Tom struggled with anxiety and low self-confidence before embarking upon Jump into Work.
Find out why he chose Jump into Work, how it has helped him to progress and his hopes for the future.
“I’ve received a lot of support on how to build my confidence and how to communicate. I have improved a lot.”
I’m Tom, I’m 17 and I started Jump into Work in October and completed it in December. I started in person but that didn’t go very well so they’ve been very helpful and let me switch to online.
I’m female to male transgender and everyone has been very supportive of that. They’ve been very kind and understanding and I’m really appreciative of that. It has been a good course.
It started when I was in high school, and the plan was to do work experience but of course COVID hit and then we couldn’t. Also, my anxiety was very high at the time.
When high school ended I though “I’m kind of out of options here on what to do work wise”. So, I thought I could go into Jump into Work, learn more about work and how to get my foot in the door, get more tips on how to write a CV, how to act in interviews and it has been helpful. I’ve received a lot of support on how to build my confidence and how to communicate.
I’ve got some good tips on how to remain calm and how to calm down and focus on my breathing. I’ve also learned what skills an employer will be looking for, and what skills I need to build up and how to improve the skills I already have.
We learned about work experience in school. They talked about it briefly but not a lot. So, coming into it I had a vague idea, I knew we would be talking about employability.
Something that did surprise me though is that we did a lot of topical things like new stories of current events, which I found interesting. It’s furthering your world view and then learning to listen to other people’s opinions and take them into account. I think it also helped with communication as well, as you talk to other people and think about what you’re saying.
I thought the health and safety topics were interesting. I really like researching different topics and I’m quite morbid in a way because I like looking at accident cases. I found looking at the reports and finding out why a certain aspect of health and safety came into being, how to use it and what to do in an emergency all really interesting.
In terms of what was most challenging I think it was the functional skills because that’s always been something I’ve struggled with. I’m awful at maths but Pete, the maths tutor, has been really supportive. I get nervous, I’ve got anxiety, but Pete was really understanding and said he’d work with me however I wanted and explain what I needed to do. That’s been helpful for me, and it’s helped to build my confidence in those areas.
I think I’ve improved my IT skills a lot. I had no idea how to do things like function Microsoft Teams, and I’ve learned how to deal with issues.
Another thing I’ve learned is communication. Before this I could not talk to a stranger, but I think I’ve got a lot better with communication and I’ve learned to talk a bit slower as I tend to talk fast when I’m nervous. I think I’ve improved a lot.
When we were doing mock interviews, I learned that I needed to just breath, have a drink of water and think about what I’m going to say to calm me down. I’ve been putting that into practice quite a lot. I had to do an induction at the gym recently, and I did the breathing and had a drink of water to calm down and it went really well.
I think the Jump into Work has really helped me, as Naz my tutor has taught me techniques that can help me to communicate my thoughts better, calm down and get comfortable with what I’m saying.
When I first started Jump into Work, I had absolutely no idea what I was interested in. I thought that I didn’t have many options, but I now know where to find jobs that I might be interested in, with websites such as Total Jobs and Indeed. I also know what I’d be looking for now, ideally something outside.
I know that I would not cope well in an environment that is like noisy, like a warehouse or cutting down trees or something that. But I know what to look for and I would like to go into employment, possibly in postal working. So, I want to work towards getting a driving license.
One of the areas I would like to have gone into would be translation. I speak a little bit of Mandarin Chinese, I’ve been doing so for almost a year. I would like to go into education for that, but it would take away some of the funds I have for future surgeries I would need. So, it’s good that I have options. Before I had no idea where to go or what to do so it’s good now I’ve got a couple of things that I could be doing.
Doing the work during Jump into Work and receiving positive feedback from Naz made me feel like I’m actually more confident than I thought I was. I’ve got more self-confidence and self-belief in myself that I’ve got good qualities and I’m quite intelligent, which I didn’t think before.
Definitely, it’s been very good. I struggled a lot with going into an in person learning environment. I would get so anxious that I would be like shaking like a Chihuahua! It would be hard for me to interact with people. I struggle with eye contact, and I have trouble with facial expressions. I have ASD autism, so facial expressions and eye contact have always been a big struggle for me.
For these reasons I went for the online Jump into Work option, and I think it’s helped because being online is almost a barrier. I can still see people, but there’s a barrier between them and me. So, I feel more comfortable in my own house, and I have a cat who will sit with me like a comfort animal and help me calm down.
It’s good as I can do the work at my own pace. I’m in my own environment, I can also practise with facial expressions and eye contact without feeling uncomfortable as I’m at home instead of being in a big noisy class environment.
I have improved a lot and I think I could probably do in person learning now, but I definitely couldn’t before I started.
It was very nerve wracking because you never know how people are going to respond. I’d like to think that most people are fine with it. Most people will look at me and they will think “oh yeah, that’s a man”. Sometimes though if you tell people they have a bad reaction.
But throughout the whole course I got to know the people more and I knew that they probably wouldn’t have a reaction like that, so I felt comfortable with saying “hey, I am a transgender man”. I felt comfortable saying that for the first time in ages.
One of the first things that Naz did was make it clear that everyone was welcome within the class and that any discrimination wouldn’t be tolerated. It was really good to hear that, and it made me feel more confident being there.
I would. If you don’t know what you want to do for a career you can find the resources to figure out what you want to do. If you don’t know you can find the resources to figure out what you want to do. Whereas if you do know already it can help you get your foot in the door of the industry that you want. So, I think it’s good for both.
I liked how the work was set out. You could go off and do individual work, but then you could come together as a team and share what you found. I think it was good as it encompassed everyone’s working style. You could work in whatever your preferred way was as long as you got the work done. I really appreciated that.
It was also very flexible. I had some medical appointments and a funeral throughout the course, and it was always fine to take the time off. They understood that people have a life outside the course, and they let you work around that.
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