GC Career Story: Jamie Meredith

  • Tuesday, October 1, 2024
  • Posted By The Growth Company

I’ve been at GC for 10 years and I've had a great time so far. Once you show a spark of interest and demonstrate what you can do the people here help to mould you and push you towards new opportunities. That's what has happened to me through my career at GC.

I’m originally from Wolverhampton where I worked as a credit controller/settlements provider. My wife is from Manchester, and when she got a job at Salford Royal Hospital in 2014, I spoke to a recruitment agency and got an interview for a Credit Controller role in GC’s Group Finance team. At the time only half of my role was credit control, so I went into the interview a bit apprehensively, but GC put their faith in me, and I was offered the job.

By mid-2015, I was doing credit control for Aspire Recruitment, and they had a job opportunity for a Trainee Recruitment and Placement Consultant, recruiting for very similar jobs to what I was looking to progress into. I applied and got the position, and I was with them for the next 12 months. There, I began to understand how the wider GC group worked, because I was recruiting for many of our own vacancies.

I recruited for many roles on GC Employment’s Working Well: Work and Health Programme, including job coaches. What they we’re looking for was very similar to what I was currently doing at Aspire – and I mentioned to the recruitment manager that I'd really like to be a part of their programme.

Photo of Jamie Meredith, Head of Sales

I had an interview and was offered a job at GC Employment as a Job Coach in the summer of 2016. It was a fantastic team, and I loved the client journey side of the role. When the contract was coming to an end, I started looking for other opportunities within GC.

There was a Business Advisor role within GM Business Growth Hub’s Enquiry team. I had a great network of contacts within Finance, Aspire and GC Employment, plus I knew how GC and our programmes worked together – so I was already at an advantage even before I interviewed, these contacts and organisational knowledge would strengthen the team, so I applied, got it and started the job in March 2017.

Over the next 6 years I progressed and became a Leadership and Workforce Advisor, and in 2019 became an Account Manager – looking at the stakeholder relationships and speaking to the local authorities about the Hub’s services. In this role I supported a client to recruit apprentices, and I worked closely with our GC Education & Skills team and I realised that I really enjoyed recruitment, especially the customer journey.

In May 2023, the Head of Sales role at GC Education & Skills came up. This was the perfect next step for me, and my focus is on employability, apprenticeship recruitment and bootcamp recruitment.

The thing I like most about GC is the guidance you get around your career prospects, not just from your managers – but from people you work with. There have been many managers along the way who’ve helped and shaped me. When I recruit people from outside of GC, I always say to them that I came in as a Credit Controller, and I’m now Head of Sales – and that’s a great achievement. I tell them that GC’s great at helping people look at different opportunities within the group.