'Broke and educated thirtysomething - please employ me' - Sheffield student's desperate appeal for a job

Lauren Hackett has 11 GCSEs, three A-levels, a teaching qualification, has worked in language schools across the world and is currently studying for a masters degree at the University of Sheffield.

But despite reading like a perfect CV, the 30-year-old has been rejected from more than 200 job applications sent out in the last three months.

Lauren, of Nether Edge, said: "I have applied for so many teaching and teaching assistant jobs, which is my field of expertise, but I've also applied for jobs in marketing, catering, even cleaning toilets. I have no shame, I just want to work and I need to pay the rent.

"I've applied for jobs in a 50 mile radius in as far away as Manchester and Huddersfield, but have had no luck.

"I have always had a good work ethic. I started working in a post office when I was 14. But it is soul destroying sending out application after application only to get rejected.

"I thought about standing in the street with a sign that reads 'broke and educated thirtysomething- please employ me'. I don't think I would actually do that in the end, but it makes the point about how difficult it is to get a job out there."

She completed a degree in philosophy and social anthropology at the University of Kent, before completing a teaching course and then spent several years teaching English in Portugal and the United Arab Emirates.

Lauren returned to the UK last summer and is on course to complete her masters degree in applied linguistics and TESOL in January.

But added if she can't find a job she faces moving back to her native Eastbourne - or even leaving the country to find work.

She said: "I don't want to do that but I may have to. There aren't any specialist language schools in Sheffield that I've found which is what I specialise in. There seems to be more down south and abroad."

Lauren added that despite recent Government forecasts that the employment market is 'buoyant' in South Yorkshire with thousands of vacancies, the reality is very different.

She said: "There are other students on my course too who are struggling to find anything, there just isn't enough out there."

She appealed for any potential employer to email her at [email protected]