Not bad

Today I applied for four jobs. Not bad.

And this week (i.e. from Sunday) that totals five jobs. Not bad at all for the second week of job hunting. And really not bad considering it's now the holiday season. And it's only Tuesday.

On Friday I'm off to Helsinki for over a week. It's for a bout, or rather another bout, of R and R. It's also my godson's second birthday (he lives there).

I'd really like to live in Helsinki, for several reasons:

- everything (i.e. infrastructure, heating etc) works, even in the depths of winter
- I can look at blondes all day long and sometimes in the evenings as well
- I can eat rheindeer
- and elk
- mobile phones work on the underground, underground. Oh, and the underground works.

But getting a job there is difficult. I would like to see companies when I'm over there but this is unlikely on the forthcoming visit. Why? Because practically every company shuts down for summer holiday until August. My godson was clearly born at the wrong time of the year.

Oh well. Nevertheless I spoke with a couple of agencies today about jobs in Helsinki. One of these agencies considered me for a role there a year ago. It never came about.
The other agency had a role in London - also a year ago - for which I applied. But the contact in the agency was Finnish and I got to talk to her about roles in Helsinki.

Neither had roles there at the moment but it was worth calling them. I'll contact them again when I return.

I've pretty much decided that I won't look at UK job hunting web sites whilst I'm in Finland. Too much effort and it's never paid off before. I'll enjoy this second break (first one was in Granada) and try to learn some Finnish. Yes, really.

In terms of statistics I consider five job applications per week to be the minimum. Anything above, like 10 jobs per week, is quite good and indicates progress in the economy. With the current holiday season I don't think I'll hit that figure until September (assuming I'm still looking).