Destination - Work

Now you have secured your job, you might have some questions about what this means in terms of your wage, your rights and your progression. Here we will cover all of this so you know what to do when starting employment.

Understanding your rights

It's important to understand what your rights are as an employee - what are your legal entitlements to breaks? What's the minimum wage? What protections do you have?

The Equality Act is in place in the UK to prevent workers from being treated unfairly by their employers due to their:

Gender reassignment.
Marriage or civil partnership.
Religion or belief.
Sexual orientation.

You have statutory rights from the first day of employment—laid out in the Employment Rights Act:

Statutory sick pay.
Paid annual leave.
Adoption leave.
Equal pay.
Weekly and daily rest periods.
Employees who work more than 6 hours a day must have at least one 20 minute rest break (only over the age of 18).
The right to 11 hours break between shifts.
The right to an uninterrupted 24 hours without work each week or an uninterrupted 48 hours without work each fortnight.
Under the age of 18 workers are entitled to a 30 minute break if they work more than 4.5 hours, rest period of 12 hours between shifts and a weekly rest period of 48 hours.

Minimum wage for your age

Knowing that you are being paid at least minimum wage is essential when accepting a job. These can change often, so make sure you stay up to date with the changes, as this could mean you are due a wage increase!

The GOV website lists all of the age brackets and wages for each one, find out what yours is here: National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Things to remember

Gaining employability skills

You'll keep gaining new skills throughout your life and career! Make sure you keep making notes of these for future job applications.

Finding a job

The more connections you make through work, and life, the easier you'll find it to find future jobs.
Once you have experience in an industry, you might even find that recruiters come to you to share current opportunities.

Applying for a job

The more jobs you have, the easier applying for jobs becomes. You have more experience to talk about, and you get used to knowing what employers are looking for.

CVs and cover letters

Keep updating your CV! Add in the most recent things you've done so that when you want to apply for another job it's up to date. Add in each new job or qualification you pick up along the way.
Remember to change your cover letter for each role you apply for and keep it specific to the company.

Interviews

The more interviews you do, the more confident you become.
You might find that as you work your way up in a company, the interviews become more challenging, or ask for more tasks to be completed during the interview.

It's OK

To change your mind about what you want to do further down the line, you can always retrain and do something different.
To go back into education at any age if you decide you need a new qualification to do something else or to progress.
To find that you need to change profession to one that has been growing, where there are more jobs!
To realise that you want to do something that you'd never even heard of before.
To ask for help! The Careers Team will see you for up to two years after you leave college, and after that you can contact National Careers Service for any ongoing support - you're never alone in trying to move forward with your career!