A SOLDIER from Bury who struggled to find work after he left the Army has set up a recruitment company for ex-military personnel.

Kayam Iqbal, aged 33, noticed the gap in the market when he left the Royal Air Force in 2010 after 11 years of service.

Despite some assistance from the Ministry of Defence (MOD), he struggled to fit into civilian life, because there was no specialist recruitment agency to help.

He was left frustrated when he was given false hopes from recruitment companies and sent on job interviews that did not match his skills.

This inspired him to create his own company, OppO Recruitment, and sister site JobOppO, which both offer CV advice, training and work experience opportunities.

The company, which is based in London and is opening a branch in Bury in three months, has grown quickly and now Mr Iqbal is teaming up with military charities such as Help for Heroes and Combat Stress and fundraising with the help of Bury Labour councillor James Frith.

Mr Iqbal said: “Moving on to Civvy Street was quite hard and I ended up doing bitty jobs here and there before I was finally given a break by a telecom company.

“I had to beg them to give me an opportunity to prove myself, and surprisingly they took me on despite my skillset not being IT based.

“I knew a lot of ex-servicemen and women who didn’t have any opportunities and I thought that more should be done for people who leave the military, so I gave up my job and set up Oppo Recruitment.”

Mr Iqbal, who went to Holy Cross College, said the company has grown from strength to strength.

He said: “I wasn’t expecting for it to get so big. We’re supported by Total Jobs, and we have huge corporate companies like Asda and Iceland supporting us.

“With Job Oppo we put people in work experience and we sponsor people to do different courses.

“In the military there are up to 40 different trades, such as engineering, IT and mech-anics, and we specialise across the board. Soldiers come to us and we look at their CV and tell them what they would be suited to.”

Mr Iqbal joined the RAF in 1999 and was part of the first troops that were sent into Iraq and Afghanistan — and he says that experience has driven him to help support military charities through his company.

Mr Iqbal said: “The build-up to Iraq was extremely exciting because this is what we had all trained for — but then we saw all the injury and death which was really hard to come to terms with.

“It really put my life into perspective, which is why I’m working with charities.

“I’m part of Bury Armed Forces Covenant along with Cllr Frith and on September 4 we have a charity night that’s hopefully going to create awareness for them.”

Cllr Frith, Armed Forces Veterans Champion and Labour prospective Parlia-mentary candidate for Bury North, said: “There’s a huge role to play for local government to ease the transition into civilian life.”