Market yourself

As Birmingham is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the country, you'll always find people busily making money and creating opportunities for others.

Our strong student population flourishes under these circumstances, getting part-time work to help finance their way through university.

We have three main universities here: Aston University, Birmingham University and City of Birmingham University; and we have some fabulous feeder colleges too. All these centres of excellence produce fine young people, willing to work in many of our business sectors.

The Mailbox for example is a lively establishment that employs many students on a part-time basis. This helps get them into the job market and gets them used to working with others and dealing with the public.

The Custard Factory also has many bars, restaurants and retail outlets where students can pick up a part-time job and there are market stalls that sometimes need casual workers to help out at weekends too.

Talking of markets, we also have one of the country's leading farmers' markets, a massive German Christmas market and of course the Bullring market.

If you're looking for work then get yourself down to these areas to see who might be taking staff on and see what you have to do to apply for a job.