Long days alone

Job hunting means one thing these days, long days shut away in front of the computer making sure that your CV is “out there” , posted on job sites for potential employers and job agencies to find using their chosen search criteria. As a job seeker you have to make sure that you save at least one set of search criteria of your own and register for notifications by email. Then when the emails come flooding in you then have to look up the detailed job information and determine the all important essential criteria -- meet that and it’s then down to whether it pays enough and is in your location or within commuting distance.

The net result is spending a lot of hours chasing very few real opportunities because most jobs will show up on a number of email alerts but they will have small differences which is designed to make you contact them so that they can put you forward. What it actually does is waste a lot of time as I end up talking to several agencies about the same role and “the rules” are that only one agency represents you for an particular vacancy to save arguments on the subject of which agencies gets the commission payment for placing the successful applicant. They will tell you “To stop any duplicated application please note any companies you have either interviewed at or made direct applications for. (Please note if a company gets your CV twice they will think you are more interested in any job not their role).” What they are doing is getting more data on potential clients that they can approach with other prospective employees and for that reason I don’t reveal details of who I’ve applied to or been interviewed by until AFTER I’ve been told the result of the final step in the selection process. Why? Because I don’t NEED any more competition for the jobs I’m chasing.

What all this means is that whole days can and do disappear remarkably quickly. As soon as the family have left the house in the morning and I’m sat down with a cuppa tea and delving into the 20 of more email alerts that come in each day. Despite this I have whole days where I find no jobs at all worth my applying for. Now that may seem a strange statement to make but if you don’t meet the essential criteria then simply forget it! It isn’t worth the effort. Whoever gets your application will check the essential criteria first -- and if it isn’t met your application goes into the recycle bin. That’s if you are lucky. Some jobs have such high numbers of applicants chasing them that you could well get a read receipt that shows your emailed application was deleted without being read. To avoid that I’m now in the habit of phoning the nominated contact within 24 hours of applying -- it doesn’t always work as there are a lot of “on the phone” and “out to lunch” and “in a meeting” agency staff. That’s assuming that the phone number will actually take an incoming call -- many don’t, and when/if they phone you their number is always withheld.

So this week has disappeared in a blur of emails, phone calls and on-line job applications. Except that today I didn’t get a single phone call. The situation is getting worse out there, not better. The Bank of England rate cut of 1.5% had better work otherwise I could be stuck in this routine for a very long time, well, until the money runs out.