>> 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?

Post a reply to this message

> 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,

Did you ever stop and think that not all wines are the same? Some are 
sweeter than others. A wine described as sweet is obviously not going to 
taste like a bag of sugar - what did you expect?

> Likewise, when somebody says that knowing people instantly makes every
> job search trivial...

Nobody said that, it's more likely to make is easier than if you don't 
know anyone.

> 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?

But those people *might* be able to put you in touch with the right 
person who does know about computery stuff. That's how networking works.

> 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.

You don't need to know anyone in a position of power, you just need to 
know other people who might have heard of a computery type job going. 
The more people you talk to obviously the more chance of finding out 
about a job that would be suitable.

> 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.]

Why are you limiting yourself to companies nearby?

Post a reply to this message

On 21/09/2012 12:40 PM, scott wrote:
>> 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,
>
> Did you ever stop and think that not all wines are the same?

Did you ever stop to think that I've tasted dozens of different wines 
over the course of my life? Sure, they didn't all taste the same. But 
I've yet to find a single one which could be described as "sweet". And 
when people sing lyrics like "kissing sweeter than wine", it makes it 
sound like sweetness is a very common property of many wines. This 
certainly does not appear to be the case at all.

> But those people *might* be able to put you in touch with the right
> person who does know about computery stuff. That's how networking works.

In my limited experience, this has not been the case. Most employees 
seem to have absolutely no idea whether their employer is hiring or not. 
Not even for the job that *they* do, never mind for an unrelated part of 
the operation.

> You don't need to know anyone in a position of power, you just need to
> know other people who might have heard of a computery type job going.
> The more people you talk to obviously the more chance of finding out
> about a job that would be suitable.

Well, I guess that's true enough. But these jobs are going to show up on 
a jobs site eventually /anyway/. Just "knowing" that they exist doesn't 
really help get you hired. (And besides, surely you'd have to speak to a 
hell of a lot of people on an extremely regular basis to hear about this 
stuff...)

>> 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.]
>
> Why are you limiting yourself to companies nearby?

Because I don't want to have to travel too far to get to work?

It's one of the many things I disliked about my old job. Now, obviously, 
it may turn out that I still end up needing to drive to Banbury or 
something. But at least that's a bit nearer than Coventry.

In particular, given the number of jobs I've seen advertised as being 
*in* Milton Keynes, it doesn't seem too outrageous to imagine that I 
might be able to get one of them. This is new; in the past, I've never 
been able to find anything that near. But now I've found some better 
sites to look on, I'm finding quite a lot of very local jobs. Why look 
further away when there's this much stuff right here?

Post a reply to this message

On 21/09/2012 1:40 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>
> Did you ever stop to think that I've tasted dozens of different wines
> over the course of my life? Sure, they didn't all taste the same. But
> I've yet to find a single one which could be described as "sweet". And
> when people sing lyrics like "kissing sweeter than wine", it makes it
> sound like sweetness is a very common property of many wines. This
> certainly does not appear to be the case at all.
>

Have you ever tried a dessert wine?

>> Why are you limiting yourself to companies nearby?
>
> Because I don't want to have to travel too far to get to work?
>

That will get you little sympathy especially from employers.

> It's one of the many things I disliked about my old job. Now, obviously,
> it may turn out that I still end up needing to drive to Banbury or
> something. But at least that's a bit nearer than Coventry.
>
> In particular, given the number of jobs I've seen advertised as being
> *in* Milton Keynes, it doesn't seem too outrageous to imagine that I
> might be able to get one of them. This is new; in the past, I've never
> been able to find anything that near. But now I've found some better
> sites to look on, I'm finding quite a lot of very local jobs. Why look
> further away when there's this much stuff right here?

Let us know how you get on.
-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

> Have you ever tried a dessert wine?

I have no idea. All I know is that I've tasted red wines, white wines, 
and wines who's actual physical colour varies over quite a few hues. 
They don't all taste the same, for sure, but none of them taste "sweet".

> That will get you little sympathy especially from employers.

I also want to earn as much money as possible, whereas employers want to 
pay me as little money as possible. So what else is new? :-P

> Let us know how you get on.

Well, if I ever do get hired, I'm sure you will all be hearing about 
it... ;-)

Post a reply to this message

> Did you ever stop to think that I've tasted dozens of different wines
> over the course of my life? Sure, they didn't all taste the same. But
> I've yet to find a single one which could be described as "sweet".

Funny, in most places you can buy wine there will be a whole section 
labelled "sweet", or at least a lot of options of sweet wines. Assuming 
you've tried some of them, then either you have your definition of 
"sweet" wrong, or everyone else does.

>> But those people *might* be able to put you in touch with the right
>> person who does know about computery stuff. That's how networking works.
>
> In my limited experience, this has not been the case.

You need more experience then, it's not like you should expect every 1 
in 3 people to know about a job you might be interested in.

> Well, I guess that's true enough. But these jobs are going to show up on
> a jobs site eventually /anyway/.

Not if they can hire someone before needing to advertise.

>> Why are you limiting yourself to companies nearby?
>
> Because I don't want to have to travel too far to get to work?

You didn't consider finding a job first, and then accommodation nearby, 
rather than the other way around?

Post a reply to this message

On 21/09/2012 03:07 PM, scott wrote:
>> Did you ever stop to think that I've tasted dozens of different wines
>> over the course of my life? Sure, they didn't all taste the same. But
>> I've yet to find a single one which could be described as "sweet".
>
> Funny, in most places you can buy wine there will be a whole section
> labelled "sweet"

I would imagine so.

> Assuming you've tried some of them

I imagine I have, but I can't be completely certain of this.

> then either you have your definition of "sweet" wrong, or everyone else does.

Unless a "sweet" wine simply means one that is sweetER than the others?

(After all, nobody actually has "white" skin, they just have skin that 
is whitER than other people.)

>> In my limited experience, this has not been the case.
>
> You need more experience then, it's not like you should expect every 1
> in 3 people to know about a job you might be interested in.

Well, I don't exactly know thousands of millions of people. And given my 
lack of social skills, I doubt I ever will.

>> Well, I guess that's true enough. But these jobs are going to show up on
>> a jobs site eventually /anyway/.
>
> Not if they can hire someone before needing to advertise.

Well, if they already know who they want for the job, then I didn't 
stand a chance in the first place. :-P

> You didn't consider finding a job first, and then accommodation nearby,
> rather than the other way around?

No. Because living in the best city in the country is more important to 
me than which soul-crushing, monotonous waste of my life I get paid for. :-P

Life is all about priorities, after all...

Post a reply to this message

> Unless a "sweet" wine simply means one that is sweetER than the others?

Now that would just be silly to call a wine that is sweeter than others 
a "sweet wine". I wonder what they'll come up with next, "fast" cars for 
cars than are simply just faster than others, but are nothing like fast 
jets or spaceships.

> Well, if they already know who they want for the job, then I didn't
> stand a chance in the first place. :-P

The whole point is that you make it so you are the one they know they 
want for the job, then nobody else stands a chance :-)

> No. Because living in the best city in the country is more important to
> me than which soul-crushing, monotonous waste of my life I get paid for.
> :-P
>
> Life is all about priorities, after all...

What if there was a job that you actually enjoyed that required you to 
move outside of roundabout-city?

Post a reply to this message

On 21/09/2012 03:48 PM, scott wrote:
>> Unless a "sweet" wine simply means one that is sweetER than the others?
>
> Now that would just be silly to call a wine that is sweeter than others
> a "sweet wine". I wonder what they'll come up with next, "fast" cars for
> cars than are simply just faster than others, but are nothing like fast
> jets or spaceships.

...

>> Well, if they already know who they want for the job, then I didn't
>> stand a chance in the first place. :-P
>
> The whole point is that you make it so you are the one they know they
> want for the job, then nobody else stands a chance :-)

AFAIK, this is impossible.

>> No. Because living in the best city in the country is more important to
>> me than which soul-crushing, monotonous waste of my life I get paid for.
>> :-P
>>
>> Life is all about priorities, after all...
>
> What if there was a job that you actually enjoyed that required you to
> move outside of roundabout-city?

What's the point of having a job you actually enjoy if you have to be 
miserable the rest of the time?

Post a reply to this message

On 21/09/2012 4:49 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> What's the point of having a job you actually enjoy if you have to be
> miserable the rest of the time?

Move away from your mother, pay the rent, have somewhere you can take 
your next girl friend to, be as one with everyone else.
If you were promised an easy life then when you die kick St Peter or 
whoever in the goolies. He/she/it lied.
We all have to do things that we don't particularly like to survive.


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message