Being a Christmas Elf?

I spent the day at the canine centre, helping out and playing. It was lovely to see one young female pooch come in, almost bouncing off the walls when she first arrived, raising the energy levels and excitability of the others. It soon calmed down and playtime ensued for the rest of the day - hopefully she went home tired and she will sleep well.....I will! There was still plenty of time browsing for jobs on the laptop.....setting up a playlist on a music website and some social networking too :-) 

It might sound like this unemployment thing is all fun and games but while my wife is working double shifts I do seriously keep an eye out for the opportunities. Honest, I do. The social networking thing also brought to my attention two local groups who advertise jobs, so I joined these today and so my homepage now shows some job searching activity. 

One of the jobs posted up today asked three very pertinent questions. First, am I passionate about the festive season? Second, do I love to make children's wishes come true? Lastly, do I look good in green? If I could answer 'yes' to all these then I could be....wait for it...... an Elf, a performing elf. Jeezo. It's a job at the same place that advertised for a Santa Claus the other day...... It would be just my luck that ex-colleagues would see me, I'd never live it down. One day running and managing an animal rescue centre and the next - one of Santa's little helpers complete in green lycra.

There were a number of job related emails today. If only to carry on the theme from yesterday, the CV Library contacted me with job recommendations. CV Library? They certainly knew all about me and what I wanted, I hadn't heard of them nor had I been in touch before (or have I, I wonder?) Oh well, I carried on with the registration anyway because all their job recommendations were in a ten mile radius of my nearest town - even if that's a little scary too because they know where I live! Some look interesting and possible jobs I'd show some interest in, thumbs up so far for these folk at CV Library. I just hope that I haven't authorised a further distribution of my CV to more third parties, getting ever closer to someone who will use this for their own malicious purposes. 

The now familiar and usual daily Monster and Indeed emails arrived too. Nothing of any interest today from these. But remaining optimistic they will, one day, come up trumps for me, I know they will.

In the post was a reject letter for a job I applied for in writing a few weeks ago, a job that was advertised in the local newspaper. It was to work in a small but friendly admin team, they had the courtesy to write to let me know that my CV didn't tick all their boxes. I'm keeping a record of the jobs I've applied for with the responses too, it might come in handy one day to at least prove I was looking. 

P.S. I don't look good in green, I declined to go and help good ol' St. Nick in the grotto. Nah, I just couldn't. Ho-ho-ho!

Registering at Job Sites and Sending off a CV

When I started seriously looking for jobs, especially online, about two weeks ago, I had a ball..... Well, I got carried away a bit riding the wave of enthusiasm and determination to get back to work after a few weeks off. There are lots of web sites out there 'helping' you, when I realised after a while that they're no more than job brokers. I won't be the only one to realise this but that thought has only just recently occurred to me. I presume that if you click onto a job through the link on the website you visit then they get what ever commission is paid for these type of introductions? Fair enough I suppose.

However, I can only wonder that once you've registered, uploaded your CV, they have a clever piece of software to cut and paste from your document and build up a profile of you. Recommendations of jobs are brought to your attention, whether they are suitable or not, they'll just add you to a classification of job that you've already selected from their pre-organised options. So the recommendation is really the tying up of two loose ends of string. Fair enough, again.

But, they've got you, your personal information, with it your belief that they will be the ones to get you your next job. Even, your dream job? Hmmm. But, my scatter-gun approach in the last few weeks online must reap some rewards at some point, surely? I wonder how many of these sites will have the very same job listed....a bit of research needed perhaps on this one but I guess it's likely that that could and does happen.   

I'm wondering just who and where I am registered, what they know about me, what third parties have access to my details and how effective are they? Is there a rating/grading system for these online job recruitment companies? Who's genuine and trustworthy and who's not? Oh dear, and I thought that job hunting was going to be easy - search and click, that sort of thing and not over thinking what's actually happening......if indeed it is (was that a pun using the word 'indeed'?!)

I shall make a list and find out where my name is registered......

It was the email I had the other day from the CV Bank that set up this thought line for me......So, who's got my CV? Who's not got it but has access to it? Who's looking at it and who's got too many to look at? How do I get mine to just float to the top of the CV pile?

I had an interview two weeks ago with a local construction firm - an admin job with their tenders and contracts department, they said they'd be in touch at the beginning of last week. How long to leave this to follow up or assume that because they don't have a HR department that they're busy or just that I simply didn't get the job?

I've also at least had two firms who have let me know that I haven't been successful in getting my application and/or CV to go any further. They were jobs as a Cashroom Assistant as well as a Business Services Coordinator (Maternity Cover.) The declines were sent by email. It's at least nice to know. 

Job adverts in the local rags are still a good source of reference of course, it's once a week for the main city based snoozepaper, every Friday to be exact. So, it's not just sitting down with a laptop and a decent wifi system.....you can't check Facebook and other online distractions but you can read the other articles and have a stab at the crossword I suppose, check out the sports section and the TV guide as well.

Monster & Indeed emails proved fruitless.

A 'Quiet' Tuesday

Well, today I spent some time at the doggy day care canine centre, helping out.........possibly more like playing with the pooches, some may say. Here's a lovable boy who I spent the day with, he's a hairy lump of love! It was hardly job hunting, I know, but there is spare time on my hands so why not, eh?

I applied, sometime last week, to a local Scottish Championship football team to be a match day steward. It was a job advertised through Indeed, so it was an easy process to get my name and CV to them. My CV is already registered with Indeed, so it automatically flies off with the online applications. I had an email today to say that they'd be back in touch to arrange an interview. I'm sure I read that about 70+ people had already applied for this. Must admit I'd quite like to do this job especially as it's unlikely that it'll clash with the traditional Monday to Friday 9 to 5 office type jobs that I'm after - hopefully it'll be for weekends and occasional evenings instead so it's a chance to earn some extra money. Hi-viz jacket at the ready, steel toe cap boots, walkie talkie radio.......sounds like I'm back on the horse yard minus the horse dung but then I've not seen this team play yet!

It hasn't all been kicking tennis balls, picking up doggy poop and cuddling the pooches - Alfie the spaniel trying to sit on me as well as the laptop in an attempt to limit my Facebook (whoops, sorry) online-job-searching time. I was active on the job seeking crusade though, signing up to 'Jobs Today' on the internet. It was from a bookmark to a web site I had set a few weeks ago so I thought I'd give that a go. After the registration (no email verification needed, straight in) I immediately 'found' 1683 admin jobs UK wide, fine tuned this to Scotland and these admin jobs rapidly reduced to 89, fine tuned again to my local area and there was only 6, all about 50 miles away. Great.

Monster have been in touch at 14.57 this afternoon. Another deleted email into the trash can. I sense a trend here. As I type this, at 16.46, Indeed's latest 20+ recommendations have ruffled my inbox as well. I've noticed that there are so many nursing and care worker jobs out there, a truly thankless task for those who work in that line and people who I admire so much because it's a job I just couldn't do at all.

Later - an unexpected email at 17.20 from CV Bank....hmmm, one of their affiliates had forwarded this to them. Jobs Today I reckon, presuming further that I didn't see the small print in their T&C's that this could happen. I promise to ignore any approaches that ask for my mother's maiden name and/or the security code from the back of my bank card because they'll have some other personal information I'd rather wasn't pinging around the internet that's attached to my CV.

A Part-Time, Temporary Assignment.

Last Monday I applied for an admin job through Indeed, I can't remember if it was one from their 'Job Alert' emails or something I saw listed on their website. The detail is irrelevant or rather my memory is poor (prospective employers please ignore that last comment.) I had a telephone call on the following Tuesday morning from Pertemps because the job was something they had in fact listed, so my application actually went through them. It appears I'd registered with these recruitment specialists too in the process, these computer link things are good. The job was outlined in a bit more detail, certainly more information than I remember reading the night before to have piqued my interest. Clearly if my shorthand writing skills were any good then I might have stood a chance. It seems that there was to be lots of note taking at lots of meetings. However, my scrawls usually taken at such things would have meant spending several hours afterwards deciphering these to make legible anything that was actually said at the meeting. Nah, it wasn't for me. But, I was asked if I might be interested in a few hours a day for the next two to three weeks doing some routine admin work (filing, photocopying etc.) I can't be fussy, of course I can't, I need to keep from getting rusty and stop waiting for the 'ideal job.'

'Yeah, go on then' or words to that effect, I said.

'Great.' She said, or words to that effect.

I had a few hours to get ID documents sorted out, get down to the nearest Pertemps office, hand over said documents, sign an employment contract and hey presto - I got a job. It's definitely a part time, very temporary job at £8.01p/hour but proof that there's life in this old dog yet, I'll have you know. She said she'd see if I could condense the hours into full days, it turned out to be two full days per week, their client said OK. So, I was assigned to this job and I had to wait to hear if I was to start the following day, that's last Wednesday. As it was I started last Thursday instead and worked Friday too. It'll be Mondays and Fridays for the time being, it might even be for more than two to three weeks because it's to cover someone on long term sick leave.

So, today; I went to work, I received an email from Indeed Job Alerts at 13.45 this afternoon and then an email just over an hour later from Monster at 14.58. 

I might have to check out Monster's relocation package because the ten recommended administration jobs are still based south of the border. Also, Indeed have 20+ new recommended jobs even if one of them is Falkland Island based.......

Sunday Afternoon Job Hunting

So, it's a Sunday afternoon and the job hunting carries on.... a bit. There's an email in my inbox at 14.54 this afternoon from 'Monster' titled '10 New Administrator Jobs' but the jobs are all based in England, there's nothing north of Leeds. I'm in North East Scotland and there's no desire to move from here. There must be a way of telling Monster Jobs where I am based so they can fine tune these job recommendations for me. I haven't looked into this yet..... I'm not entirely sure how I'd registered with them, I didn't realise that I had until their emails came through daily, from about 10 days ago. Then another email, this time Indeed's 'Job Alert' came through at 16.36 this afternoon with 20+ recommended new jobs. These Indeed ones are more 'local'...well, they're all Scottish based jobs so that's better than the 'Monster' email, some of them are even inside a 25 mile travelling radius. This time of year there is a recommendation that I could apply to be a Santa Claus as well as a laundry assistant, spa cleaner and even a baby sitter. I can only imagine that my profile and CV with Indeed.com leave the thresholds wide enough to allow these recommended jobs to filter through. I'll have to tighten this up. Give unemployment a few months and I might be tempted with non-admin jobs but, as it stands, not at the moment....by which time Christmas will be over so the Santa Claus job will have relocated back to the North Pole. 

I left my old job, with an animal rescue and welfare charity, 6 weeks ago last Friday. I had completed nearly 10 years service there and I needed a break. There was an opportunity to take over a doggy day care business, an established business a few miles away, that the owner wanted to sell as a going concern so they could start another life elsewhere. So, I handed in my resignation letter early July and waited until my 4 week notice period was over before I could apply my skills and experiences in the direction of pooch pampering and canine capers. But, just before my working notice period expired my wife's employer died. My wife was a personal carer for an old lady. It gets a little more complicated than that because we have a friend who lives with us and she also worked for the same old lady...... Suddenly the three of us went from earning a decent whack of money between us to all being unemployed at the same time. 

The doggy day care business was to be set up by my wife and our friend together, in partnership, and I was going to 'look after it' for a few months at least, build up a bank balance for the business and wait for another friend to come in and take over its day to day management. I didn't have a problem with that at all. Had my wife's employer lived to see her 91st birthday then I was happy to work for them on a meagre salary and then job hunt in earnest in the New Year. In the end we decided that the business partnership would still happen for my wife and our friend, that our friend would run the doggy day care business instead. My wife had already got herself another job but she's doing double shifts to help ease the money worries. So, I have to get my skates on, go out and look for a job. I can't let my wife run herself ragged.....even if she did encourage me to give up my last job.

Dear Santa Claus, can I please impersonate your good self and................

A quick introductory 'Hello'.

Thank you for taking the time in reading this, it's a bit like having a diary but one that you let everyone read, a bit narcissistic. A diary with a theme. Why write about job hunting? (I'm probably asking the question for my own benefit) I'm not sure to be honest, it's definitively appealing to the procrastinator inside me. For some reason it seems like a good thing to do, to help in looking for a job, to keep focused, remember what I have done about it......or maybe haven't. Who knows, if this screed gets 'out there' then someone may even have some positive and helpful suggestions for me.

There's a lot to learn here with blogs, please bear with me when the published items look a bit amateurish, hopefully there may be a chance to go back and edit these entries at a later date when I get a bit more polished at this.

Anyway, a quick introductory 'Hello'! Hello, my name's Dave.