My girlfriend is looking for a job in the training and development arena, but though she's extremely competent (unlike so many people) she is not interested in a high flying job at an important company. Adding to that, I am doing pretty well in my bean counting course so we're not going to be too pushed for money in the future. Therefore she's looking for interesting jobs rather than ones that have her on the path to greatness.She has worked for a small training and development company (which is high in the Times top100 small businesses) in the Lake district for the past 2 years, but now due to the irisistable pull of her boyfriend, is moving to Leeds.How should she best go around finding jobs? Graduate schemes aren't really her thing, so my next thought was recruitment agencies. They'll know what they're talking about won't they? Or are recruitment agencies (for the generally inexperienced) just interested in placing you somewhere and getting the fast buck? Would it be better to just rely on your own research (obviously this would be done in anycase)?

Apologies for the typos.

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Your girlfriend sounds like the archetypal nightmare candidate - no drive, no ambition, wants 'interesting' (i.e. get recruiters running themselves ragged to bring roles to the annointed queen while she sits on her ar*e and pontificates about whether the role 2 mins commute, with a 10K salary increase for a great client is sufficiently 'interesting'). RCs are not just about a 'fast buck' but about providing a service to their clients, and unforunately that involves identifying and securing rare, exceptional people for roles, not people with experience in an unknown firm, who could be as easily found by a client through running an advert in the local paper, and with no ambition. You say 'I am doing pretty well in my bean counting course so we're not going to be too pushed for money in the future' - fine; but when the client offers her £x I would put money on her suddenly demanding £y + z. Get real and tell your girlfriend to get real. If she wants to turn finding 'interesting' into a worthy cause, she should find a role direct as RCs/HH are busy people and - if I am being blunt(er) - back winning horses, not also rans, the lame, and those that really should never have made it past the knackers yard. I am not saying your GF is any of these things, but if she wants to find a rewarding role, whether direct or indirect, she needs to get with the programme, get some ambition/drive/flexibility, ditch the interesting angle as a filter (the market is slowing down don't you know?) and get a role which will give her prospects to do something interesting when she has the experience and track record to actually deliver interesting to the market by return.End of rant. Grrrr. Pet hates and all that.

“RCs are not just about a 'fast buck' but about providing a service to their clients, and unforunately that involves identifying and securing rare, exceptional people for roles, not people with experience in an unknown firm, who could be as easily found by a client through running an advert in the local paper”This was exactly my question. Are there recruitment agencies out there who know what they’re on about for people who aren’t exceptional? Or are most of them the CV pushers that people talk about? I apologise for muddying the water a little with my reference to interesting work. I meant unusual rather than interesting; her current job only pays £15k but involves taking groups of people from Barclays/LTSB/other big organisations out on team building courses (kayaking, climbing, building things in forest etc). So it’s not all office based which (I think) is the main aim. But it doesn’t really matter what she’s looking for, only whether there are ways to find non-standard jobs other than personal research.

Start up costs for such companies must be fairly small - i.e. get a deposit or more from each paricipant to go kayaking or whatever and book it. So she could go into business for herself yes? Jobs like that tend to recruit locally rather than nationally (especially on that level of salary) so she would be best advised to look in the local press for job ads. OR start her own business.Alternatively look a little further ahead and plan for something more interesting down the line? You think I want to remain in HH forever? There are things I would rather be doing, and in good time will get on with it, but at present need the cash.

It’s interesting you should say that Mars, as I was thinking similar things a while ago. It does seem to be an easy [easier] industry to start up in, especially if you have your own impressed customers. I did wonder however whether one would be allowed to steal all the knowledge and techniques from a former company and use them in you own start-up (I can’t think why not, but it does seem a little unfair).Also how difficult it would be to get back into the industry if a start-up failed? I’d imagine, like with contractors, companies may be reluctant to hire you as they might think you’re only there to get back up to date with the industry knowledge, before leaving again to make more money on your own.

This is a monumental day! We hear from you Mars regularly on this forum, so I'm on the edge of my seat waiting hear what the future holds for you once you have the money - what does the future hold for a seasoned HH?

Anon the IP your girlfriend holds in her head cannot really be constituted as the property of her ex employer; the techniques etc of that kind of work could be shown to be fairly standard anyway - surely the point is about building teamworking, confidence, lateral thinking etc? The USP is in the people and the quality of the experience provided to the participants, and if your GF can come up with some more interesting tasks etc then so much the better.