Living with her mum and five year old daughter, Sharell McDonald was desperate to find work. Despite successfully getting interviews, and often getting to the final rounds of the process, she was unsuccessful.

Constant rejection resulted in her feeling frustrated, stressed and powerless.

Sharell remembers:

I think the problem was that I wasn’t really ready for the interviews. I didn’t know how to answer some of the questions.

When she was told about The Prince’s Trust’s Get into Customer Service program by her local job centre, she thought it sounded interesting and enrolled. Rather than feeling nervous or apprehensive, Sharell was excited to do something different and meet new people. She looked forward to filling her days with something other than just the school run and fruitless job applications.

The course enabled Sharell to find balance in her life, develop confidence and become a better public speaker. Her mentor Kate who provided a constant and reliable source of stability and guidance. At the end of the course she felt more prepared for job searching and attended a Get Hired day. After a morning of interview training and practice, Sharell interviewed with a number of businesses and ended up being offered a job at London Cocktail Club.

Sharell has now worked at the bar group for over a year and has seen big changes in her life.

For the first time, I am moving out of my mum’s house into a new house of my own, I am the assistant to the owner of The London Cocktail Club, which is both challenging and interesting - I really enjoy it.

"I have another purpose for waking up in the morning other than just taking my daughter to school. My purpose now is working hard to earn money to pay rent, clothes and feed my child — it’s all for her. For me, none of this would have been possible without Get Hired.”

Sharell hopes to stay with the London Cocktail Club for the foreseeable future and become a Prince’s Trust Young Ambassador in order to help more people like her.