Broken news

On the underground back to Herrtoneimi my mobile phone rang (mobiles work on the Helsinki Metro throughout).

It was the agency handling the job in Duesseldorf for which I went to an interview in London a week ago. They had actually said they would call a couple of days ago. I thought this was optimistic of them and so it turned out.

Anyway they phoned today. The employer has given the job to someone with fluent German. Now, fluency was definitely not required but it would give someone the edge.

Oh well. Bit disappointed as it seemed a good job with the opportunity to learn a new technology - Sun. And it would also have utilized by experience in release management and handling certain application issues.

I better not dwell on it and get back to being on holiday.

Packing

Instead of job hunting I spent most of the day packing.

Now, I didn't have that much to pack but I took my time. I also loaded widgets from Konfabulator. Yahoo have just taken over the company and now the widgets are free. They'll be even more useful when I get a job.

Job, oh yes.

I phoned the agency handling the job in Liverpool. They still haven't heard anything back from them yet. And the agency who was going to call me about the job in Duesseldorf (I went for an interview in London about this on Friday) didn't get back to me today. Actually, although they said they would call I would have been surprised if they had any news for me today.

After loading and trying out widgets I felt I ought to job hunt a bit - I'm not on holiday until tomorrow. I did a trawl but found nothing. So this week's total applications remain at four.

Anyway, I'm off to Helsinki tomorrow and back next Thursday. I hope to have little to report on the job hunting front until then.

Useful

I wanted to watch the Shuttle launch today whilst job hunting.

It was being webcasted by BBC News.

But it was all a bit of a nuisance as I couldn't see it whilst scrolling through my job sites.

Until, that is, I installed KatMouse. This allowed me to scroll job pages whilst they were in the background. Very nifty and very cheap - free in fact.

So I could job hunt and watch the Shuttle launch. I'm not sure what I expected. The countdown reached 10 seconds, the engines started, then the spacecraft took off and flew into space. Very much as anticipated. Felt a bit like watching a car start. I never thought a space launch could be so mundane.

Over-qualified

I applied for three jobs today.

And in the afternoon I called the agencies advertising them.

One said I was too qualified for the job applied. Not "slightly overqualified" but clearly out of their league. Mmm. Sounds good but they were paying a lot. Can't win sometimes.

Total applications so far this week: 4. No bites yet.

Honesty or a mistake

"... My client is a trusting and dynamic organisation with career opportunity next to none...".

Didn't apply.

Oh

Article in the Sunday Times about an insurer scrapping income protection. The article mentions that people involved in IT "have a high risk of job loss".

Great. I never thought modern economies would get into such a state that IT could be considered a high risk career. Something wrong here.

Usual start to the week

In that I only applied for one job. And that was yesterday.

Today I finished trawling three web sites for jobs posted from Thursday evening onwards. Didn't find any to which I could apply though.

Two more days to go. Then I'm in Helsinki.

Weekly roundup

So, last week I applied for 19 jobs.

From these I took three bites and had one interview.

This week is going to be harder.

I'm off to Helsinki on Thursday so I only have three days to job hunt.

London

Whilst the police were busy shooting a suspected terrorist I was in London for an interview.

It went well although I was deficient in a few things, mainly Sun systems and data centre management. But they agreed (actually volunteered) that I had the transferable skills.

As I said it went well and I should hear back next week. If I'm offered the job I'd probably take it.

The interview was held close to where I worked until the end of May. It took a lot of effort avoiding going into auto-pilot, walking into the old office, going into the old comms room and crashing a few servers. I actually bumped into a few former colleagues afterwards whilst I was on the street walking back to the station.

This time the trains ran smoothly. Including the underground. There weren't that many people on the trains and we were all eyeing each other up. For a moment I thought I was in there but the girl giving me the look was, I guess, checking for unnatural buldges in my suit.

I'm more specific in my scrutiny and am on the look out for anyone who is: Asian-looking, young, carrying a rucksack, chanting passages from the Koran, with a Northern accent.

Really less dismal

Just before I got out of bed, or to be more accurate, just before I thought of getting out of bed, the mobile rang.

It was an agency who had said they'd call on Tuesday, but didn't. No worries. They were calling now.

It was about a permanent project management job in Munich. We had a very good chat.

Now the agent clearly liked my c.v., otherwise she wouldn't have rang me, right. And who can blame her. But she felt that because the client was German I should change the structure somewhat. And put in much more emphasis on my project management experience.

Changing my c.v. is no quick and easy task. And I had cats to feed. So I said I'd send it to her later in the day.

Just before lunch (mine, not the cats', they had been fed by then) I took a deep breath and got stuck in. Three hours and a salmon fishcake later (mine, not the cats' remember) I had finished. When I called the agent she said it looked much better.

In fact I now realise just how much project management I've done in my career. I always known I did quite a bit (my memory isn't that bad) but bringing it all out on a dedicated c.v. showed, even to me, just how much I've done.

I then tried to settle into my daily job hunt. But I was then distracted by news reports about more bombing incidents on London's infrastructure. Fortunately it seems there were no fatalaties and possibly no injuries either.

Just before 5pm my mobile rang again. It was an agency with whom I had spoken a few days ago. Their client wanted to see me tomorrow. In the City. That is, in the City of London.

I asked them if they had heard the news. They had and said we'd all have to play it by ear.

A couple of hours later they sent an email confirming the details. By then I'd polished my shoes so am ready to go.

Another week, another interview.

Today I applied for five jobs.

The right idea

When I'm not trying to find a job, and not trying to study XP and not sleeping etc I read blog sites.

I was amazed to recently discover that I'm not the only person to blog in this part of the UK. That means there are others around here who can read and write. Obviously they didn't go to my school. I know I went to my school but I managed to learn things at home.

Nearby there's a town called Bognor Regis. Far too near really, especially when you consider this.

Er, no

I saw an advert a week ago which included:

"... This fantastic opporttunity is within a fashionable and exciting translation company based in the trendy City of Milton Keynes..."

Americans please note that Milton Keynes is as trendy as Kansas City.

By the way, are there any Americans still reading this? I hope so. And if, by chance, some of them are from KC I'd apologise but I guess they'd agree.

A few years ago I visited KC as I was employed by an international energy company headquartered there. Despite working with many Americans based in the States it's actually my only visit to the USA.

Back to normal

I couldn't job hunt this morning as I had to feed a friend's cats. Well, it's good to have some responsibility and I'll consider putting it on my c.v.

This afternoon I squeezed off three applications.

After the triumph of yesterday (three phone calls) I expected some more calls today. But no-one phoned.

Still, it's mid-week and I've made 14 applications and received two bites.

Oh, I was suppose to hear back by today about the result of the Liverpool interview. As I said, no phone calls.

Less dismal

Before I get out of bed I switch on my laptop (I don't have a girlfriend see) and check the BBC news to see if it's worth getting up.

Actually, despite the fact that it never is, I still get up.

However today, after logging on Skype rang. It was my friend and business partner Peter. He lives in Finland, two hours ahead of the UK.

Whilst we were going over some figures on a spreadsheet my mobile rang. It was an agency I'd contacted yesterday about a role partly in Germany and partly in London.

We had a chat and she said she'd send my c.v. to her client. A bite. Great.

Just as I was about to hang up the mobile rang again (my mobile can take two incoming calls at the same time). It was another agency, who had called last week. They were calling today just to say they hadn't forgotten me. Ah.

So, it was all go before I had even got out of bed.

After getting up, the three S's and breakfast I settled down to some serious job hunting. And my mobile rang again. Another bite from an agency I had emailed yesterday.

Today I managed to fire off seven applications. Plus I haven't finished looking yet. Any other suitable adverts I see now I'll deal with tomorrow morning. Experience has shown me that tiredness (er, plus alcohol) results in errors in my applications.

More dismal

Last week I applied for four jobs. Which was dismal.

Today, alone, I applied for this number of jobs. OK, two of these applications were probably for the same job (they were advertised by different agencies) but I normally count these as seperate applications. Sometimes similar looking adverts are actually for different companies.

So, despite it being a Monday, which is recently a bad day to job hunt, I managed to shoot off four applications. And in a sense, that is also dismal.

Bit dismal

Here's the round-up for last week.

I applied for four jobs. That's the first time in a while it's gone below the psychologically important level of five per week. Mustn't panic, mustn't panic ...

From these I received one bite.

I also had one interview and a haircut.

I should hear about the result of the interview tomorrow or Wednesday. The client said he would want to recruit quickly. But I checked with the agency and they advised that it could be a couple of weeks after acceptance. So, I've booked a week's trip to Helsinki, starting next Thursday.

Left out

On the train back from Liverpool I felt particularly left out.

Why?

Because I didn't have a laptop to use on the train. Everyone else did. The train even had mains sockets for passengers to use with the computers. They don't, however, have WiFi service on that particular service. Yet.

My journey on Thursday meant I couldn't job hunt the whole day. If I'd taken my laptop with me, then I could have done some work - especially if I had WiFi access.

Not that it made much difference. On Friday I could only apply for one job.

Liverpool

It was a long way to go for a 40 minute meeting (as you know, I don't call them "interviews") yesterday.

Not only was it a long way, it was a long time as well: over 12 hours of travelling.

A month ago, when I went from London to Hull, the train journey went surprisingly well. So well, in fact, that none of my contingency time was used up. So I arrived in Hull over an hour early.

This time was different. Travelling up from the south coast of England every train was late. In fact, one broke down before I got to London.

I reached Euston station (a mainline London station close to Kings Cross) just before 12-noon. This was a week after the bomb outrages and there was a two-minute silence at mid-day. This was observed throughout the station by everyone. Including police (of whom there were many) and railway staff. Which I felt was a bit ironic as it meant absolutely no-one was looking out for unattended bags or other strange behaviours.

To get to Euston I had to use the underground. I felt it my duty to be vigilant. But there was an extreme-hottie sitting opposite me and, to be honest, a civil war could have broken out and I wouldn't have noticed.

From Euston I travelled by a fast inter-city train to Liverpool. Whilst on it I read a periodical I'd chosen for the journey. I think it's good to pick up different points of views and to read things with which you don't necessarily agree. It's also good to choose something that the newsagents actually have.

For this journey I'd chosen (using the above guidelines) The Spectator. And very good it was too - in its way. Fortunately, before I'd reached Liverpool I suddenly remembered that there had recently been some hoohah or something over that magazine and the city of Liverpool. And what's more, this edition had articles about Muslim terrorists (The Spectator, bless it, doesn't totally follow the politically correct line that the recent bombers were terrorists who just happened all to be Muslim). And as we now know, the bombers were Northerners! (Although it only seems to be me who has identified this glaringly obvious fact).

I carefully hid the magazine in my bag.

As everything in this journey was running late I phoned the agency, who'd arranged the interview, to warn them. Fortunately they got a message through to my interviewer. When I met him he was very nice about it.

The interview seemed to go well. And then I tried to repeat the process in reverse.

By the way, I didn't get to see much of Liverpool. Last week I spent a few hours in Brighton. Yesterday I spent an hour in total in transit through London. And I spent a few hours in Liverpool. This gives me the objectivity to say that I think girls in London are the nicest looking. They don't seem to have the skin diseases that afflicts, it seems, almost every girl in Brighton. Nor do they seem to be almost falling over because of the weight of their makeup, as in Liverpool. And there's none of the mutant/alien DNA nonsense that you get down in Somerset.

The train from Liverpool to London was nearly an hour late. And I think the train from London to Sussex was a bit late as well.

Mid-week

I've noticed a pattern in recent weeks. They start off poor (in terms of number of applications) but by Wednesday I'm making quite a few applications.

Well, not today. I managed to squeeze off one application. Just bloody one.

In the afternoon I phoned the agent but she told me the job had gone on hold soon after being advertised this morning.

Anyway, I have an interview tomorrow in Liverpool. The agency phoned me up today to advise me that job had already been filled. But the recruiter still wanted to see me as he was hoping to build another team.

It'll probably cost me over £100 for the trip. Plus it'll mean that I won't be job hunting for the whole day. And it'll also rely on those with a terrorist-inclination behaving themselves. I'll have to cross London as part of the journey.

Another Tuesday

Seems the start of the weeks are always poor at the moment.

Today I applied for one job. Can I go now?

Haircut

On Sunday I managed to find one job to which I could apply.

In fact I suspect the same job had been advertised before, by the same agency, but as a permanent role. Maybe they couldn't find anyone because now they were advertising for a freelance manager for a very similar sounding job.

This is one of those agencies who use an 0870 number. For the permie job I managed to find a normal number for them and used that.

I wasn't too impressed when I called and spoke to the agency before so this time I merely sent off an email (with c.v.) and left it at that.

This morning I managed to book an appointment, for today, for a haircut at a well-known salon in Brighton. My view is that the less hair you have the more important it is that you have a good haircut. And it's even more important if you have an interview coming up.

As I no longer drive I took the train to Brighton. Whilst I was walking to the station (see, I don't just walk to cake shops) my mobile phone rang.

It was the agency to whom I'd sent that email yesterday. We had a good long chat. So long in fact, that I had to interrupt the agent and buy a ticket at the station, else I'd have missed my train. The agent seemed impressed and is sending my c.v. to her client.

So, that's a bite. Which is just as well as it was a typical Monday - nothing I could apply for.

Round up

Apart from news about the interview the following week I didn't apply for any jobs on Friday. I looked, but didn't see any.

Last week I applied for 18 jobs.

From these I received four bites.

Friday

My favourite agency (because they got me a contract job last year) phoned me about a contract in Liverpool.

They then phoned me a little later to confirm an interview for the coming Thursday. Great.

Now, where can I get a hooded top ...

London

I'm not going to write much at all about what happened on Thursday. Of all the writings I've read in the blogosphere this one comes closest to some of my thoughts.

A friend sent me an email: "This is one day I hope you didn't have an interview in town ...".

I didn't. I've checked and it seems that most of the people I know in London are ok.

On Wednesday I was hoping to get a job in London.

On Friday I was hoping to get a job in London.

And on Thursday I was still hoping to get a job in London. In fact, later on in the day I managed to apply for jobs. I didn't have the heart, however, to phone any agency with a London number.

Oh, it's Wednesday

Today I applied for five jobs. This was exhausting as it took all day to go through the usual web sites.

From these five jobs I received one bite.

I prioritised on job hunting rather than getting a flight and hotel to Madrid for the weekend. By the time I had finished hunting the deals weren't so good. I'll look again tomorrow and if I see a good deal I'll book it straight away.

This intense job hunting also means I get too tired to study in the evening. But I will keep trying.

A balanced opinion

Agincourt, Trafalgar, Waterloo and now ... Singapore.

It's not that we won the bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games. It's that we beat the French to win the bid.

To put it another way, it's not the winning that counts, it's the taking part and beating the French that matters.

On the one hand hosting the Olympics will present a massive strain on a crumbling infrastructure, especially considering our unimpressive track record on major programmes.

On the other hand it may one day mean a project management job for me.

Starbucks

The town in which I'm staying doesn't have a Starbucks.

That can be a good thing. For example, Helsinki is also free of the chain. Well there weren't any in November when I last visited. They do, however, have a local equivalent, Roberts, but if anything that adds to the charm of the city. It's not like there's a Roberts-pincer movement on you when you go shopping.

Anyway, Helsinki doesn't have any Starbucks. Neither does the town in which I'm currently staying (I'm not going to call it my town).

There is no other similarity. Helsinki has nice blondes, and saunas, nice crisp beer and really nice chocolate (Fazer, you should try it). I've tried them all.

There's nothing like that in this town. And I do nothing here, never go out or socialise.

So, despite spending many hours on the Internet job hunting I then spend more hours casually browsing.

I'm quite keen on the gadget web sites, e.g. Gizmodo and Engadget. But in recent days I've looked further afield. Today I found Chip Cheek. Unlike any other gadget blog site I recently seen this one mentioned Browster.

This is a really good add-in for your browser. It opens up a link without you having to click on it. JC do you live your life so fast? Well, when you're skimming through up to 10,000 jobs a day this sort of thing can really help.

It doesn't work too well on Firefox at the moment. I'm hoping they get it fully working but meantime I may have to go back to using IE..

Another day without work

Except, unlike yesterday, today was much better.

In fact I managed to apply for five jobs.

And I received two bites. Though not from any of these five or any other jobs to which I've applied.

A couple of agencies called on the off-chance that I was available for short-term (i.e. three to six month) assignments. Indeed I am.

And both these jobs were for the same, very large company! But in different areas, so there was no problem with me applying for both jobs.

Applying for so many jobs is quite tiring. I hope I can find a good deal for a trip to Madrid soon.

I've noticed that during the week I'm gagging to get away but at the weekend I can't be arsed to book things- probably due to tiredness.

I'm really not cut out for this job hunting thing. It's too much solitary work - I work much better within a team environment.

Another Monday

Another Monday where I couldn't find a single job to which I could apply.

Nearly forgot ...

... to update this blog.

What with the tennis (Wimbledon - don't watch it of course) and er, well anyway, today I applied for one job. A rather well paying contract. I'll call the agency tomorrow.

Oh, I was going to do so much today:

1. update my Open Business Club details, that's a business-network thing I was invited to join. A bit like LinkedIn to which I was also invited and ...
2. ... also need updating.
3. study some techie stuff - I did that, well a little bit.
   
4. book a trip to Madrid. Well, it's something to do. This weekend, however, I just haven't been in the mood. Think I'll book it tomorrow.

In fact, hoepfully I'll do the rest tomorrow as well.

Weekly round-up

Here we go ...

This week I applied for 17 jobs. That's a good total, especially considering I had a bit of a flap early on in the week. I really thought I'd struggle to hit my weekly target: five applications.

From these 17 I received five bites.

Having made five applications today I'm rather tired now.

Wierd day

I managed to apply for five jobs today.

But I didn't get any bites.

I tried to phone agencies but the only one who answered hadn't received my c.v. Which is wierd as I'd received an acknowledgement from her agency's email system.

I have this theory about Fridays, especially Friday afternoons: they're all down the pub, or just returned from the pub. So, normally I don't make too much efffort on a Friday. Today was a bit of an exception.

For overseas readers there are two "professions" who top, or is that "bottom", polls of worst occupations:

• estate agents
• journalists

Readers from some of our current or former colonies may know estate agents better as "realtors".

But it's different. For example, I went to a black-tie (tuxedo) dinner party in Canada a few years ago. A realtor was invited as well and he was practically guest of honour (ok, I exaggerate). Whereas in England you wouldn't let one in your house.

I don't think I need to explain about journalists.

Another occupation which must be close to these two in rankings is surely that of recruitment agent. Not entirely fair as some are quite good, and some exceptionally good. But a lot, well a lot must be failed estate agents whose ethical standards were insufficient for them to become tabloid journalists.