Member Article

Dreams come true for local graduate after Twitter plea from Lord Mayor of Liverpool

Enterprise champion Councillor Gary Millar, Lord Mayor of Liverpool, has taken to social media to come to the rescue for a tenacious graduate struggling to find work.

Despite achieving an MBA in Business Management from Liverpool John Moore University, 23-year-old Helen Lowry was finding it impossible to get noticed and begin her career.

The plucky graduate knew she had to do something out of the ordinary to improve her career prospects so wrote a letter to the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Councillor Gary Millar asking for his help.

The Lord Mayor invited Helen to meet him in the town hall and then sent out a tweet to his 11,300 followers asking if any of them could help her find a job in event management.

Locally renowned chef proprietor Adam Franklin responded to the tweet and invited Helen to interview for the role of sales and events coordinator at Yacht Club Liverpool. Helen impressed him with her enthusiasm and passion and was offered the job. Three months later, she has proven herself and has secured numerous event bookings for the venue and is looking forward to a bright career.

Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Councillor Gary Millar said:

“I was really pleased to help Helen in any way I could and greatly admired her tenacity in writing to me to in the first place to ask for help.

“She also explained that in one of my speeches I had inspired her to do her masters so it was the least I could do to try and help her get a job.

“The most effective way of reaching as many people as possible was to tweet about Helen to my followers. I am delighted that this worked and she has found a job that she really enjoys, with a great local business.”

Yacht Club Liverpool, which is situated within Liverpool Marina, offers a unique brand of comfort food in a modern environment. The outside catering arm of the business, Yacht Club Outside, operates from the 200-capacity restaurant and bar and has garnered an incredible reputation for bringing its own unique brand of honest-to-goodness comfort food to the table, and for hosting weddings and large-scale corporate events.

Adam Franklin, chef proprietor of Yacht Club Liverpool, said:

“So often youngsters need that first chance get their foot on the ladder, so I am a great believer in giving ambitious, talented individuals opportunities wherever possible.

“As luck would have it, we were looking to advertise the sales and events coordinator position anyway so I didn’t think twice about contacting Gary to offer my help.

“I am so glad that I did, as Helen is already proving to be an extremely valuable asset for the business at a time that we are really busy and working with some very high profile clients within the City.”

Helen Lowry said:

“I was feeling disheartened after filling out endless amounts of application forms without any reply, I was still working in a part time job at a shop that I had started while at university. It was so frustrating so I knew I had to do something different to stand out and get on the career ladder.

“A few years earlier while at a placement at a local school during their local enterprise project, I attended an event at the BT Convention Centre where the Councillor Millar gave a really inspirational speech about enterprise. This gave me the idea to contact him for his help as I knew he would respond and his contacts in the Liverpool are second to none.”

Although Helen has been in her role only a matter of months, she has already planned various events including a psychic evening, vintage fayre, a Mad Hatters Tea Party in Easter half term, a fashion show, weddings and charity events.

Helen continued:

“Amazing opportunities have opened up for me and not just in the Yacht Club Liverpool. I am now involved in some of the City’s biggest and most exciting events including Liverpool International Tennis tournament and The World Corporate Games. I feel so lucky to finally found my dream job.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Chris Lowe .