After unreturned calls, rejections emails and hundreds applications, unemployed 24-year-old Haider Malik came up with the unthinkable, a pop-up stand outside the busy station of Canary Wharf at 7 am to get a job in the Banking and Finance industry.
Malik graduated with a first degree in banking and finance from Middlesex University. As a graduate during Covid-19, he felt frustrated by the rejection emails and unsuccessful Zoom interviews.
On November 2nd, Malik left his house with the motivation to get his dream job in banking and finance.
He set up a stand outside the financial hub that is Canary Wharf before peak hours and packed his bag with CVs and QR codes to his CVs. After nearly three hours his story went viral and he had around 10 missed calls from random numbers.
Malik secured an interview later that day in a top firm, and by the end of the week took a job offer as an assistant treasury in Canary Wharf Group.
While standing there for nearly three hours, he was surprised by the support he received, “The commuters gave me words of encouragement and life-changing help.”
Malik continued, “There was one person called Emmanuel who posted a picture of me online… he came up to me, he put his hand out and said, ‘I wish you well’…He said he wanted to do something similar two years ago, but he didn’t have the courage to do it.
“He was happy that I put myself forward to do it and that he wanted to share a picture of me on LinkedIn.”
Malik was motivated to take this innovative approach to job hunting by his father Mehmood Malik, who migrated to England from Pakistan to provide for his family.
Malik’s pop-up stand idea changed his life and after receiving an offer for his dream job, his story went viral on LinkedIn with thousands of users congratulating him.
Later that week companies were still calling him non-stop after seeing the posts all over social media.
