Almost back to normal

Today

After a dreary start to the week (three applications by Tuesday) today I applied for six jobs. That's better.

One of the comments I recently received on this blog reminded me to persist in phoning people. This I did.

I also phoned agencies to whom I had applied a couple of weeks ago and who have now readvertised the jobs. These calls were well received.

At the moment there seems to be a wierd scramble in the UK and European IT jobs market. People post jobs but then are tied up resourcing other requirements.

I also phoned the agency handling the company who interviewed me last Wednesday. They apologised for not getting back to me and said they'd contact me after 4pm today. They haven't (mind you they still might call this evening, they do seem to work long hours).

In my last permanent role I had to recruit and interview lots of people. And do my day job. And run a major project at the same time. I have to admit I was sometimes tardy in providing feedback so I can't throw stones now.

C.V.

Not mine but an old friend's c.v. - he lives abroad and today asked me to review it and a covering letter he'd written. He'd forgotten the eighteenth rule of c.v.s - always have one ready.

He knows me well (we've been friends for 20 years) and knew exactly what to expect. Lots and lots of comments. As I told him, I'd even red line God's c.v.

I sometimes find it funny that people ask me to review their c.v.s when mine can't get me a job. But actually I've heard my c.v. is pretty good - I've done a lot of work on it and have based it on advise from professionals (recruiters, outplacement consultants etc). Also, I've seen lots of other people's c.v.s (when I was recruiting for teams) so I know what to avoid.

Comments

Last night a friend mentioned that I had a comment on one of my posts. I hadn't noticed (people who know me won't be surprised about this). In fact I've had a few comments and they've all been positive. Thank you to the people who posted them.

I agree with the messages. It's important to be persistent, to phone contacts and to network, network, network. In fact networking has worked for me in the past: I gained a very good job that way and also recruited people by this means. But I sometimes think it doesn't pay off so well, at least in the UK. I'll write some more about this, maybe at the weekend.

I'm also thinking of putting a link to my main site. This contains my professional details (including a c.v.) but doesn't display my address or phone number. It does have my email address and initially I was worried this would result in loads of spam. But I get loads of spam anyway.