HELLO
Welcome to the May issue of The Career Break Site newsletter, especially all you newbies, and double especially all you regulars (don't tell the noobs how bad the jokes are will you?).
We've got a packed newsletter for you this month, with loads of stuff you've been sending us, stuff we've nicked off other people, and a BRAND NEW recruitment section for those of you looking for a proper job.
So grab yourself a cold brew (we're talking about coffee, not that can of hipster beer you've got stashed in the cistern in the disabled loo), stick on your headphones, and chill out with us for the next 15 minutes. Tell the boss we said it's OK.
SPONSORED: SOCIAL STARTERS
_SocialStarters are seeking business professionals to join their summer and autumn UK Consulting programmes. It means you get to be part of a like-minded international peer group whilst you work on a volunteer business assignment with an inspiring social entrepreneur tackling one of their big four goals:
- Youth disadvantage
- Sustainable planet
- Creative economies
- Equality in entrepreneurship
Assignments vary from 1 day to 4 days a week, over 10-12 weeks. You get trained in social entrepreneurship and consultancy, access to a comprehensive toolkit, plus you'll have on-hand support to help you think about your career goals.
Find out more and apply right now - closing date is 1st June!
**NEW** RECRUITMENT
Oooh, this is exciting. We're launching a new recruitment section in this newsletter, with jobs and one-off skilled volunteer placements from us, our partners, and anyone else in the industry who's looking for people like you!
Job 1: Volunteer (costs covered) with tourism and/or marketing background, Vietnam
An international animal welfare organisation based in Austria is looking for a volunteer with a tourism and/or marketing background to provide support them in promoting their bear sanctuary in Vietnam. Minimum 4 weeks and you need strong English skills. Your costs (flights, transfers, housing, work-related trips) will be covered.
Responsibilities:
- Develop and implement a tourism and marketing strategy for the sanctuary
- Work with other local businesses
- Work with Vietnamese tourist boards
- PR with travel magazines and websites
If you are interested, please send a covering email and your CV to anne@oysterworldwide.com. Oyster Worldwide are a vetted and approved Career Break Site organisation.
Job 2: A variety of flexible roles available, The Career Break Site
Yes, that's us, we're recruiting! We need people who are passionate about career breaks to join our team. If you've got experience in sales, social media, marketing or writing, we want to hear from you!
We're ultra-flexible, as you might imagine, so we can tailor the role to suit you. There are tons of opportunities to progress and we provide all the training you need.
Work for one of the top 25 flexible businesses in the UK (according to Real Business magazine) in Manchester or work remotely from elsewhere.
Send your CV and cover letter to info@thecareerbreaksite.com and tell us why we should hire you!
Are you recruiting?
If you work in the travel industry and want us to post your job in this section, email us. We only post jobs from organisations we know and trust, obvs.
VOLUNTEER WITH CHILDREN
We know lots of you have a very clear idea of what kind of volunteering you want to do. Because there are loads of kinds - all brilliant and worthwhile, but not all suited to you - we have divided our volunteering section into smaller sections, each focusing in depth on a particular type of volunteering.
This month, we are showcasing one of our most popular, which is volunteering with children. Teaching, care, sports and working with refugees are some examples. You could be working with all ages of kids, or even leading teams of young volunteers on community development projects. We vet all our projects to make sure they're worthwhile, sustainable and responsible.
Look at all our volunteering with children projects here.
BOOK NEWS
Oooh, but it's coming along nicely. We're currently looking for people to feature in our book - which means you! If you've got an unusual story to tell (or a usual story for that matter, those are no less inspiring), or have tips you want to share, or simply want to show off - we want your input. Email us with what you want to share and we'll come back to you if we want to feature you.
MESSAGE OF THE MONTH
We're condensing several messages into one this month, as we got several that are similar.
"I am a [age] and from [town in a country that's outside the UK] and I want to know if I can work/volunteer in [country]."
Firstly, our site is mainly for people in the UK. Visa information, especially working holiday visa or work permit info, is so complicated and changes so frequently, that it would be prohibitively time-consuming to put all that on our site for people from every nation, cos we like things to be accurate!
Secondly, if you want to work or volunteer abroad, the best place to start is on those pages of our site, which give you all the information you need (apart from that pesky annoying legal stuff). You can also contact the specialist work abroad and volunteer abroad organisations we partner with, as we vet and approve them all, and they can give you more specialist help than we can.
We love hearing from you and we'll do our best to answer any question you have, but we do put as much as we can on our site so you can find the answers you need more quickly than we can provide them via email. If you've got a question, feedback or just want to argue with us over whether or not ketchup on pasta is acceptable, get in touch! We never reveal your name (unless you want us to!)
TIP OF THE MONTH
Thanks to someone who requested to be identified only as "M" for sharing this month's tip.
"When buying a backpack, make sure you try it on full of stuff. An empty backpack feels very differently from a full one. It sits on your body different too."
Great tip - thank you M!
If you have a tip for us, email us or tweet us.
JOKE
Why is Tommy Robinson like "Only You"?
They're both best covered by Yazoo.
By the excellent Sam Whyte (on sabbatical!) on Twitter
FINALLY
We used to put a load of other stuff in this newsletter, but in response to your feedback, we now keep it a lot shorter and share the competitions, news, blog posts and things other people do over on Twitter and Facebook. So go and follow us there if you don't already - we don't clog up your timeline, we mostly stay on topic and we're (very) occasionally funny.
Until next time, have a good month and next time we see you it'll be summer!
Love
xxx