>> Well, the main site I'm applying through keeps track of these things.
>> However, that doesn't save you if two agencies have listed the same job.
>> But usually you start reading the text, and realise it sounds awful
>> familiar...
>
> That makes sense.  Most companies don't write more than one job
> description per position. :)

More irritating is the fact that most websites are just listing the 
exact same jobs. The job centre want me to look at lots of different 
websites, but if they all just list identical information, what's the point?

>> Well, when I asked, she claimed that "all our IT stuff is outsourced".
>> (Which begs the question "so what do YOU do there then??") To me, this
>> sounds not so much like a hot tip for where to work, but a sure-fire
>> place to not waste your time with...
>
> Maybe that have technical non-IT jobs that would be a good (or even
> better) fit for you.  You never know until you ask.

Well, like I said, I asked, and that's all the information that seemed 
to be forthcoming.

> It does work, so rather than doing your "the world
> according to Andrew" approach to whether things work or not, trust those
> of us who have the experience and who have actually done this.

Well, I don't know. If you said "there are camels in Mongolia", I'd 
believe you. If you said "there /aren't/ any camels in Mongolia", I'd 
believe you. Because I have no frigging idea where Mongolia *is*, and 
certainly no idea what the local flora and fauna is like.

But when somebody tells me "wine tastes sweet", when it clearly and 
obviously does not, and it's trivially easy to verify over and over 
again that it /actually/ tastes sharp, bitter and corrosive, I have a 
hard time believing all the people who "know better". I mean, I guess 
there must be /some/ reason why people drink this horrid stuff, but I 
have no idea what it is. (The emperor's new suit, perhaps?)

Likewise, when somebody says that knowing people instantly makes every 
job search trivial... no, that is not my experience at all. And even 
though I hear such advice from people who, objectively, it seems ought 
to know quite a bit about it, it's still really hard to believe 
something that sounds so utterly /wrong/. (A bit like quantum theory, 
actually...)

Perhaps the problem isn't "knowing people", but rather "knowing /the 
right/ people"? I mean, I certainly know a tiny handful of people. But I 
don't know anybody who actually works in computing. (Well, except 
Jayne.) Almost everyone I know wouldn't know the difference between a 
computer programmer, a network administrator and a data entry clerk. 
After all, they all "do computery stuff", don't they?

Perhaps if I was the kind of well-connected guy who knows people in 
positions of power on a first-name basis, getting hired might be 
significantly easier. But I don't know anybody like that. I don't know 
of anybody who knows anybody like that. And I doubt I ever will.

>> So perhaps you could /explain/ exactly how I can turn the fact that I
>> know people into offers of employment. :-P
>
> It takes time, of course.  It takes a certain amount of luck, too.

I thought "luck" was just about the /only/ requirement for getting hired?

> But
> if someone you know who works for a company that has your dream job
> doesn't know (a) that you're looking and (b) that the job in question is
> actually your dream job, then they're really not going to tell you or
> even think of you, are they?

Well, that's true enough. But as I say, most people I know wouldn't have 
a clue what my ideal job looks like. And I've mentioned it enough, yet 
nobody is coming forward. Because, as I say, nobody knows anything that 
would help me.

> It's the way most people find work.  That your very limited experience
> doesn't match up to the reality doesn't mean that reality is wrong.

"Most people"? Damn. If that's actually true, wouldn't the entire 
recruitment industry be out of a job?

>> [Actually, that's not completely true. I think the team from the MHRA
>> was usually the same bunch of people every 3 years, and plausibly I
>> could discover who they were... Doesn't change the fact that the MHRA
>> audit thousands of labs per year though.]
>
> That fact is actually irrelevant.  You might need to remind them where
> you worked and what you did, but having worked with auditors myself,
> people who make it EASY for them to do their jobs are rare and
> memorable.

Really? Because, I would have imagined it's a bit like being in IT. When 
everything is working how it should, nobody even gives you a second 
though. When stuff stops working, they come hammering on your door 
demanding to know why you're not doing your job right. And once it's 
fixed, they forget about you again. [No, you will not get any thanks. It 
is of course your fault that it broke in the first place.]

There are a lot of things like that - stuff that nobody thinks about, 
until it goes wrong. I would imagine auditing is like that; you remember 
that company you had to audit which was a total nightmare, but you 
forget the millions of audits that went perfectly smoothly...

> The second time they came back, they remembered the previous experience
> and, knowing they were going to be dealing with me again, they planned
> accordingly.  They got done in half a day what normally took them 2-3
> days at least because I was prepared and available.

...then again, I am not an auditor...

>> It doesn't look very far on the map. But there's no particularly direct
>> route in that direction, so it's really awkward to get there. And the
>> road system in Oxford itself is a nightmare - which is irrelevant,
>> because there's nowhere to park even if you could drive in there.
>> Instead I'd have to take the bicycle to the office, because the ****ing
>> public transport system doesn't actually work...
>
> I repeat - ONE EXPERIENCE.  If it were a daily trip, I'm sure you'd find
> ways to optimize the travel experience.

That's like saying "if you drove around London a lot, you'd find ways to 
make it easy". Which is nonsense of course, because /everybody/ finds it 
a nightmare to drive anywhere in London. Now of course, Oxford isn't 
London. But that doesn't mean that the same cannot be true.

> You might try casting a wider net.

Maybe in 9 months' time when I still don't have a job, I'll consider it. 
Currently I'm only considering jobs that I'd actually want to have. 
Because let's face it, do I really want to spend the next ten years 
doing an unpleasant job just because I was a bit impatient?

> Do some research on companies in
> London as well, and rather than going through recruiting websites where
> you don't know the company, go to the company website and look at their
> careers page.

Well, that's a valid strategy. [Although there's no particular reason to 
focus on companies based on one specific city. Rather, just look for 
companies that might have a base nearby.] It does have the advantage 
that you don't have to deal with worthless agencies.

OTOH, it has the disadvantage that you can't connect with small local 
companies this way. But more pressingly, there are, like, seventy 
billion companies in this country. How the hell do you figure out which 
ones might be hiring in a nearby area?

> For example, try bt.co.uk.  Bottom of the page, "Careers".  Follow the
> links to the open positions.
>
> Then go to LinkedIn and look there for job postings.  Or to see if
> there's anyone in your network who's at BT (or who knows someone at BT).

I wouldn't work for BT if you paid me. They are an extremely bad 
employer. But the point stands.

I'm not sure why you'd look in LinkedIn for jobs though. If the company 
has any, it'll be on their website. LinkedIn just has a badly formatted 
copy of the same information. What does that add to the proposition?

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