An alternative world, or is it?
2 months on from completing my journalism course and I’ve joined the dole queue stretching from Harrow job centre to Tesco Station Road; former home of the once great Wealdstone Football Club.
Trolleys filled with curry powder and popadoms, most of the current Tesco clientele would be unaware of Wealdstone’s existence, let alone the significance of the Delhi counter situated in the Elmslie End.
above: Elmslie End, Lower Mead, Wealdstone FC - now a Delhi counter
Life could have been so different.
I’ve applied for approximately 152 positions. 5 offered me interviews (albeit 2 were by phone), but no job offers.
In Facebook terms, I’ve ‘poked’ 152 randoms, banged 5 (albeit 2 were phone sex), but none wanted a relationship.
Life works on a law of averages.
Story of my life. If I was a snog, marry or avoid… Pod would be having me as a seedy snog, behind the club, at best. Not that I’ve complained before. But eventually in life we all want a bit of direction.
The most frequent question I’ve received in my interviews so far is the “why do you want to work for us?” conundrum. Before I answer that, I have read, in my opinion a lot of disrespectful pieces from ‘in-people’ in the Journalism world saying that they have little time to read through long winded job applications and they want people to “tweet” their application.
If the employer ‘can’t be bothered’ to read my application, I’m dreadfully sorry but, I ‘can’t be arsed’ to apply. Lazy employers. Either that or they’re illiterate. The little Gremlin in the side of their head is requesting an easy way to digest a 150-200-word cover letter and 2-page CV.
It’s contradiction as well, “cover letters are poor and lazily written”… hello!? A twit [sic] is only 140 characters! That just promotes lazy. And most of these are married!
And when tackling the aforementioned question, most employers expect some kind of dreamy answer about how the company is ‘going places’ and ‘expanding’… but when was being honest a bad thing? Can I not just say ‘coz I need the money?’
We’re creating a world of robots. Many companies want to ship out the personalities and bring in the wallflowers.
We’re creating a world of robots. Many companies want to ship out the personalities and bring in the wallflowers.
Quite possibly the key to getting a job is imagination. I’ve read this from many employers… “Use your imagination.” Well, I’ve imagined for the past 8-fecking-weeks I’m smoking a Cuban cigar in a recliner chair overlooking the River Thames but it ain’t got me nowhere!
Credit where its due, I haven’t sat on my arse all this time, I’ve moved to make a cuppa.
And going back on the “what’s wrong with honesty?” point. At least with me employers know where they stand.
In my last role I was vetted, and this included nosey questions delving into my love life, in my opinion, not their business – but I thought well, if they want honest, it’ll be rude not to. I hit them with every last seedy detail – and then they questioned giving me my DV? Why? Because I can tell them something on the house; 9 out of 10 who sat in that seat before and 9 out of 10 who will sit in that seat after, will omit something… And they’ll omit something for fear it will negate their clearance…and the 1 in 10 before, and the 1 in 10 after, are either virgins or ugly or a combination of both.
Anyway, “Loose Women” is due to start – that programme is the definition of false advertising, is it not? In summary, people should not be fearful to show who they really are, the world is made up of colourful characters – why can’t employers embrace that?
I’m speaking directly to the Facebook generation who have been told, “kill your ugly babies”, remove the pictures of you on a drunken night out etc… If I was an employer I’d be more concerned if people didn’t have pictures on their Facebook of them painted as a blue smurf, or of them nicking the opposite sex etc. It shows character – something that is clearly lacking amongst our spineless spoon-fed politicians.
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