From School to seafood. Fintan nets a career as a fishmonger. After GCSE results, is further ED the only thing to consider?
For some young people, the best education comes not from a classroom, but from getting out into the workplace – as 22-year-old Fintan Bush has discovered.
While many school leavers automatically consider sixth form, college or university as the next step after GCSEs, Fintan decided that full-time employment was the route that suited him best.
Nine months ago, he joined Cirencester’s New Wave Seafood, having spotted a job opportunity online. Today, he is working in a specialist fish market, learning skills he never expected to acquire and taking on considerably more responsibility than he might have imagined when he first walked through the door.
Fintan, 22, said:
“I never did very well in school and pursuing higher education would only lead to jobs I’m not interested in, or might not lead into employment at all.
“I always knew I wanted to start working. I didn’t then, and still don’t now see a reason to wait to start working.”
For Fintan, an apprenticeship could have been an option, particularly because of the combination of employment and training, but ultimately, he chose to go straight into a job.His family and friends supported his decision, and nine months on, he has found himself developing a very different set of skills from those he might have expected to learn in a more traditional educational setting.
Before joining New Wave Seafood, Fintan admits he had little idea what working in a fish market would actually involve, “I had no idea how it was going to be as it’s nothing like I had thought of before,” he said. “But now, being in it for nine months, I can say it has been really fun and I have learnt a lot,” he said.
New Wave director, Tim Boyd said of Fin:
“That learning has been very hands-on. Fintan has learned how to fillet fish and prepare seafood, including cooking lobster and crab, making fish cakes, potted shrimp, sides of salmon and taramasalata. He also takes customer orders, deals with telephone enquiries and helps with ordering fish.”
“I never expected I would learn how to fillet a fish in my life, let alone cook it, and suddenly I can now do both,” Finn continued.
He also credits New Wave’s shop manager Adam Yeoh with helping him settle into the role and develop his confidence:
“He has been a great help with easing me into the new position. I can’t say I would be where I am now without them.”
For Fintan, perhaps the biggest advantage of entering the workplace early has been the experience he is already building:
“Not many jobs nowadays look for much else,” he said. “I rarely see job listings for any position that don’t already expect you to have a few years in the field, regardless of qualifications.
“Getting in early is a great way to counteract that, and also a good way of trying to save money early on in life, which is all the more necessary with house prices and the cost of living.”
His experience highlights an increasingly important question for school leavers: is further education always the best next step, or can going straight into employment provide a valuable head start?
And nine months after taking the plunge, he has gone from spotting a job advert online to filleting fish, preparing seafood, dealing with customers and building a skill set that could prove valuable throughout his working life.
Images: New Wave Seafood