Employed Kyle!

I've been following Kyle and his employment-seeking-technique with interest, and am very pleased to find out today that he is now happily employed. There was plenty of that there 'dogged determination' on display, for sure, as well as clever originality, so I'm glad his campaign worked, and indeed it worked well:

employkyle Kyle Clarke

63 days, 452 tweets, 13 interviews, 15 job offers, 1 new boss... And a lot of BIG thank yous!

Even more interestingly for me though, Kyle linked to my blog post about his intriguing job hunting methods. Apparently I should be 'properly loaded' for managing to get high Google ranks! Total fluke, though, sadly I must admit. Would that it were true!

What he had to say also highlighted something I've known for a while - that this design ain't doing much for me. I don't love it. Originally it was a vague, subtle pastiche of the Directgov Jobseeking site and it's not really relevant anymore. I slightly changed the by-line at the top there, but I'm certainly going to overhaul my interweb presence at some point soon.

fear and dis-peers

After a wonderful two weeks spent over sunny stateside with my beau (our first liaison in six months, since the proposal) it's a hard adjustment back to GMT times and to the quotidian. After one weekend of jet-lag erasing sleep in my (very humble ex-council) countryside abode, I went for a tightly scheduled jaunt to the city to catch up with old uni friends - slots of tea with friends, followed by slots of tea with more friends, followed by scheduled fun, sleep and more of the same. Perfect.

I started by having tea and cake with two friends from uni, and talking about the head-rattling bureaucratic processes of our state. The first friend had just found herself breaking the surface of a paper ocean after a brief spell treading water on Jobseeker's Allowance. We regaled the box-ticking, form-filling, phone-etiquette, and life administration associated with signing on and signing off (not to mention the hopeless isolation that seeps into one's sense of being when it's sign-on day).

The second friend is working as a temp in a government office, with all the box-ticking, form-filling, phone-etiquette and life administration associated with the position (not to mention, etc etc).

I can empathize only too well with both situations. In the latter, I once did an experiment with a piece of paper that entered the system, and tracked its journey, but that is a story for another time. In the former, I once did an experiment with a person that entered the system, but I was lucky enough to be able to exit that system and tell you about my journey since, here.

All I could say was "It does get easier. I promise. I don't mean that it gets easier to cope with, but it does lead to better things eventually. That's all I can say." I remember joking about being unemployed or (a term I learned recently) underemployed, but it was a bitter-tainted humour. Truthfully, I had really resented anyone with commodities and frivolity, and it made me become more selective about the people I spent time with. It sounds incredibly bitter indeed in writing, but it was incredibly hard to hear about some peoples' sailing stories while flailing and treading water myself, no matter how much I liked them. I think, at some really low points, I lost some friends along the way. Those who stuck by me really stuck by me and I love them for it, but I don't really blame those who backed away (I wasn't much fun).

I learned that a kind of social hierarchy has developed amongst some of my peers. People have clumped together according to their socioeconomic status: those without jobs, or those in unrelated/poorly paid jobs, don't speak to those who are doing internships because they resent the fact they they can afford to do internships in something interesting, and those who are doing internships don't talk to those who have career enhancing jobs. It's not nasty, but it's borne out of jealousy and despair, mostly. Moreso because there's a public sector hiring freeze in the UK now. I totally understand it.

It's tough. It's sad, regrettable, but not unpredictable. I'm only now slowly reconnecting with some people I lost connection with, even if we had lived very close by we were in very different worlds.

On my second day in the city I had lunch with two different friends who were embarking on new adventures after breaking the entry-level job period of their lives. One's going travelling, and the other one had received both a great job offer and acceptance to a perfect postgrad course during the previous week. It was truly exciting to hear about the way their lives were going to pan out over the course of the next year. It was wonderful to listen to them talk with such happy anticipation because they had both waited three years since graduating to find themselves in these positions - or, to put it more accurately, to have worked themselves into these positions.

To those at the bottom of this hypothetical hierarchy, I'm not sure if it comes as a comfort to learn that patience and hard graft are eventually rewarded, even if it takes three years sometimes.

And it's easy to isolate oneself while in a rough situation, thinking that everyone else's lot is better. It's probably not, but you might not find out until you pluck up the courage to meet up for coffee one day down the line.

Guideline 5: Cover Twitter

Cover letters are like teaser trailers for the main event - the CV. A teaser trailer gives snippets of the main story in order to draw in a paying audience to see the movie. Trailers have a very limited amount of time in which to do that, and they must stand out amongst all the other trailers being shown at the same time.

I was helping a friend write a cover letter for a job application. He'd send me a draft, and I'd scan-read it and report back. Then he'd make some changes, send it back, and I'd do the same until either he or I was happy. More often than not I was telling him to cut something out, or reword it to make it shorter.

I think there is a habit amongst recent graduates to try to divulge information in incredibly convoluted language. It's a habit most likely picked up from reading complex academic journals, a habit that does not help when thrust into the job market.

So while I was waiting on another tightened redraft from my friend, I got thinking. I was trying to get him to make the first paragraph of his cover letter short, snappy, and easy to read. What else is short, snappy and easy to read? Tweets, of course.

So I set myself the task of writing my CV in a single Tweet.

There are services and sites devoted to using Twitter for jobhunting; here's a list of some of them, and here's another jobhunting site using Twitter. However, most of them involve normal full-sized CVs, and I'm not entirely convinced of their use (prove me wrong please, if you can!).

I wrote my Tweet CV and I was quite proud of its pith, until I found this competition run in January by workthing (workthing's blog is truly excellent by the way). You can find the winner here and also some honourable mentions and bad examples here. Mine turned out to be rather weak by comparison! I'm going to keep working on my Tweet CV; I could spend a whole lot of time making it perfect.

In of itself, a Tweet CV might not be much use, but I still heartily recommend having a go at writing yours because it's a really good exercise in writing short, snappy, work profiles. The 140 character limit is a great motivator for using language creatively and effectively.

I did then ask myself if this was a worrying degradation of language into soulless 140 character sentences. Is it a gross reduction of one's life into one line? Is this a grassroots introduction of Orwellian newsspeak?

My answer to all of these questions: Not at all. In my final year of high school I was awarded an A for my Advanced English portfolio, which had consisted only of one short poem and one piece of prose written almost entirely in AOL speak. Had Twitter existed in 2003 I probably would have done a piece based on that instead. The point is not to reduce the feeling, or the beauty of the language. The challenge is to compact it without losing meaning, beauty, or indeed originality.

Translating these ideas to the challenge of creating your own Tweet CV should help you to understand the purpose of a good cover letter.

(You could also try expressing your career in 10-line poetry too, if you like...I would just not advise sending that out to employers!)

Kind of related:

These sites don't show you how to sell yourself in one sentence, but they do talk about using social media to win you a job, which after last week's post on how it can lose you a job, I thought would be a positive list to include.

CV or not CV: Twitter tips

Does your Twitter handle belong on your resume?

Is Twitter the new CV?

Tweet yourself to a new job

Want a dream Job? Blog, Tweet or Youtube it!

Guidelines 4: Presenting Presence as a Present

Be really aware of your cyber footprint.

So, you called up about the advertised position and asked a few well thought of questions, handed in your CV and were polite to the door staff on your way in. Your CV shows you have great experience, and it's well laid out and typo-free. Great, your real-life impressions really are great. But how does your reputation stand online?

Chances are you are going to get googlestalked, so start ego-surfing and googling yourself and making sure you look just a good on screen as you do on paper. Just be careful. Could anybody find any tweets about how drunk you got, badly spelled blog posts, dodgy pictures from last Saturday night, potentially controversial outbursts on the comments page of your favourite news site, or posts on frequented internet forums that demonstrate you to be an intolerant bully. Are there any news stories about you? Do you have a profile on your current or past organisation's website?

Employers are looking out for this kind of stuff. I know people who've had to deal with repercussions from their social networking profiles. I know people who have had to sign disclaimers on application forms indicating which social networking sites they frequent, and accepting that these might be checked up on prior to/during/after application sifting.

I haven't had to sign a disclaimer like that, but I knew it would happen anyway. Late last year a former colleague (and current good friend) of mine sent me a facebook message that said:

"YOU: Your name is the most commonly searched for term on the organisation's website. I take it you're job hunting at the moment then!"

And it's nothing less than I expected. I should point out I wasn't still with that organisation while I was job hunting, but that might be something else to consider, if you're currently still employed but looking elsewhere.

I didn't expect my blog to get me a job (that's not why I started it) but I knew it could lose me any potential job. I know that prospective employers have read this very blog and followed me on Twitter and I even know how they found my information online (cheers, statcounter).

All that talk about employers using google to find out about their workers is true. Have a cyber spring clean if you need to. Have it now.

Because it seems to be that "public is the default" these days on web 2.0 sites, make sure you know exactly what privacy settings you have on any internet media you use, and if you use your real name or publish your email address. Make sure you know who you're friends with on facebook or any other social networking site and also what groups and discussions you've joined and participated in.

It's not a case of making everything private and deleting yourself from the internet, but it's just a case of making sure that first of all the information is employer-friendly, and also that it all adds up. If you've made the mistake of exaggerating your skills, experience or interests on your CV or in an interview, and the information online represents something else entirely, this can easily be picked up on and you could be left wondering why you never got that call back.

Basically, stalk yourself online, and make sure you what you find makes you look like the kind of person you'd like to work with.

Want to find out more?

How's your cyber footprint?

Job hunting grads need to tidy up their web presence.

Job hunting in the web 2.0 jungle.

Cyber vetting and your net rep.

Facebook and Twitter hazards.

And... to see how not to do it, there's always lamebook.

Guidelines 3: Two second rule

Imagine yourself as the man (or woman!) behind the desk. Crisp white shirt, smart tie, picture of your family smiling on your desk. On the desk is a messy pile of stapled sheets of white paper. Which one holds the key to your next employee of the month?

I think I read in a jobhunting book once that it is useful to imagine the process of hiring from the perspective of the employer. When you look at it, it can be just as gruelling for the employer as for the jobhunter.

To get an idea, WSJ have a good description of the hiring process here, and here's a checklist that any jobhunter could bear in mind when applying for work. Oh, and here is a useful blog that I'd bookmark, if I were you.

The employer might be spending a lot of money and time on the hiring process, because they want to make sure that they get the right person first time round. The more you can do to help your prospective employer read your application, the more they will like you. The more they like you...well, you catch my drift. So, after having made a good intial impression, you'll definitely want to make a good impression on your application.

And you've got just two seconds to make that good impression.

Is it really true that employers don't read CVs? Is the two-second scan a real thing?

I'm not going to pretend to be an HR expert or anything here, but I've sat on both sides of the jobhunting fence. This is purely anecdotal and there are lots of other resources available online that can say more about this phenomenon, so I'll give you just two key hints here.

But yeah, I'd say about two seconds is all I need to read your CV.

I can tell if you've read the advertisement/job description. I can tell if you have relevant experience. I can tell if you have the motivation. I can tell if you're underqualified or overqualified. And if I can, your employer can too.

Here are my hints to help you shine in those two seconds of fame:

1. Make your CV scan-friendly.

You need a clear and concise layout for your CV. Make use of whitespace and bullet points, only include directly relevant information and make sure that the points you want the employer to notice are the most obvious. Don't include rambling paragraphs with no clear indication of what information you want the employer to infer from reading it. You need to sign point everything (and you'll see that this relates really closely to hint number two).

For example, you might be really proud of your degree, or your knitting group, but if the job description calls for project management experience or analysis skills, then your degree and knitting group are less important.

Unless of course, you outline it something like this:

• analysis skills: gained through 'data analysis' module as part of degree, and through thorough research for degree thesis.

• project management experience: initiated and developed successful knitting group and coordinated several events to promote knitting as well as managing a charity knitting campaign that raised £X.

And I should add that it's okay not to have relevant experience, or if you don't have the right qualifications. If you can use language to apply the experience you do have to the specifics of the role, or can demonstrate that you understand exactly what the job requires and can prove that you have transferable experience, you might be okay.

2. Put some imitation in your application.

Keywords, keywords, keywords!

They can be the key to accessing the next stage of the process (groan).

The best trick I learned was to use the exact language of the job description in an application. If the application calls for "superior communication skills" don't write that you are "an excellent communicator" or that you "have demonstrable experience in communications"... you write that your experience/achievements demonstrate... what? You've guessed it, "superior communication skills."

Pick out the keywords from a job description and make a point of including them in your CV/cover letter.

This works on two levels. If your application is read by a computer, there are certain keywords the computer is searching for that will determine if you get through to the next round. If your application is read by a human being, it can subliminally encourage them to put your application into the 'interview' pile. Whether or not that's true, or whether that works, it can demonstrate that you have carefully scrutinised the description and submitted a well crafted, specific and relevant application, rather than a standard, generic CV copy.

I suppose, put simply, you are trying to rewrite the job description while putting your name on it. I'd add two extra hints here: First, do not add anything extra that the job description doesn't mention unless you really think it's relevant and relates to what they are looking for (e.g. don't tell your life story, don't try to explain why speaking four languages might be relevant unless they mention languages, don't say you can play an instrument). Second: don't apologise if you don't have the exact skills mentioned on the job description. Doing that just highlights your weak points.

This is a really basic introduction, but there is plenty of information about this kind of thing. Try these links for more:

10 resume mistakes. These mistakes unpack some of the points I've made here, and mistake number 8 relates to keywords. Ignore at your peril!

Passing the 3 second test. Hey, it's more generous than me, that's a whole second longer!

Is your resume ready for the 20-second scan? 20 seconds is even lengthier! I'll point out that in section one, about ensuring your application is spelling mistake free, they misname the font 'Arial' as 'Ariel'... Ha. But if nothing else, these sites prove that what I say is right on the money.

Guidelines 2: From this moment on

Before leaving my old job I helped to recruit a new me. It was actually quite useful to see the job hunting run from the other perspective. So this week I thought that I'd share what it's like to be on the other side of the CV...

First of all, first impressions do count. You are being judged from the moment you engage.

Yes, it's true. Whether you call up and enquire, or walk into your potential employer to ask about a position, or hand in a CV, you are being sized up for the role. In those few seconds. And it can't be helped.

It's not necessarily a conscious thing on the employer's part, or on the part of the employees you might speak to instead, so it's important to make a conscious effort to make a good impression the first time you make an interaction. Whether you meet the boss or the cleaner, they're judging you and they'll probably pass those judgments on... even if it's just "he seemed nice" or "I loved her shoes."

Think about what you want to say before you pick up the phone and ask about the job, and speak clearly. Ask about a specific job role, saying "I've called about the job" wouldn't be much use if they are advertising several positions.

Don't walk in and ask a current employee about the position and then insult the manager/boss/owner. You don't know work relationships yet, and you probably have no idea who you are talking you. Someone did this to me while we were hiring and I was slightly gobsmacked!

Do feel free to be friendly with the current employees, regardless of their role. You might be working with them one day. If they seem amiable and available, feel free to ask them about the job/business. If they seem busy and stressed out, come back later and don't bug them. Try to preempt when it might be less busy for them. For a sandwich bar, late afternoon is best, for a restaurant, in between settings is best, for an office position, you may have to do some research to see if there are big events or news stories taking place that might be taking up the employees' time, or you might just have to hedge your bets and take a guess. They'll let you know... the number of times I was working in the deli and another business called us to talk shop and I had to say "you've called a sandwich bar at lunchtime, could you please call back at 3pm?"

Show enthusiasm about applying for the job. Whether you are calling up, handing in a CV, or just asking if there are any jobs - stride in, smile, and show them that you'd enjoy working there. That's the best impression you can give.

If all that sounds obvious to you, of course, then you're halfway there already...

U are my favorite

Email that I received this week from my partner:

"So I just realized something. I submitted a job application and I had to send a writing sample from my degree coursework. I just realized, and had to correct it before I sent out this application, that all writing samples I have sent out with job applications could have actually cost me jobs. Why? Because ALL spelling is in BRITISH English!"

When employers are swamped with job applications, yes, it can come down to details like these.

Still, it's not as good as one job application my mum received when she was hiring for a position, it stated that the applicant was qualified in "fist aid".

What's luck got to do with it?

Am I lucky? Was it luck?

While I might feel "lucky" for want of a better word, I believe there is more to it than luck. Not, of course, to say "I'm bloody brilliant and why wouldn't anyone hire me", not at all, but I think there are certain things that can improve your chances of getting the good news phone call. Note, I say improve, not guarantee.

I know where to look for jobs related to my career aspirations. Politics/public sector graduates like me have a few websites to source employment opportunities, internships and other experience. Namely these are sites like guardianjobs, w4mp, eurobrussels, euractiv, publicaffairs. However, I also kept an eye on various other sites - individual companies/organisations, local job sites, even jobs direct. If I found a good job on these sites instead, I targeted it first.

Why? Because jobs advertised on specific sector sites are (probably, I admit I'm using no insider knowledge here) advertising to a specific market. Most of the positions are based in London (I'll get to that) and the applicants probably had very similar CVs and career aspirations as me. That makes it difficult to stand out. It makes the competition a lot tougher.

I did consider that not being London-based would be a disadvantage for someone in my position. I live in rural Scotland. However, there are opportunities to be found. Maybe I am lucky to some extent that I live near enough to a variety of good Universities where I secured some interviews for relevant jobs, and also it seems, a good pool of regional offices.

I had applied for various positions in London/Brussels, with mixed results. I had made the assumption of tough competition and oversubscription; of course it is hard to speculate that if the local jobs I had applied for had been in a different setting would I have had similar results? But by keeping the notion of the big city in the back of my mind, rather than being the focus of my job hunt, I had some ego-boosting local experiences instead. And I discovered that ego-boosting is just as important as getting an actual job.

The other thing that is vitally important - experience. Most grads get that 'degree is not enough' tagline shoved down their throats enough times, but it's very true.

Here's a timeline for you:

- I studied that 'useless' subject Film and TV at Uni (alongside Politics).
- I used that as a hook to getting to write film reviews for the student magazine. I wasn't even very good, but it was a new magazine and I got there first.
- I learned a bit more in the subediting/design side of the magazine.
- I got summer job helping with a summer newsletter, giving me office experience.
- I got a Politics degree, and with office experience, got admin jobs with government in specific policy fields... which, strangely (or not so strangely) relate to where I am now.

I absolutely didn't plan it that way. I remember one evening sat on my stoop in the city, watching the moon in the sky and the traffic passing by, crying down the phone to a friend. She was in a 'perfect' job, earning above the national average, had a car and a flat and was generally enjoying life. I was struggling to pay my rent, exhausted from studying and working and all of the rest of it, and not even sure if it was all going to be worth it. I was jealous of her life while mine seemed so uncertain and messy.

"It's all in your head" she reassured, "you worry it's not worth it, that you don't know where you're going, but I promise you that on the outside you appear sorted. You've got good work experience and everything will fit together. It will."

It hadn't surfaced in my mind at the time that the very friend I was confiding in had had her own roundabout way to her current position. She'd started a Post Grad course and dropped out during the final furlong, moved back in with her parents and spent some time freaking out about her next step when an opportunity arose (incidentally related to a summer job she once had).

This all demonstrates how you can use one thing to lead to another, or how you can let your interests lead the way down a windy forked career path.

Recently there have been further difficulties in taking that path - recession and a bad job market. I don't want to use the "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" line, but things I had thought were disadvantages: living far away from big cities/urban hubs, and having previously taken temporary office roles, I inadvertently managed to use to my advantage.

Those to come

I had gone through to the city for a friend's birthday drinks. It had been a wonderful evening, but depressingly grown up; it involved one full-blown argument about art and another about Chekhov. We also talked about politics, and the house that one friend was about to buy, about the teaching career another was to embark on, about my career and my new job, and about job hunting in general, which of course many of my friends are still pursuing.

"Of course, you know what you're talking about," was the comment directed at me. I suppose I do. I know as much about what doesn't work as what does. No, I know more about what doesn't work than what does. I've also spent some time considering this whole job market world, helping friends with CVs, playing with my CV, playing trial and error with job applications.

"I think, if I had a question, I would probably ask you..."

...to which I replied "Half of it is just knowing where to look for information. I have spent a long time looking for information and now I know where to look."

Still ain't an expert though, and I don't pretend to be. But nevertheless, I'm getting a reputation for myself it seems, which is no bad thing.

Which is also my round-about way of saying that I still have a lot to say on here, so hold tight and don't think I'm deserting my blog because I found a job.

Incidentally, I'm quite looking forward to getting stuck into my new role. It's with a very interesting organisation that pursues a lot of interesting projects.

One could say that I'm very lucky indeed...

Off the back burner

I had put my 'career' and all thoughts of it on the back-burner until the new year, and now time has sped by and the year is suddenly not so new. I had returned to work and quickly slipped back into full-time routine. In the back of my mind there was a vague notion that I should probably start applying for internships and other positions so that I can at least enter the second half of 2010 on track with my little step by step plan.

I have been loosely tracking various websites to follow who is looking for interns, and who will pay for them. I have not totally ruled out unpaid internships. Unpaid internships are still the main source of work experience for my chosen field, but in light of all the exciting things that happened over Christmas, and all the exciting things that will happen somewhere down the line, I have to be a bit more cautious about my decisions.

I hadn't started applying for things yet when I got this phone call. It was very unexpected, and even if it leads nowhere, I'm pleasantly surprised that they thought to call me personally. At very least, it brought that vague notion out from the back of my mind, and now I'm fired up again...Fired up and feeling good.

stairmaster 3000

As you will have noticed, I have had little to say about job hunting recently. That's because I am taking a break, and I've put the career search on hold for a short time. My current job is great fun (tinned pumpkin aside) and I'm also very excited to announce something else:

I have paid off my overdraft!

I am indeed back to black. As you may recall, this was the first step in my five step plan, so now I can concentrate on saving a bit of money, and (gulp) learning to drive, which I promise, promise will start in the new year.

So this, along with graduating a few days ago (woohoo!) has made it a very good week for me.

But it's difficult to see my friends in different states of post-graduation despair. I see facebook status updates, receive text messages, and have conversations with people very close to me who are struggling in dealing with this time. I hear bitter words from friends who don't know what they want to do with their lives; those who do know what they want to do but are finding it impossible to get on the career ladder; those who thought they knew but it's not quite working out.

Some of my friends have just left Universityville, and have also just begun the rite of passage of uncomfortable disillusionment that occurs in the period between Uni and starting a career. I know how it feels. I spent 2 years reading up on jobs and job hunting, because I was doing the awkward shift into entry level work while still studying. I had the panic-ridden thoughts of "what am I doing?"
"what SHOULD I be doing?"
"am I doing the right thing?"
"Is this all I am worth?"
"Why can't I get where I want to be?"
"Is this it?"
"Why didn't I do things differently? Would it have made a difference?"
"Why won't someone give me a break?"
"What else can I try?"
"If this is all I can get, why even bother?"
"Where does all my money go?"
"Why is everyone else getting better opportunities than me?"

It's difficult to know what to say back to my friends though because I can relate all too well. Practical advice is usually not what they want to hear, and empty words like "I am sure it will turn out fine" are meaningless and insincere.

Most people find their way during this horrible period. Some shake up their lives a bit, go travelling, sign on, reconsider their priorities, find their own coping mechanisms and then find a way of making money. It's not easy, and there's little to say to reassure people.

I can't pretend to be a careers expert; for a start I don't really have a career, but I do have a lot of experience of the job-hunting mill (at least more than one of my student friends who stepped inside the Uni careers centre for the first time recently and was so scared she ran away).

I already went through these thought patterns and now have a clearer idea of how things work as well as a clearer idea of where I want to be. I don't have a problem with admitting to people, or myself, that I am living with my parents and working in a deli and that my career is currently on hold. When I started my first job out of University, as a staff assistant for the government, I was thinking too much about what my next step would be. When I was studying for my MSc, I was thinking too much about what I was going to do when I finished and how I would afford to live. Panicking too much about the next step made me panic too much about the one I was currently sitting on.

There are lots of approaches to job hunting and career starting, but the one that has worked best for me so far is to take things slowly, to take things one silly step at a time. When I moved back home in September, I set myself some very small goals indeed. But as silly as these goals may seem, and no matter what happens next, achieving the first one this week has made me feel like everything is on track.

sharpen the soul

I did something foolish.

I know it is foolish and I know that it may have been a terrible decision, but I also think it was the right thing to do.

I received an email last week inviting me to a telephone interview for a paid internship directly related to my career interests. I had applied for the internship in July and since forgotten about it.

My heart leapt with excitement. This is good news! So what did I do?

I emailed back and said I was interested, yes, but unavailable until the new year. Let me reiterate: I turned down an interview, for a potentially ideal position.

Why?

During a tough moment about a year ago, a friend was telling me about the seven habits of highly effective people. I can't actually remember any of them (which I guess doesn't bode well) except for the final one, "sharpen the saw" which I actually misheard as "sharpen the soul".

I had asked my friend to explain it, and he regailed the story of the guy ferociously and unsuccessfully trying to chop down a tree with a blunt saw, believing that he did not have time to sharpen the saw, which would in actual fact save time. It resonated with me because I was working by day and studying by night and weekend, rarely letting myself take a breather or have a distraction. If I had, I probably would have been more productive.

So now that I have a chance to take a breather and enjoy distraction from the overall goal, I am taking and enjoying it. Don't misunderstand this; I am working 5-6 days a week as a supervisor in a posh deli, earning back money.But I'm enjoying the job and I'm not taking the next step of my career, yet.

It is one thing to be able to make opportunities for oneself. I worked hard to get my degree(s) and learn languages and gain skills and was offered an opportunity as result of this. However, it is another thing to be able to turn an imperfect opportunity down. The internship could have been perfect, but I know that it wasn't the right time, and therefore I know it isn't perfect.

Maybe I am a fool, or maybe I am astute. Only time will be able to tell... not the time it takes to sharpen a saw, but definitely the time it takes to sharpen the soul.

Good odds at the bookies

I have already provided some very good reasons why volunteering while job hunting is a good idea. I really do enjoy it very much, and given the situation, it would be the perfect job to have while trying to mount the proverbial career ladder, if only it was a paid position.

Well, I have been informed that there may be an opportunity to get paid for some of my hours at the charity bookshop because a couple of the paid staff need to cut their hours. While this is not yet definite, it demonstrates the unexpected opportunities that can arise out of putting your heart into something you enjoy. So, even though this is still not confirmed, and even if it doesn't work out, I thought I would mention it.

I also thought I would mention this for anyone else who is volunteering in the UK while job hunting. Most places offering volunteer positions know that volunteering is often a CV filler, but this is a government programme that also offers official recognition for volunteering.

The Tempest

A couple of years ago I was going to start a blog called The Tempest about my experiences of temping. I was just out of uni for the first time and had naively leaped arse over tit into the first job that had been offered to me.

In retrospect it was a good experience, and it also looks great on my CV. However, at the time I was learning just what it meant to have the label of being "the temp" in the office. I'm sure I am not the only one who has experienced the swift shock to the ego that going from a relatively smart and successful graduate to an underpaid and underappreciated office-worker provides. If the instability of the temporary contract isn't bad enough (including the nil that gets paid on holidays and sick days), then add the contradictory disdain that fellow colleagues bestow on you for being a smart-arse graduate and for being the lowest in the pay-roll pecking order. It's even more soul-destroying than the job hunt that precedes.

I'm trying to avoid a graceless return to temping, but there is a distinct possibility that I may have to, depending on how the next few months pan out. For now I am enjoying the refreshing experience of my volunteering stint. People respect me, people thank me for my efforts, and people want to take advantage of my skills, even if it is just my vague understanding of how best to display the politics textbooks! Gosh, what a joy it is to be appreciated and to be rewarded with respect.

And this is certainly assisting with the job hunt effort. When I was temping, I found it difficult to go home and feel excited about filling in job applications, or later when I was doing my MSc, to do the necessary reading. Now, after a day of wholesome book-sorting and customer-serving I go home and feel fired up for a bit of skills-matching and profile-writing. Definitely stirred, not shaken.

It's Not You, it's the Market

Have you ever read the book He's Just Not That into You or seen the Sex and the City episode it was based on? (I do apologise for the references to the show, I promise I am not one of those women). It's about the liberation of truly understanding how the dating game works.

My approach to job hunting is similar to that, and my mantra is "It's not you, it's the market".

There is plenty of doom-laden recession porn to be found online about the plight of young people and graduates struggling to find their place on an insecure career ladder: here here here here here here here here here here here

I could go on. A young graduate could read all this and think, in a Marvin the Paranoid Android-esque sequence of defeatist thought processes, "oh, what is the point, I can't do anything in this situation" and conclude that applying for and getting a job has about the same odds of winning the lottery, resulting in a sitting duck graduate passively riding the recession wave. Boo hoo.

Or the said graduate could actually try buying a ticket for the lottery, and engineer that ticket into a winning ticket! Woo hoo! (Okay, we can also achieve it without the corny metaphor.)

I'm not an economics graduate but I have the understanding that the best thing I could probably do to boost my CV and to make my contribution to the speedy end of the job market of doom, is to start my own little business. For various reasons that I don't need to go into, this isn't really an option for me. However, I'm doing what I can. The problem here is two-fold.
1. I have no money.
2. I have no career.
But, as a result of both of these things, I have a lot of time.

Obviously a lot of time is being spent applying for jobs. But to avoid the soul-destroying experience of job hunting mentioned earlier, I am also volunteering at a Barnardo's bookshop. I cannot overstate how great this is.

First of all, I get to categorize and organize books, which saves me from sitting in my bedroom doing the same with my CD collection over and over.

Second of all, I get to sell lots of wonderful second-hand books to people. I love chatting to the customers and helping them to find great bargains. I especially love talking to old ladies on a buzz from buying stashes of cheap wool from other charity shops, about all the knitting books we have.

Third, I enjoy getting to know the other volunteers, a diverse and interesting bunch of folks.

Fourth, I have a filler line for my CV. "What did you do in the recession, Daddy?"

Finally, it gives me the motivation to keep on trucking. Another rejection email? Another day of fruitless job hunting? No matter, I'll spend tomorrow morning drinking cups of tea, shelving books and smalltalking with the locals. Then I'll see what kind of shape the market is in by the afternoon.

We're sorry to inform you that you're brilliant

I've started this blog because I'm convinced that job-hunting can be a pleasant experience, or at least not totally soul-destroying.

I've experienced the soul-destroying side of it:
Firing off standard CVs to the out of date job adverts suggested by a Job Centre advisor and noting it down on the handily provided job hunting schedule to prove that it happened.

Skimming job sites that only seem to advertise jobs with Greggs.

Skimming job sites that only seem to advertise outbound sales advisor call centre jobs.

Going for a pint with a mate who received an email from a job hunt website that said "we thought your skills matched this position and that you might like to apply." The email was accompanied by a promising link entitled "Assistant Manager" but which unfortunately led to a job advert for Assistant Manager of a local branch of Burger King, perks including free burgers.

Skimming job sites during a recession and realising that not even Greggs are advertising jobs.

Actually being at an interview for an outbound sales advisor call centre job.

Going to a Graduate job fair during a recession.

Getting to the point when you can't remember if it's the week you sign on or not.

Or being a minimum-wage temp...again.

Yes, it can be soul-destroying. But it can also be a motivating, eye-opening experience. I learned this when I was rejected from a job recently. Yes, really. I was invited to an interview, completed some tests and appeared in front of a panel looking like a quivering heap of well-dressed jelly. Relatively smooth interview (not too wobbly), back on the bus and back home on the sofa with a calming mug of hot chocolate.

Waiting for "the phone call" is somewhat like being told by a charming guy that he'll call you later that day. Any self-respecting girl knows that she should fill the rest of her day with useful tasks and other social engagements, but she also knows she'll probably glue herself firmly next to the telephone for the next three hours so she doesn't miss his call. What am I up to? Oh, you know me, I'm really busy. Ha. At least when you're blatantly unemployed you don't need to pretend you have a full diary; everybody pretty much knows you're on the sofa in your pyjamas posting inane comments on news websites and watching MTV.

They called me back in for another chat the next day because they had whittled the candidates down to two. It was me versus someone else in an anonymous battle for gainful employment. In the end, they went with the other candidate, but in the rejection they told me I had performed brilliantly and that they wished they had a more suitable position so they could hire me.

This was great to hear because truthfully, I was not qualified for that job. I was rejected on the mutual understanding that I'm pretty darn good but that job wasn't for me. That's exactly what I needed to hear, and it's motivated me to reconsider my whole approach to this job hunting malarkey.

Guidelines 1

Don't use gibberish as placeholder text in a job application. Do not use placeholder text at all. This could result in your profile reading "Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc etcetera etcetera..."

Don't attend an interview with a bank and tell them that money does not motivate you.

Don't drink seven pints of Guinness the night before a trial shift.

Do be subliminal; mirror the exact language of the job description in your application.

Do plan your route to the job interview on google street view.

Don't apply for a job working for a company that makes products that you hate. Or at least, don't admit that you hate the products in your application.

Don't go into Oxfam and ask if they are 'hiring'.

Do trust your loved ones when they tell you that you're underselling yourself.

Do point out spelling mistakes in job adverts to the advertisers, but do consider if you actually want to work for people who make those kinds of spelling mistakes.

Do listen to interview questions so that you don't give the interviewer your prepared answer on where you want to be in five years when they asked where you want to be in three.

Do steal your mum's smartest power-shoes for interviews.