITV and C4. It would be worth looking to see if any deal specifically with policy - even if you'll be on reception, having knowledge of the industry is good and it means you'll be around if something permanent arises.

I had a bad experience with Adecco - they laughed when I said I'd like something equivalent to my current salary, and felt the need to explain to me what professional dress was when I'd been working in offices in professional roles for five years and had attended the meeting appropriately dressed. It might have been the Holborn branch that were particularly bad - one branch of an agency in Manchester were hilariously terrible but the London one wasn't - but being a temp is hard enough without also being patronised, so I'd use your meetings with agencies to gauge whether these are people you really want to deal with.
posted by mippy at 10:18 AM on September 27, 2012

To look for jobs, in addition to agencies try the Job Centre Plus website. You can search by area and \ or type of job. I recently got a new job in London using this.

I agree with Mippy about Adecco - the experience I had with them is that they do tend to be a bit 'one size fits all'. They also explained to me about the importance of dressing professionally and showing up on time despite that fact that I had had several years of office experience. However, they do have good roles occasionally so it might be worth having a conversation with them.

Indeed can also be quite good but you will generally have more success on there if you apply to jobs advertised by companies directly, rather than those advertised the agencies.
posted by Laura_J at 8:44 AM on September 29, 2012