Gavin Lodge trialled different jobs to find the best one for him

Although Gavin Lodge had done well at school, and was even head boy, he knew he didn’t want to go to university. So he worked in an orchard, keeping his eye out for job advertisements, and after nine months he thought he’d found the perfect job.

"I saw the job as an air force navigator and really liked that – my old man used to be a pilot."

Gavin thought he had a good chance, as he’d deliberately kept his options open at school. "In Seventh Form I did maths with statistics, maths with calculus, physics, English and photography."

Gavin passed everything in the Air Force application process, but he’d never played team sports – so he wasn’t offered the job. "I’d only ever done individual sports. I’ve always done gymnastics, done that to NZ rep level. And white-water kayaking, mountain biking, rock climbing.

"I got told I could reapply if I joined a sports team. I was quite gutted about that."

Gavin wasn’t keen to stay in the orchard any longer, so he decided to explore some other options, and earn some money at the same time, by doing temporary work. "I figured I’d go to Tradestaff and try lots of things. They sent me out on probably a dozen different jobs for a couple of weeks. And this job as a landscape gardener came up eventually.

"I’d always liked the look of what I’d seen on TV. I did it for a week and really enjoyed it. Then the boss asked if I’d like to stay on, so I did and it grew from there."

Gavin says temping is a great way to find out more about jobs. "It’s really good. A lot of the time you are just sweeping and being a labourer, but you are on job sites and you can see what they are doing. It’s a good way to do it."