‘I had been rejected 90 times and didn’t think I’d ever find a job’

Capital-based charity that helps women find work faces financial challenge in funding squeeze

Help for women struggling to find employment: Pic by SEO on Unsplash

“I applied for approaching 100 jobs, and all I got to show for it was a handful of interviews and more frustration than I could stomach. You start to lose confidence, you start wondering ‘what is wrong with me? When it goes on and on, any hope just seeps away with every rejection.”

The words of one of the thousands of women supported by an admirable small charity over recent years. Staffed largely by volunteers, it is one of many standing at the edge of a financial abyss. The Inquirer understands that Smart Works Scotland, set up in the Capital more than a decade ago, faces an existential threat despite performing a valuable and unique service in both this city and, more recently, in Glasgow.

Some 67% of the women it helps are successful in their interviews, gaining jobs within a month of their support appointments on salaries that average £30,000 per year.

In the past year alone, more than 1500 women have been supported to get into work. Many of them have been referred by jobcentre staff after multiple rejections, others by women’s shelters or from the refugee community. Many are returners, seeking to forge new lives after many years out of the workplace.

Smart Works Scotland works with women referred to them who face significant barriers to securing employment. Many are long-term unemployed and have experienced repeated rejections from multiple jobs: in fact 34% have been rejected from more than 20 jobs; and 16% have been rejected from over 50 jobs.