I’m delighted to tell you that my job-seeking journey that began several months ago has reached a successful ending after I accepted a new and exciting role in mental health and social care writes Ioana Lazarov.

With only days to go until I start my new career, I am overwhelmed with joy at being offered a role that represents everything that I have worked so hard for.

I’m really looking forward to the first morning that I make my way to work and open this new chapter in my life.

The time that I have spent job-seeking was often marked by frustration and ambivalence over my career prospects after graduating with a BSc (Hons) Psychology course from the University of Wolverhampton.

I developed a passion for mental health years ago after seeing the distress and limitations that mental health issues bring to our daily lives – I continually seek answers and offer a helping hand to those in need.

This current role that I have been offered will allow me to pursue and expand on my passion, as well as to make use of all the skills that I have gained through academic training and a decade of continuous employment.

And the most important tool that helped me to win this opportunity is persistence – I never gave up, no matter how tough the past several months have been.

Despite dozens of rejection letters, I could not allow negativity to creep in and the feelings of despair were always overcome by the sight of a new possibility or opportunity.

Whilst working night-shifts in retail to get by, I invested around three hours every day researching companies and organisations, finding and applying for jobs, making calls, sending out letters, presenting myself to potential employers in person with my CV and posting my details to online job agencies and recruiters.

As the CV was usually the first contact an employer had with me as a candidate, I understood early on the importance of a professional CV and have invested substantial effort in creating a CV profile that markets my skills and qualifications effectively.

CV checker services were crucial in enabling me to identify areas that I needed to improve.

Yet it was just as important to be prepared for the interview stage – having appealed to books and online resources for preparation tips, I felt confident facing challenging questions from interviewers and able to give a good account of myself.

Working in my particular sector, it was also important to expand on my knowledge of mental health topics and invest in training material that would go above and beyond my qualification.

The months I have spent job-seeking represent a great learning opportunity, one that helped me grow and understand the commitment and motivation behind my desire to pursue a career in mental health.

I am very grateful and thankful to our readers for following me through my journey, to those that offered great words of encouragement and advice and the Express and Star for allowing me to be here and tell my story.

• Catch up on Ioana’s journey to employment on our careers blog