Oh No Not Another Rant About Jobs.

After having gone to a few graduate/career things (two, I’ve been to two) and filling in countless job applications (literally I have lost count of how many there have been. I tried to keep track by saving the rejection emails but I have stopped getting them so there goes that system) I thought with my lengthy ‘experience’ in the area it was only fair to share some hints of what to put on applications or not.

But first a quick interlude onto the subject of finding a job application form to even fill out. Scrawling through website after website looking at the current vacancies and when you finally find something that sounds vaguely doable you take a look at the person specification and it’s like nope, nope, nope, can’t do that, can’t do that, can’t do that. And you’re back at square one.

Did you ever experience the terrifying feeling when you are  sitting down for an exam at school and the first question asked you to write your name? A feeling of pure terror courses through your veins as you panic ‘what even is my name?’  Well its good news kids because that never goes away. The first question on any application or form that you are going to have to fill out is most likely to ask for your name. 

The second thing that terrifies me about job applications is when it asks what the date is: Ok so it’s six months into the year and I still find myself typing that it’s 2012. 2012 is just an easy number to remember not even starting to mention all the things that happened in 2012 to make it memorable; it was the year of the London Olympics, Felix Baumgartner’s world record breaking free fall jump from the edge of space, it was the year of the misconstrued Mayan Apocalypse and who can forget the phenomenon that was Gangnam Style. 

Whereas 2013, what is remarkable about this year? How am I supposed to remember this year? Besides the fact that this is the first year since 1987 to be composed of 4 different numbers, this year has been full of violence; Shootings and gun attack , the Woolwich murder, Syrian crisis and to add to all the doom and gloom Prince Philip had to have abdominal surgery. So excuse me for wanting to blank this year out of my mind and we’re not even half way through yet! However on a much lighter note, today is my half birthday so Happy Half Birthday to me.

So back to the topic of job applications and forms, I have noticed that the first section often needs to be filled out in block capitals. It's like I'm shouting my personal details at people!  
So have we all now completed the ‘personal details section’? Well done, although apparently you have  completed the ‘easy’ part. Wait what? 

As a woman I find it as hard as the next person to sell myself, although I guess hookers may be quite be good at this. I’ve heard it said that men will often excel in the parts of the job application where they have to talk about how amazing they are whereas the females who have spent most of their lives scrutinising and have other people point out their flaws (yeah thanks for that) find this task slightly harder. Am I the only person who absolutely dreads the question ‘why I should I hire you rather than someone else?’ Anything that you could possibly reply to that suggests that you think you are better than the other person and therefore makes you sound big headed and arrogant.

So feeling suitably sick and terrified of the application that you still haven’t completed four hours later we will move onto the equal opportunities sections. These bits actually quite amuse me because I spend a good five to ten minutes trying out different ethnicities. Although having still not mastered an Irish or Afro-Caribbean accent I think that I wouldn’t able to get away with it at an interview nevertheless if I even got the job. Also the slight problem of having pasty white skin restricts my choices somewhat. I would highly advise you not to pick a ethnicity to be at random because, like me, you may be white-British and for a laugh decide to say that you are Irish and then get invited for an interview and start talking in a broad Yorkshire accent. (I haven’t actually done this but how hilarious would it be if this happened.)

At the beginning of this post we talked about feelings of blind panic at being asked your name if you can cast your mind back.(I know it’s hard, it was a long time ago) You can therefore  imagine what I was thinking when I was asked on page seven what role I was applying for. Is this a trick question?

The most annoying thing about job applications is that you can’t just send in your CV and hope for the best, no you have to write out a specific cover letter for each position you want….ain’t nobody got time for dat. What is the point of even having a CV when nobody wants to see it? Even when you send in a stellar application that took you the majority of a day a lot of people never reply back to you. Well cheers then. 

Not all sunshine and daisies aka still unemployed

So it’s been an entire year since I graduated from uni and like the vast majority of graduates in this country and further afield I am unemployed. (big woop) As readers of this blog may know that is not because a lack of trying but let’s just say that it’s not been easy sailing. However with the job market being so over run with people looking for work and so few places I have often found that the odds are stacked against me. The vast majority of people have degrees these days….even if they are in Mickey Mouse subjects so employers may look in other area to find the right candidate and here I’m talking about the one word that every graduate dreads: EXPERIENCE

In a previous post (here’s the link) http://dinniethepooh.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/we-regret-to-inform-you-that.html I concluded that job interviews are really just pot luck. 

Shall we examine the evidence that shows that luck is CLEARLY not in my court? (all these reasons are what I have concluded myself, for a list of what the actual interviewers said my shortcomings were see the link above)

1. I did not get a 2:1 (or higher) in my degree (I got a 2:2, two measly marks away from a 2:1 but evidently still not a hallowed 2:1) The minimum requirement it seems these days for a large variety of jobs is that you achieve a minimum of a 2:1 in a BA degree. However there is nothing really to say what subject the said degree should be in, of course it would make sense that you would have a degree in a similar topic to what job you were applying for. Nevertheless you could have got a second class degree, higher division degree in a very taxing subject or maybe have still gotten the same grade in a Mickey Mouse subject but a 2:1 is still a 2:1 which is seen to be better than a lower mark, even if the lower mark is 58 instead of 60.
2. I didn’t do a masters. So you’ve spent three long years of your life slaving away to get a piece of paper and once you have graduated and mumbled to yourself ‘I’m never doing that again’ you learn that the whole experience was not worth the time and effort because you don’t have a masters. I have lost count at the amount of job opportunities that I have not been able to go for because I didn’t do a further degree and write a 20,000 word essay. (That’s twice the amount a dissertation!)
3. I don’t drive. This is the point in the post where everybody stares at me like I am some sort of alien and asks ‘but it’s the 21^st century how can anyone survive without being able to drive’ I think that my potential employers may also have had thought this when they read my applications.
4. I don’t speak Welsh. I didn’t think that it would make any difference either but apparently if I wanted to take a job in visitor experience in Wales I’d have to speak Welsh.
5. And last but certainly not least is my favourite shortcoming of them all: experience. 

The job/experience cycle is one of the most head scratchingly confusing conundrums when it comes to job searching; you need to have experience to get a job but you need a job to get experience. However if this weren’t confusing enough you need to have relevant experience. So if say you wanted to apply for a managerial role you would have to have experience in management. If a bin man for example or someone with a completely unrelated job role woke up one morning and decide ‘I’m going to be a manager’ the odds are that they wouldn’t even get as far as an interview. Even if they had an impeccable CV with a 2:1 in (let’s say) English they would fall at the experience hurdle because the experience they have gained is not relevant.

Another point that I would like to pick up on (if I may) is about getting stuck in a rut. In the constant battle to gain experience so that we are able to strive for our goals are we not endangering ourselves in becoming stuck in dead end jobs or going down career paths that we never planned having got lost on our way to get the required experience it takes to get the job that we want. We might be wasting the talent of top managers by having them work as bin men!! We might never know, with the job market as it is these bin men may always end up working as bin men.

We regret to inform you that...

"You are very employable just not to us"

"You were too honest"

"We are unable to progress with this vacancy at this time"

I didn't have enough experience

Or my favourite, that I was too enthusiastic.

Well I'm terribly sorry but I wasn't aware that being honest or enthusiastic was a bad thing.

Although the most frequent excuse on a rejection e-mail that I have received, and let’s be honest they are excuses (sometimes or in my experience most of the time,they are just looking for an excuse to not hire you) was that they were lots of successful applicants and the competition was fierce.

Well in that case if you have 50-100 applicants for 1 job and they are all equally as qualified, the choice of who gets the job is based on pot luck. With a large percentage of the job interview being perceived by your body language and visual appearance  does it really matter what you say?

At a career day that I attended at my university they said that what you say only has a 7% impact on the whole job interview experience. Although once you put your foot in it it’s very hard to back pedal and you can normally tell (well at least I can) when the turning point comes and you can wave the job goodbye.

So from this rant you can conclude to be able get the job  you need to say exactly what the interviewers want to hear. By this point they have (you would hope) read your CV and they know everything  that they want to know about you,  during the interview (in my experience) they just want you to amaze them with your knowledge about their company (and  if that involves quoting their website word for word then go for it) and it’s just a chance for some good old ego stroking. 

Pot luck that is what all your hard work has come down to, if you are not on the top of your game for the 45 minutes in which you are in the interview room, well then you are doomed.

Yes I am bitter and I have a pile of rejections to prove it.