New Job Interview Stuff

INTERVIEW DAY

I had a recent job interview last week to be exact and I thought I would share the experience. It was first thing in the morning at 9 which may have been a mistake. It was a very hot day and given that the business was a 20 minute plus walk from the train station with little shade by the time I got in to the reception area I felt somewhat unpleasant.

I thankfully had some time to freshen up a bit but not really long enough to stop sweating but I was happy enough having spent the day before getting familiar with the role. This interview came with the dreaded task before the actual interview.

THE ART OF THE INTERVIEW

It was a Word and Excel assignment the former being a Mail Merge and the latter a Chart builder. With lots of mistakes and changes to be made such as add this line, make that a fancy table it is way too easy to burn through the precious, precious time. Look below for my rant on interview tasks.

Personally I have a lot of problems with the task based interviews as it is not something that you can adequately prepare for unless you're super lucky. I do office work so my tasks are generally if not 99% of the time Word and Excel stuff. You almost never get enough time and the assignment is broken down in a way which is the most counter-intuitive possible.

The way that instructions are listed in those tasks generally ensure that they take up as much time as possible. You could rearrange them and have them done in half the time. Perhaps that's the point but what does that have to do with a job situation where you've got training on how the company you work for likes to do things. To me it makes no damn sense.

Enough of my ranting about job interviews though don't want to talk myself out of future ones.

A Month Is A Long Time

I have not posted in a whole month which is pretty bad. Things have been moving forward sort of. Shall we summarise:

• Job hunting, cranking out maybe 15 a week as a minimum
• No interviews this week
• Booked my place for a really cool Star Wars: The Force Awakens Party
• Trying my best to put in some work for Nanowrimo

I am trying to remain positive but it is not easy. Thankfully I am stubborn and I am just not willing to give up yet. I've been getting through a lot of books and a number of my favourite series came to end this year or will next year.

I've been doing a bit more with my volunteer role hopefully that means that we will get our accreditation back so I can go cover events. It is something that is fun and also means that I am gaining new skills as well as working on improving existing ones, communication skills can always be better right?

So a short update for sure but hopefully I will be back soon with more.

Weekend Roundup

So what have I been up to this week read on for the likely not particularly interesting details.

I delivered my letter to Seetec over a week ago which means that the two week deadline for the manager to get back to me will be up next week. If she fails to write back after telling me to put my complaint in writing then I plan to submit a formal complaint to Seetec head office but I'm hoping that won't be necessary. Monday is also the date of my monthly review so stay tuned for all the fun that is likely to take place during that meeting.

In terms of jobs the week that was proved decent in terms of job searches so I applied for 6 jobs from a variety of places, on that note I am becoming more than a little worried about the likelihood of Universal Jobmatch becoming mandatory, the site is garbage and full of fake jobs and agencies trawling for your data and it is set up to allow for easy push button sanctions once the government signs away our data protection rights giving the DWP access to our job searches.

Not everything that I did this week was quite so dour for instance there was Blogging.

Young Fitness Model Reni Ichelva

Leven Rambin, Sometimes Blonde, Always Hot Demi-Goddess

Vanessa Lengies, Canadian Cutie

If you feel so inclined click on a link, leave a comment, your time and consideration is appreciated.

That is all from me for now unless something unexpected happens you will probably hear from me again on Monday or Tuesday. Thanks for reading.

What I've Been Up To + This Week

So what have I been up to. If you were around last week you will have heard the latest from Seetec that because I have failed to get a job from my previous interviews they will no longer pay for any travel expenses that I accrue. Not that they have paid for all that many of them in the past but that is yet another story. So we left things with the Seetec Manager telling me that if I disagreed with that decision then I should write a letter to her.

That letter went to Seetec the next day and I hand delivered it as last time I made a complaint about them they managed to lose the first one I sent. In the letter I specified a written response within 14 days of the letter if it doesn’t come within that time or they fob me off with just an oral response then I’m going to escalate things and send an actual complaint letter to their head office and maybe copy if to DWP.

I do have some good news well at least partly good in my view. After about 5 months of back and forth I finally had my unfair sanction over ruled or at least the money from the sanction given over with a letter following up in a few days saying that “the doubt no longer applies”.

Really after an appeal, a letter to my MP, a reconsideration, formal procedure appeal and another letter to my MP to get them to admit the obvious that Seetec were disregarding the rules and regulations they signed up to and that DWP were doing nothing to keep them in line shame it took them nearly half a year and cost me a lot of money in fines and missed bills.

I will be filing a complaint about that too but I don’t hold a lot of hope out for it, I probably wouldn’t have bothered if they had actually written a proper letter to me with an explanation or you know an apology but they this is the government we are talking about and as an unemployed person they barely register me as human.

The plan for this week is signing on Monday, job search on Tuesday but other than that there is not a lot going on but at the end of this week there should be some job deadlines coming up so hopefully something develops from that.

If I get a response from Seetec I might transcribe it for you guys minus personal details of course just sharing evidence like others have with me. We are all in this together after all. That is all I can think of to share for now so I will leave it there and hope your Holiday season is going a bit more smoothly than mine.

Some Thoughts About Interviews

So things have settled down in the house of Shaft. Over the last few months even though it hasn't really ever felt like it I have been pretty lucky with getting job interviews but for those of us in the know getting the interview isn't even anywhere near half the job. If you ask my SEETEC advisor you can smile your way straight into a job and for some people with an easy smile and charisma (Han Solo people like that) but it is not that easy for the rest of us. I'm a serious person and I don't think that is something that should be a negative in the job market (unless you're a professional clown I suppose) but the only feedback that my SEETEC advisor is willing to offer is smile more and that I am too serious.

She says that I don't smile enough when I am at SEETEC and I can confirm that is true. Is it because the Work Programme is demeaning and that in the past while at SEETEC I was bullied by the manager and had no redress. That could be it, but then could it be because of that time when SEETEC tried to get me sanctioned (where the DWP withhold your Job Seekers Allowance because you failed to properly look for work) because I informed them I could not attend an appointment because I had got myself a job interview? Could it have been the many times where they refused to help with the cost of attending interviews which is in clear violation to the rules and regulations?

Really in the end who knows why I look so grumpy while attending appointments at SEETEC but that is beside the point as I like most sensible people try to put my best self forward at job interviews, due to that whole chance of them paying you money to work for them after the fact. For some reason which if you were to ask me I would say is down to the fact that the advisors have a very limited view of the job market and jobseekers and as I don't fit into that narrow band. I've gotten off topic this is about interviews which to me have always seemed a strange way of getting work.

In an interview you answer questions and it is all about how you come across to the perspective employer or their representatives. Fine in theory but taking a closer look is that really the best way to choose workers? In some feedback I have got back from prospective employers from administrative/receptionist roles is that they didn't think I came across as friendly, one even said that I did not seem enthused about working in an SU HE environment, they couldn't be more wrong in their assessment of me and that is the rub. On one side we are always told not to judge people by our preconceived notions but I can't help but feel judged by these interview panels as a non-traditional prospective employee. I have the experience I have the skills so when I read some of the feedback I can't help but laugh in that sort of way that contains no warmth or hope at all.

Anyway enough of this I need to go study for my next interview.

Ugh I Feel Sick

So lately I have been feeling a little sick. Not so sick as to take to my bed or something like that but that level of tiredness and just slowness that can’t be identified as say a cold or an infection, anyway just thought I would mention it in case I keeled over.

So I have been trying and trying to grab myself a bargain PS3 over the past month or so unfortunately for me it has only served to open up a darker side of Ebay with two successful winning bids ending in my bid being refunded because obviously it was less than they were expecting to get. Totally kills my belief in the Ebay system with all of its talk on bidding being a contract and such.

I am still trying here and there to grab some bargains thinking about grabbing a new radio, we will have to see how things go with the PS3 for now it is an elusive dream though not as elusive as the next gen of gaming consoles which as of now start at $499.

So this week totally out of the blue when starting up WoW I saw on their little self ad thing that there was ½ off on all character services. If you’re not familiar with the game these character services are things like renaming your character, transferring to another realm or switching factions. For my purposes changing realms is the important thing as the size of your faction on your realm really impacts on the aspects of the game that you can participate in.

I took the time to move a level 90 Paladin to Ragnaros after talking to a friend of mine and checking out WowProgress and RealmPop and it seems pretty good so far.

BOOKS

So I have been reading a lot recently last month was especially busy, most of them have been pretty good, the only one I wasn’t that overly keen on was World War Z but that was just me and indeed each to their own. I finally got my hands of Fall of Night the penultimate Morganville Vampires novel. If you’re like me and love those books you can check out my Goodreads list by clicking on the Widget on the right of the blog.

EMPLOYMENT AND JOBS

As I write this I just finished the paperwork on my job searching for the job, things are not looking great on that front the jobs are starting to dry up they always do nearer the middle of the year. Still managing to find enough jobs but it is getting tougher and unfortunately after getting the interviews and not getting the jobs most of the prospective employers don’t give feedback.  

JOBS JOBS JOBS Part I

So I thought I would write about my job search process because it is getting that time of the year when jobs at least in my sector start to dry up.

My background and desired work is in administration, I am also interested in working in HE and FE. Hmm what else, oh I have a current up to date CV that I got written up with the help of a recruitment agency.

Moving on I surf through several job portals to look for relevant work I have listed some but certainly not all of them below:

• www.indeed.co.uk
• www.jobs.nhs.uk
• www.prime-appointments.co.uk/looking-for-office-staff/
• www.nusconnect.org.uk/jobs/browse/
• www.chelmsford.gov.uk/current-vacancies
• www.jobs.ac.uk

So there they are and they each have their uses Indeed is adequate for searching for all jobs (not just admin) in the local area which most other places wouldn't have it is also good for catching things like schools advertising for non-teaching roles. To sum it up think of it as a Universal Job Match that actually just about works instead of stealing your data.

NHS Jobs doesn't really need an explanation other to add that there is actually a fair amount of office work always available there the problem tend to arise from the part time nature of it. Prime Appointments is good quality but due to the fact that it is based on a region means that there is a finite pool of jobs to look at.

NUS Connect couldn't be more specialist in that it is jobs from the student movement from all over the UK of course as they are only jobs from Universities and Colleges there are even fewer within a commutable distance.

Jobs.ac.uk a great site that always gives me some decent prospects to look through as it basically lists all the HE/FE related non-teaching jobs.

That is enough for now so you can go check those out to see if they offer up any opportunities for you.

Just An Update

Things are moving slowly but I can’t say I have much to show for it. Still clearing quite a few job applications though now I have been warned that they cannot be all administration jobs “because you’re not getting them”. Yeah apparently getting a number of interviews in this economy is just not good enough and instead my time would be better spent applying for jobs for which I have no previous experience. It is not like I have a choice so I am just going with the flow.

The other side of this argument so to speak is my ongoing complaint with SEETEC, the complaint I made add which has been ongoing since January. Somehow they managed to lose my first complaint and they have not responded to the e-mailed complaint after 30 days (the second time I sent it). So now I am in an awkward position according to Independent Case Examiner I seemingly HAVE to receive a response I am unhappy with to my complaint it doesn’t say anything about an agency failing to respond. When you think about it that seems like a rather large flaw in their procedures doesn’t it? Well I should be making a call to ICE tomorrow to check up on things to make sure.

Other than that things are puttering along slowly and there is not a lot to report other than one new Word Press project that I have been working on. It is just something to help me get familiar with WP as an interface which I think might be useful in the future (you never know). You canhave a look here and I will add a link when it is properly ready.

I was going to talk about Comic Con

Nope not any of the US based Comic Cons. I was going to write about the London MCM Expo because it sort of came up on me by surprise. While clearly not on the level of the US ones there is still more than enough star appeal to make it interesting.

With Tyler Hoechlin and Holland Roden from Teen Wolf which is about to start it's second season on MTV. They would have been my first stop there is also Raphael Sbarge from Once Upon A Time, not such a fan of that show but I do make an effort to watch it.

Seychelle Gabriel from Avatar but for the purpose of the appearance she will be promoting Falling Skies which to me was a disappointing show that somehow got a second season. Pascale Hutton will be there too and she was Abby Corrigan  on Sanctuary one of my favourite shows.

I was going to write all about that but then I decided to talk about something else. Yes again it is a job search post. I have come through on the other end of 3 job interviews in a month and not been lucky enough to find a position. Definitely a bit of a downer but even as I write this I am flicking between this post and another application for a role I would do well in.

Application now done so time to hope for the best and look for the next role. Wish me luck I certainly need it.

If you are heading to Comic Con London have a great time it looks EPIC.