Interview and job advice

[nlad]

New to the forum just a quick question.

Trying to get onto the railways, difficult as not many vacancies available in the north west or get filled internally.

I am willing to start from the bottom and work my way up, though wondering is it still possible to do this.

Been offered an interview with northern rail for Train Presentation Operative (cleaner) though in two minds how long will be stuck doing the job for as the hours are not great and the pay is low.

Even working hard and showing I am committed I am thinking twice about attending the interview as I do not know whether you can progress from this particular job. Any advice would be helpful.

 

[BravoGolfMike]

As with all things I guess it depends on your situation and how keen you are to get on. I will always recommend Northern as an employer (although I am not a cleaner so cant speak for them) and its worth remembering that all our cleaners (TPO's) are in house - that is you work for Northern, not a contractor. This means you get access to the all important "internal vacancy list," and there are no restrictions to what jobs you can apply for - just because you are not in a safety critical role does not mean you can't apply for one, for example guard or driver. Northern are also a large company so the opportunities keep cropping up, although things are admittedly quite slow at the moment. I would not expect driving jobs to be advertised for a quite a while now but I am not sure about the guard situation. So all in all I would say go for it - if you can handle shift work and fairly low pay then its a great way to get on.

 

[E&W Lucas]

Difficult to answer, without knowing your circumstances.

If you're out of work, any job is better than no job. Don't have a rose tinted view of this though, just because it is a "railway" job. This post will involve cleaning out toilets full so s*** & sick, and also interiors that people have thrown up all over.

If you're in a better job at the moment, I'd say don't bother. This internal vacancy business is overstated on this forum. There's plenty of external people getting jobs on the railway. I see new faces all the time. The railway is good at promoting from within, but that's not the only way to go. If you've a decent work record, you most definitely don't need to start by cleaning up vomit!

If there's not much happening in the NW, consider relocating. Get in touch with TOC's in a professional manner now (get advice if you aren't sure how to do that); don't wait for jobs to be advertised.

 

[TDK]

New to the forum just a quick question.

Trying to get onto the railways, difficult as not many vacancies available in the north west or get filled internally.

I am willing to start from the bottom and work my way up, though wondering is it still possible to do this.

Been offered an interview with northern rail for Train Presentation Operative (cleaner) though in two minds how long will be stuck doing the job for as the hours are not great and the pay is low.

Even working hard and showing I am committed I am thinking twice about attending the interview as I do not know whether you can progress from this particular job. Any advice would be helpful.

Two things here - if you are serious about doing this job ensure that it is for Northern Rail themselves and not a contract firm, as a cleaner you will not be in a safety critical role and will find it difficult to progress from there, I would bide my time and wait for maybe a trainee train manager job.

 

[Lurcher007]

In my opinion your best bet is to get application forms in for any of the disiplines that interest you on Network rail, Overhead line work is probably your best bet as all of the renewals work on the west coast mainline has been put back into the maintenance division.