On Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:53:04 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>>> Only you can motivate you.  I can't do it, nobody can do it.  Hell, I
>>>> can't even provide you with an incentive to make a change.  I'm
>>>> telling you what I'm seeing from over here - you fill out an
>>>> application or send in a CV and then you wait to hear something.
>>> As far as I know, that's how people get jobs. I don't really know what
>>> else there is to do.
>> 
>> Well, I've already given you some ideas - don't deal with recruiters
>> who won't give you the company contact info - deal with the companies
>> directly.  Things like that help.
> 
>  From what I've seen recruiters are utterly useless... I don't know if
> they're any use to the company paying for their services, but they're no
> use at all to the people trying to get hired.

Ding ding ding ding ding!  So relying on recruiters is a bad way to try 
to find a job.  Basically, you're outsourcing your job search to someone 
with no real interest or motivation to help you out.

>>> It's one part not knowing what the hell to try, and two parts just
>>> lacking the motivation to keep going in the face of unending
>>> rejections.
>> 
>> Well, you can ask here for ideas of what to try.  As for motivation in
>> the face of continued rejection, all I can say is to think about how
>> much you dislike your current boss/job/coworkers and let that motivate
>> you to keep trying.
> 
> Yeah, but that doesn't really work. It would be wonderful if I won
> several million on the lottery, and I could just retire to my stately
> home with a built-in custom recording studio. BUT IT'S IMPOSSIBLE! So
> thinking about my current bank balance doesn't motivate me to buy a
> lottery ticket any more than the current trainwreck of a job I have
> motivates me to look for another one - it seems equally impossible.

Then the motivation simply isn't strong enough - and you're content 
enough with the job that you have to not change the status quo.

>>>> It depends on how badly they need to fill the position as well.
>>> Well, that's true too. I only got my current job because they were
>>> absolutely desperate, and I was cheap.
>> 
>> And from the job you've gained some experience, which helps you with
>> the next job.
> 
> I don't think I really gained anything useful from this job - other than
> being able to _claim_ that I have commercial experience now...

You've learned a bit about the bad kind of corporate politics (and thus 
you know that's something you want to try to avoid if you can); you've 
learned about meeting government regulations for data retention and such 
- how to deal with government auditors - there's plenty that you've 
learned.  But you don't recognize it because you're "inside" your own 
head, so you think what you've learned is no big deal.

>>>> 4.  Lack of good references:
>>> Ooo, that reminds me... My CV claims that I have references. I'd
>>> better go find some. o_O
>> 
>> That would be a good idea. :-)
> 
> ...which brings us back to "I don't know anybody". :-/

Who's someone at work who you have helped who has not responded 
overwhelmingly negatively?  What's the best response you got for helping 
a user out?

> Besides, I gather the rules of these things are such that it's supposed
> to be somebody who knows you on a professional capacity? That's going to
> be even more of a problem...

Not necessarily.  You can have business references and personal 
references on most job applications.

>>> Heh. Does anybody else here think I should just get Jim to tell
>>> employers about me rather than me tell them? The way you talk, you
>>> make it sound as if I'm somehow worth having...
>> 
>> Well, I have some experience in self-marketing.
> 
> [Understatement.]

It's an important skill to cultivate.  I hate marketing in general, but 
it's one of those things that is necessary if you want to get ahead.

>> I also happen to believe that you do have real skills and would be an
>> asset to anyone who hired you.
> 
> Well, that's kind of the problem. I *like* playing with equations, but
> I'm not actually very *good* at it, unfortunately. And it's also not a
> very useful thing to do anyway. The long and short of it is... I'm not a
> very useful employee. Secondly, even if I had useful skills, I don't
> have any "proof". There's nothing I can easily show to somebody that
> will prove to them that I'm not just talking out of my arse.

You don't *think* you're good at it.  That's an important difference from 
not being good at it.

My mum has always thought that she was awful at maths.  But for *decades* 
she's sewed (she's self-employed now), and has been able to take a 
pattern and rescale it to fit specific individuals.  She doesn't consider 
that math - but it very much is, and she's able to not only work it out 
on her own, but she does it intuitively (not by sitting down and working 
out the measurements with a calculator).

But she refuses to see that she's actually quite good at math - but 
largely only when she doesn't think of it *as* math.

>> I see a lot of
>> potential in your abilities that you don't seem to see in yourself.
> 
> Apparently.

So trust what those of us who say you have good abilities and potential 
are telling you.  We have nothing to gain (or lose) by telling you that - 
it's an honest assessment, so take it as such.

>>>> You're still insisting on making the decision for the prospective
>>>> employer to not hire you.  That's THEIR decision to make and not
>>>> yours! I'm going to KEEP saying that until you demonstrate that you
>>>> understand it.
>>> Well, I *did* apply anyway, didn't I?
>> 
>> Yes, you have at times applied.  But you didn't follow up the way I
>> would have done, and that's one significant difference.
> 
> The job I was referring to is about the one job where I *did* actually
> follow up (not that it helped), but anyway...

A follow-up doesn't guarantee that you'll get the job, but it increases 
the chances.  Since you're still learning what works and what doesn't, 
you got some experience out of that follow-up, and you should be proud of 
taking that additional step forward.

>>> This is contrary to everything I have ever experienced in my life, so
>>> excuse me if I don't immediately believe it. No disrespect, but every
>>> single time I've tried to get somewhere in life, I have failed
>>> spectacularly. It seems that no matter how much energy I expend,
>>> nothing happens. So when people say to me "take control of life", my
>>> resonse is "dude, like, HOW?! It can't be done."
>> 
>> I can understand why you feel the way you do; I did for many years
>> myself.  It takes persistence to push past it.
> 
> I think part of it is having nobody around me to encourage me to
> continue. When I apply for a job, nobody says "well done". When I don't
> apply for a job, nobody says "you need to try harder". Either way, it's
> just me, sitting in an empty room, staring at my computer thinking "now,
> do I spend 4 hours on a pointless and utterly depressing task, or shall
> I go read about non-Euclidian geometry for a while?" You can see how
> that one's going to turn out most of the time.

Well, look at it from this side of the screen; we've told you repeatedly 
when you do things that help move you forward that you're doing well, 
even in the face of rejections.  When you don't apply for a job, we DO 
tell you that you need to try harder, and you say "gee, great, thanks, 
way to motivate me by telling me I suck!" - makes it kinda hard to 
provide feedback when you seem to ignore the positive feedback and when 
we tell you that you need to try harder you punch us in the face and say 
"yeah, like THAT'S helping".  We can and do provide encouragement, but 
only you can motivate yourself.  You want your circumstance to change, 
and you are the one who has to make that happen.

We can advise and help you out in some ways, but ultimately, it's your 
life and your situation should be what motivates you.  As I said before, 
none of us "out here" are in a position to even provide incentive, much 
less motivation.

When you look at your situation and you say "this sucks", the response 
you need to train yourself to have is "I'm going to DO something about 
the fact that it sucks" rather than "I'm just going to ignore it and hope 
it goes away".  You've been ignoring it for years and it hasn't gone 
away.  What's more, if the job you have goes away, then you're back to 
being the balloon that's buffeted by the winds.  It's your life and you 
need to take control - once you do that, you WILL be happier.

Start by setting some goals.  I don't even mean things like "I want a job 
at Nortel" or whatever, but higher level goals like "I want to move into 
my own flat in 3 years" or "I want to make x GBP per year" (though with 
that one, you need to be careful to not set a goal that's truly out of 
your reach - 10 million would be nice, but when setting goals, they need 
to be something achievable - a stretch is nice, but achievable is a 
must.  So if you're at 21K right now, say you'd like to be at 30K in 5 
years - if you do better than that, great.)

Once you've set some goals, then find people who have accomplished 
similar goals and look at what they did.  *Most* people have to work 
fairly hard to achieve their goals, and nobody starts out with the 
experience that got them to where they are.  So look at how they gained 
their experience, what mistakes they made, what things they did right, 
and see if those things that helped are things that you can do - and 
learn from their mistakes.

> Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, to actually get a job you have to
> apply for several hundred trillion jobs. Given that under optimum
> conditions, I might be able to find maybe 3 agency adverts to apply for
> after several soul-destroying hours of searching, it's going to take
> several human lifetimes for me to apply to even a hundred, never mind a
> billion.

Now you're exaggerating again.  Part of the reason it takes you so long 
is because you take everything extremely personally.  It's not - it's 
business.  So when a rejection comes along, just forget about it and move 
on to the next one - after thanking them for their time and asking that 
they contact you if an opportunity comes up.  They may never do so, but 
you need to remember some advice I got from a VP of marketing - if you 
can't have them leave you with a positive view, have them leave you with 
a neutral view.  You want to do everything you can to ensure you don't 
leave a bad impression, because that guarantees they'll never call you 
back.  But if you accept their decision to not employ you with grace, the 
next time they have a job you might be interested in, they'll remember 
that you acted professionally in the face of being turned down, and that 
type of professionalism is something that is desirable.

>> I've seen you fight back in discussions up here which is something you
>> hadn't done before.  You're learning to stand up for yourself, and
>> that's a GOOD thing.
> 
> On the contrary, now it seems people just think I'm an opinionated
> idiot.

Wrong.  But people can't help you taking things in the worst possible way 
- that's something you do and is a bad habit you need to break.

>> Applying that in an online forum is a good first step.  Applying it in
>> 'meatspace' is the next step.
> 
> Nah. Telling a bunch of glyphs on a screen "you're wrong" is one thing.
> Telling that to a 300-pound gorilla of a man standing on front of you
> holding a baseball bat? Not so easy.

First of all, how often are they literally holding a baseball bat?

Second of all, you seem to forget that I've *been there*.  Is it easy?  
No.  Is it possible?  Damned right it is.  In my early and mid 20's, I 
hated dealing with people.  I frequently would say that I would *always* 
work with computers and technology because they didn't punch back when 
you hit them.

In my most recent performance review (just a few weeks ago), I was 
complimented by my manager and my director for my people skills - 
particularly my ability to respond to people acting in an emotional 
manner to something I personally care about very much (things I have a 
personal interest in) in a way that doesn't inflame the situation and 
make it worse.

If you'd taken that performance review feedback to me 10 years ago and 
said "this is what your performance review for 2009 will be", I'd 
probably have said you were a f-ing liar because there's no way I would 
ever deal with people in that way.  I *really* hated dealing with people 
professionally - and even the suggestion that I'd be dealing with people 
first and technology second would've sounded like the stupidest thing 
ever and had about a 0% chance of happening.

>> I'm fairly certain you can do it
>> successfully, probably in your place of employ - like the next time
>> someone demands something from you that you judge to be unreasonable;
>> telling them to "do it themselves" if it's so easy that they judge you
>> should be able to do it in no time at all when in fact the request is
>> much more complex than they understand.  Might they complain to your
>> boss?  Probably.  Might your boss have words with you about it?  You
>> can almost certainly count on it.  But I've seen you stand up here to
>> similar criticism and hold your own very well - and I'm sure you could
>> explain to your boss.
> 
> The irony is, *my boss* is usually the guy who's being unreasonable at
> me. ;-)

BTDTGTTS.  One of my bosses who was like that was ex-Army, served in the 
first Gulf War, and he actually carried a gun with him (not in the 
office, but he kept one in his car - had some problems with unsavory 
types following him around or something).  I had no problem telling him 
he was being an idiot when he was being an idiot.  I *was* asked to 
resign after a few months of problems with him (which culminated in me 
going over his head and discussing his total lack of management skills 
with his boss, but my presentation came across as a power grab on my part 
- say the boss is a poor manager and then respond to "I suppose you want 
the job instead" with "Not really, but I would be willing to try if you 
felt I could do the job effectively" - to that particular director, that 
certainly came across as "I could do the job better than the current 
boss, just give me the chance to prove it").

A more recent boss would constantly slam me for little things (like not 
providing regular reports on stuff that the boss didn't indicate a need 
for), and rarely gave praise for doing good things.  It got so bad that I 
started looking for ways to get that boss removed.  End result was they 
were - to a non-management position.

My point is that your situation isn't unique - lots of people have had 
similar experiences and have survived them.  Learn from those who have.

> Like, currently I'm waiting for the site GM to return from... wherever
> the hell he is right now, so that I can talk to him about that email I
> got. Basically I was told I have to be trained on the procedure document
> explaining how the scientists in the laboratory in Oregon manage and
> maintain their lab water purification system. I decided (and the local
> QA manager agrees) that this is utterly irrelevant to my job. I'm never
> even going to set foot on Oregon, why *the hell* do I care how their
> water system works?! But my boss is adamant that I have to be trained on
> everything on the list he gave me. Of course, I'm just some nobody, so
> no one's going to listen to me, but the QA manager is the kind of guy
> that people sit up and listen to. (He's in QA, after all. These people
> are feared everywhere.) So we'll see how that one works out...

So how did it work out?  They may actually have reasons for training you 
on it that haven't been made clear.

It sounds like the QA manager might be a good mentor and someone you 
could use as a reference.  Maybe ask that individual if they'd mind if 
you came to them for advice when dealing with things that are beyond your 
experience.

I actually did that fairly recently with my director (my boss and I are 
good friends and he also is happy to advise when I have difficulty) - the 
reaction I got from my director was "absolutely - I'd be more than happy 
to help out" - she recognized (I think) that if I'm more able to do my 
job, then it makes her look better because she has a more effective 
staff.  At the same time, she has noticed huge changes in how I do my job 
in the past year, and part of the reason for that is because of her 
mentoring me as I ran into problems, because rather than react to the 
problem immediately, I'd ask for advice, and then my response to the 
problem would be much more measured and - in some cases - even more 
appropriate than just reacting.

When I talk about being "in control", that's the sort of thing I'm 
talking about.  I'm quite difficult in the workplace to provoke now into 
an emotional response (not that it doesn't happen occasionally).  Being 
able to do that has increased people's respect for what I can do and my 
ability to get my job done has improved significantly.

> Did you know, the company has a set of 14 "core values". And value 11 is
> "I support the hiring of people who are smarter than me". I feel that in
> the case of the Director of IT, that shouldn't be a difficult task. :-P

LOL, I hear ya there.  I do work with some people who seem to be 
delusional as well - or just not very bright at times.

BTW, there was an interesting article on Slashdot earlier today (I think, 
might've been yesterday) on Google's hiring practices.  That particular 
story was about the fact that sometimes Google doesn't hire the best 
person for the job - and they apparently do that intentionally.  You 
might have a look at that (not the /. story, but the story behind the 
story there) - you might find some interesting and useful insights there.

Jim

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