I have been accused of being a little "ranty" in my last post. Well, in fairness, I was very ranty and intentionally so as that was how I felt at the time. Now I am more concentrated on worrying about getting a new job than the reasoning behind the loss of the original one.
Nigh on every single job I see online is advertised through an agency, and once you get down to the nitty-gritty of it all there isn't actually a real job at the end of it (or it has mysteriously already been filled, despite the advert only being posted that morning). I have completed several applications directly for jobs that not only fill me with interest and enthusiasm, but seem to fit precisely to my skills and attributes, only to have no response at all, not even a rejection email.
Unless I feel so little self worth as to start applying for jobs which a monkey could do, or joining the ranks of Eurostar call centre staff, it seems like there is so little out there for someone like me who is, ultimately, completely unqualified.
In hindsight I really should have done a different degree, like teaching for example, or physiotherapy. I would then be qualified to be an actual teacher, or an actual physiotherapist. Rather than my very enjoyable Film & Television Studies degree which qualifies me to be absolutely nothing. It doesn't even qualify me to be a film or television critic, because they want people with a journalism degree for those jobs. I really wish I had paid more attention in the 'careers' lessons at school and college, but I doubt they told us anything useful like that; if my likes and dislikes at age 15 can tell anyone what career I should plan for, then I take my hat off to them.
So, with several years of customer service experience, management experience (albeit with small seasonal teams) and a fluent foreign language, I am struggling to find anything much out there that isn't either depressingly badly paid or requires an extra experience that I don't have - like online marketing, or web design. I don't think yell.com's web-builder for small businesses counts as web design.
I have a job interview this week, for a job that seems to fit and they obviously like my CV enough to think that I am not completely unsuited for the job. But in a month of appliations this is the first interview, and as the days tick away leading up to my imminent unemployment, my inbox is not filling up with offers as I had hoped it would.
So I keep plugging away with the applications, in the hope that someone will see me for the wonderful person that I am and the amazing skills and benefits that I could bring to their company. And still keeping my fingers crossed for that lottery win...
K x
Friday 23 November 2012
Thursday 8 November 2012
My Imminent Unemployment
Hi there campers. Sorry its been a while since I last updated you all on the delights of my neuroses, I am afraid I have been somewhat sidetracked.
First of all there was the charity swim - for some reason I said I would swim a mile for Rheumatoid Arthritis charity NRAS, then suddenly it was a few months later and I had to fundraise, not to mention practice swimming. Both were done succesfully (raised £1,400 and managed to swim a mile without causing serious physical damage to myself or others) but the build-up to the event did rather monopolise my evenings for a while.
Then, of course, there was the self-imposed rest period following the great event: I shall just eat this takeaway because I did do something great for charity last week; I shall just leave the washing up today because I did raise loads of money last week and I am quite tired etc etc.
And now there is a whole other something which is taking over my mental capacities - job hunting. My current employment was always billed as 'temporary': a 12 month maternity cover contract, then a 6-month extension to help on a project, then a 6 month extension to cover someone's secondment to a different department.... it goes on. But, because every time the "end of contract" date loomed closer the company extended it by another stretch, I had never really truly prepared myself that one day I really would run out of job. But here I am, preparing to leave a job that, although of course I am biased, I do rather well. Being a generally modest and unassuming type, I don't like to blow my own trumpet, but I am good at my job and I can think of several people in the same office who truly are not. There is something terribly soul destroying about the unfairness of incompetent idiots being gainfully employed in a job I can do better than them, more efficiently than them and, importantly, more quietly than them, without the need to broadcast my every action to my colleagues (if you work in my office you know exactly who I mean).
I don't mean this to become a childish tantrum, my cheeks reddening as I stomp my feet and declare angrily how unfair everything is, no doubt blaming my parents for ruining my life and then slamming a few doors for good measure (my bedroom door in my teens wouldn't slam... it was such an enormous disappointment). But the economy and the job market at the moment are not in the best of health, and desperately seeking employment is not a happy place to be. I am disappointed in an employer who recognises my worth and my abilities but resolutely manages NOT to "talent manage" in any kind of effective way. I now dread every day: not because I dislike my job, but because every day I am reminded that however hard I work, however efficient, organised or exceptional I might be, in four weeks time I will not have that job anymore.
And so I trawl the job boards for possible alternatives, delaying the inevitable calls and emails to the agencies who will then bombard me daily with vacancies which almost completely do not meet my requirements. All the while keeping my chin up, my upper lip resolutely stiff, telling myself its 'onward and upward'...
K x
First of all there was the charity swim - for some reason I said I would swim a mile for Rheumatoid Arthritis charity NRAS, then suddenly it was a few months later and I had to fundraise, not to mention practice swimming. Both were done succesfully (raised £1,400 and managed to swim a mile without causing serious physical damage to myself or others) but the build-up to the event did rather monopolise my evenings for a while.
Then, of course, there was the self-imposed rest period following the great event: I shall just eat this takeaway because I did do something great for charity last week; I shall just leave the washing up today because I did raise loads of money last week and I am quite tired etc etc.
And now there is a whole other something which is taking over my mental capacities - job hunting. My current employment was always billed as 'temporary': a 12 month maternity cover contract, then a 6-month extension to help on a project, then a 6 month extension to cover someone's secondment to a different department.... it goes on. But, because every time the "end of contract" date loomed closer the company extended it by another stretch, I had never really truly prepared myself that one day I really would run out of job. But here I am, preparing to leave a job that, although of course I am biased, I do rather well. Being a generally modest and unassuming type, I don't like to blow my own trumpet, but I am good at my job and I can think of several people in the same office who truly are not. There is something terribly soul destroying about the unfairness of incompetent idiots being gainfully employed in a job I can do better than them, more efficiently than them and, importantly, more quietly than them, without the need to broadcast my every action to my colleagues (if you work in my office you know exactly who I mean).
I don't mean this to become a childish tantrum, my cheeks reddening as I stomp my feet and declare angrily how unfair everything is, no doubt blaming my parents for ruining my life and then slamming a few doors for good measure (my bedroom door in my teens wouldn't slam... it was such an enormous disappointment). But the economy and the job market at the moment are not in the best of health, and desperately seeking employment is not a happy place to be. I am disappointed in an employer who recognises my worth and my abilities but resolutely manages NOT to "talent manage" in any kind of effective way. I now dread every day: not because I dislike my job, but because every day I am reminded that however hard I work, however efficient, organised or exceptional I might be, in four weeks time I will not have that job anymore.
And so I trawl the job boards for possible alternatives, delaying the inevitable calls and emails to the agencies who will then bombard me daily with vacancies which almost completely do not meet my requirements. All the while keeping my chin up, my upper lip resolutely stiff, telling myself its 'onward and upward'...
K x
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