Another day not at work

I hope you're all fast readers as I haven't got long before I start looking at cash-flows again.

Job hunting isn't just a case of sitting on a chair and searching through job web sites all day. Except today it was.

I also phoned some of the agencies to whom I've applied in the last few days. Still seated of course. Most responded "well, you don't have recent exeperience/departmental financial experience".

I'm getting fed up hearing that my transferable skills, acquired a few years ago, are no longer valid.

Contender

For a while today I thought another agency was keen to enter the "worst agency" category.

I spoke with them yesterday and they said they'd send two job details over.

I received nothing so I phoned them. They said they'd send it over.

By this morning I was beginning to suspect something was wrong with my email system, not least as I hadn't received any spam overnight. So I sent myself an email from my Yahoo account. Worked fine.

Nor could I get through to the agency for most of the day today.

This didn't bode too well. In my job hunting experiences I've had lots of agencies, and companies, promise interviews and responses but never completing. Some of the companies have been very large indeed.

Eventually I got through and the agent sent the details over. Well, the second job details he sent over were for a completely different, and completely unsuitable, role. But he quickly sent over the correct description with good humour.

And then ...

... it got busy. No time for a gym workout.

In total I applied for six jobs today. And received one bite.

Graph

Below should be a chart. It should show the number of applications I've made each week in August and September. I got Hello working last night, eventually.

It looks a simple graph but producing it wasn't.

I know no-one is interested but I'm going to go through the process now:

- copy Access database table into Excel, I only copied the rows for the months I was analysing.
- remove extraneous columns, in this case this just leaves me with one column. In each row of the column is the date I've made the application. Obviously there will be quite a lot of rows with the same date entered as I often make more than one application per day.
- create a lookup table showing week number and its start date.
- create a vertical lookup function and copy into the columns of a new row. (Normally I start with a horizontal lookup function before realising it should be a vertical function.) This way, next to each application date is the week number of that application.
- create a Pivot table from this table. I think I was 30 before I understood Pivot tables and apparently this makes me quite advanced.
- accidentally delete the whole spreadsheet then repeat the above steps this time saving the spreadsheet as you go along.
- the Pivot table shows the number of applications made per week. Create a chart from this.
- copy this chart into Visio and save as a JPEG.
- play around with Hello until it posts the chart to your blog.
- sit back and wait for immediate offers of high paid work from people desperately needing someone with your Access and Excel skills.
- go to bed.