A phone call

Despite suffering from near fatal influenza blokus I yesterday called a recruitment consultant who had found me a job in Munich a couple of years ago.

We actually spoke a few months ago when he called me to check my availability. Things were looking up in the recruitment world.

Of course things are now looking "50/50" in the recruitment world. Still, I sent him my c.v. and will call him on Friday.

Slow down

I didn't let the week before get me carried away in a job hunting frenzy.

My efforts last week was limited to attending a Xing dinner.

This is a networking dinner operated by www.xing.com in Munich.

You sit at a different table for each course and meet new people.

Really though, in terms of making useful contacts it's not very beneficial.

But for me it's a chance to practise my German.

And the food's good.

Slept

Yesterday I updated c.v. and then slept on it.

Just as well. I had tailored it quite specifically for my Telepresence experience (that's what's the job for) but didn't think to change the section header. It said "IT Project Management".

Today I changed it to match the contents ... it now says "Telepresence Project Management"

So, today I applied for one job, for which I was contacted on Friday and so that counts as a bite.

A nice start.

Timing

I'm not unemployed but the feeling at work isn't good. There will be redundancies.

Lots.

Must be ready, update my c.v., actively network and survey job sites.

Must, must, must.

Yesterday one of my mobile phones rings. It's an agency in London. They're looking for project and programme managers with experience in Telepresence.

In other words, they're looking for me (I have project and programme management experience in Telepresence).

The timing might be good. Their client isn't ready just yet but may be they will be when I know, by the end of October, if I'm in the first round of redundancies.

I'll leave you now as I must check and maybe up date my c.v.

Local difficulty

Do you realise how difficult it is to job hunt when it's the Munich Oktoberfest?

Very.

Deep joy

I've been listening to Pink Industry's "What I wouldn't give" and Force Majeure's "Out of My Mind" so life is undoubtedly good.

But not that good.

You see I was working as a freelancer for a major company. And it was going so well that they asked me to go permanent. Which I did.

And it is still going well ... for me. For the company generally, not so good. In fact not good at all.

Within six months they've gone from talking about increasing headcount to announcing the need for major redundancies.

Time to get job hunting.

Labour Day

Interesting how to celebrate Labour Day those in labour don't do any labour.

Today was my first day as a full-time employee.

That's right.

I've taken a permanent job.

Well, it's the same job that I was doing yesterday, as a freelancer, but now with less money.

But a few benefits.

Like being paid on a public holiday which today is in Germany.

Permanent jobs. Oh, these days that's as believable as a Zimbabwean election result.

So, now is the time to get my job hunting act together.

The time to look for a job is when you are in a job.

So, I'm going to start taking networking more seriously again.

And updating this blog.

OK, I'm happy where I am and things are going well (not least as they asked me to go permanent) but in the fickle world of work it makes sense to be paranoid.

Should, or when, this job comes to an end, for whatever reason, I want to be ready.

Passing fad

Try this one, videojobshop.

Could make comments but I don't think I could make any original ones.

(Hat-tip to the Downloadsquad)

Good weekend

On Saturday (and only Saturday because on Sunday it's illegal in this country) I bought a couple of things:

- an external monitor for my PC
- lots of RAM for my PC.


It took a while before I could get the monitor working. My PC is actually a tablet and the key combination expected to work didn't.

I now have four times as much RAM, although my PC isn't four times as fast.

But why? And why did I blog this?

Culture

Last week I attended a two-day seminar on understanding Chinese, Japanese and Indian cultures and how to work with them.

Apparently simply telling them to get on and do the job just isn't enough these days.

Still, I've been working on a project out in Beijing for the last five months so it's good to know where I've been going wrong.

Today, via The Register, I saw an article on just about the same topic in Blognation.

Nowadays everyone seems to be banging on about how important China is for world business. So, learning about handling the culture is no bad thing.

Social network envy

There's LinkedIn, Xing (openBC), Facebook ... and now there's Plaxo.

Yip, Plaxo is getting all social-networky, bless 'em.

Now, where's the value in all this?

The German efficiency question

A response!


"Thank you for your application and your interest in working for xxxxx.

After thoroughly checking your application we have to inform you today that we cannot consider your application for this position.

...

We thank you for your interest in our company and wish you all the best for your professional career."

Gosh, those Germans really are thorough. I applied on 20th December 2006 and had two interviews at the beginning of this year.

I received the above reply a month ago.

Not a big problem as I'm working as a global project manager based in Munich. To give you an indication of how global my job is, this posting is being written in Beijing.

And just because I have a job doesn't mean any let up in the job networking front.

So, more later ...

Big Monday

That's right, on Monday 1st November it's International Project Management Day.

I'm a project manager, I have an international background, and I work internationally.


So really, it's all about me.

Gosh

It's been over a month since I last posted?

Bad blogger! Bad, bad, bad blogger!

It is, of course, always a teensy, weensy little bit difficult to maintain a job hunting blog when you're not actually job hunting.

But what's made it more difficult is that in this new job I'm travelling all the time. In fact I'm going off to Beijing for the third time ... now.

Procrastination

Interesting article in The Sunday Times about this civilising activity. Most of it is why many are reluctant to job hunt.

It doesn't go into it in enough detail for my liking.

I tend to procrastinate though, ironically, not when job hunting. It's in my nature and is, I believe, in many ways beneficial to where I work. And I try to conpensate the negative effects by strong time management.

I haven't been procrastinating when it comes to this blog, honest. But it is very difficult writing about job hunting when you're not job hunting and especially when you've just been on long business trips.

But I will be writing more.

There's a war out there

... and it's not between vampires and werewolves.

Well, not the war to which I'm referrring.

It's the social networks versus business networks battle and it might get nasty.

The BBC news website posted a link Skrentablog which has an article about how people are switching to Facebook from LinkedIn.

A couple of weeks ago I received an invitation to join Facebook from an old friend. As in, not a young friend. As he is older than me I was surprised that he was on a social network which seemed dedicated to teens and young adults.

Anyway, if it's free it's for me so I joined. I then found other friends on it too.

It's rather nice. There's an immediacy to it; thanks to its Web 2.0 functionality you can see what your friends are up to. And that gives it a currency which you don't get from business networks like LinkedIn and Xing. Those have a file and forget feel to the contacts you amass. At least compared to Facebook.

Anyway, now - in the last month - it seems that Facebook is being taken more seriously. People are using it to maintain potential business contacts. At least that's what Skrentablog writes. But I can see it happening.

Nevertheless I'll keep using LinkedIn and Xing as well as Facebook.

By the way the comments are as good as the article itself.

How much?

So that's where all my money went?

Germans I know say that "Munich is zo expensive".

I tell them that actually it's quite cheap.

They reply "ah but you are having ze madness, nein?"

"Actually", I retort, "I used to live in London".

"Ah zo", they concede, "you are having the right, Munich is cheap".

And it is. Today the Mercer list of world's buggeringly expensive cities was mentioned on the BBC's news web site.

London is the second most expensive city, just after Moscow.

Helsinki is 22nd and Munich is a pathetic 39th. That's cheaper than Glasgow, Madrid or Amsterdam.

So, I don't want to hear any complaints about the cod-accents I used above. If Germans moan about Munich being so expensive they deserve all the mocking I can be bothered to give them.

Planet Meetings

Last week I was in Sweden.

Well on Monday.

On Tuesday I flew to London.

There I attended a meeting which lasted three days. At one stage I felt I should have worn flight socks, as I was sitting around all day.

In the evenings I met up with friends.

At first I found it difficult going back to London. It's just not very nice compared to Munich.

But on Thursday and Friday I rediscovered the vibrancy against which Munich cannnot, and does not really want to, compete.

Still, they could clean up the place.

Well, that was a complete waste of makeup

Went to the airport.

Checked in.

Went through security.

Sat in the departure lounge close to the gate for the aircraft. I was a bit peeved that my travel to the airport was so smooth I had loads of time to kill.

Mobile rings.

It's my colleague phoning from Sweden. The trip to China has to be aborted.

Er ... ok then.

Try and eventually leave the departure lounge. Not easy.

Go to the office but can't do much as there's a spate of public holidays in Europe this week.

Now going for a curry in Munich. I hope that isn't cancelled too.

That's a relief

Yesterday I had to be in the Swedish office for an announcement.

I was a little bit worried by the use of the term "announcement". Tends to be associated with the word "redundancies". And having just joined as a contractor ...

Anyway the announcement was made by the CIO. It was his strategic and tactical vision for the IT department worldwide.

After about 10 minutes he said that this new strategy wasn't a cover for redundancies. In fact, his problem is finding people. The department remains in a state of growth.

Phew.

Now flying off to Beijing.