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Post by Narcizo on Nov 20, 2008 20:02:39 GMT
I'd vote slut for PM - his extra hour every week policy would win me over. Fairly rapidly.
Anyway, I am now sans job. (although not officially for another 4 months). If I had about 250% more self-confidence (ie been about 1/4 of the cheeky bostord slut is) my CV would probably have landed me a job by now as some people seem to think that I can actually be a consultant in C++ or smething (apparently based on a 3-month course I did 11 years ago and 8 years spent sitting around posting on tD and various incarnations of here). Failing to realise that even when I was actually working it was about as far from proper programming as you can come while still sitting in front of a computer.
I'm leaning towards thinking I should go the Boony route and become a sectretary. With my moomittens skills I should be great at it. The other option is to try and adopt a halfway house approach of going back to university and trying to become a *cough* junior developer and get paid a bit to learn a bunch of stuff. I think I'm the eager, young, enthusiastic up and comer that any big IT company would want.
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Post by Sonic on Nov 20, 2008 23:08:11 GMT
Ah bugger Narkle. You have said it was coming. Those options at the end sound like you have a few, which sounds promising. Now all you have to do is decide which way you want to go. That's the tricky bit isn't it?
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Nov 20, 2008 23:24:16 GMT
That's the first tricky bit. The second tricky bit is motivating yourself.
Good luck there Mr N. Don't fritter away the four months you have. If you work things right you could be very ready to take that secretary role on day one.
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Post by Moo on Nov 21, 2008 8:39:25 GMT
I can only repeat what Mr BizMarkie says, don't let the four months escape you.
As far as the consultancy bit goes, I was nervous as hell about going the contractor route when I was made redundant, but it was OK in the end. Whilst not the greatest at it, I managed to keep a weekly rolling contract going for five months, so it couldn't have been too bad. It's making sure you project the confidence you need to get the job done and make the employers feel that they've made the right decision for the wages they're giving you. It was hard for me, because I was in Leeds and the family were 150 miles north and away from me, but I was only doing it for the money and it was only supposed to be a short term fix. It was, it worked and got me through a tough time. Don't dismiss the idea of not going for the consultancy thing, Narkle, have a word with the recruiter and say that you know the basics, have the hard-work ethic, willingness to learn and are keen to move in that direction. The rest is just motivating yourself.
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Post by elth on Nov 21, 2008 8:52:46 GMT
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Post by coffers on Nov 21, 2008 9:27:28 GMT
Oh bugger. That's has come around so fast. I can only reiterate what the others have said, don't let doubts creep in , look to ways of motivating yourself and shoot for anything that looks vaguely that you can do it. There'll be knockback but that's their loss, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you.
As Moo said, the contract route is always an option.
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Post by floplexter on Nov 21, 2008 10:20:15 GMT
Yeah, what they said.
Especially the bit about the boobs.
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Post by Boony on Nov 21, 2008 10:45:23 GMT
I'm not a secretary!
Apart from that, I agree with the above. Good luck, Narkle, get yourself in the right frame of mind and take the situation by the scruff of the neck.
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Post by Moo on Nov 21, 2008 11:05:15 GMT
Question: Have you ever worn nail polish?
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Post by floplexter on Nov 21, 2008 11:15:19 GMT
Or photocopied your fanny.
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Post by Boony on Nov 21, 2008 11:23:34 GMT
No, and no...
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Post by Moo on Nov 21, 2008 11:33:52 GMT
Boony, I'll ask you again. Have you ever worn nail polish?
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Post by Boony on Nov 21, 2008 11:37:35 GMT
No.
This could get tedious.
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Post by elth on Nov 21, 2008 11:48:07 GMT
Letting the girls paint my nails was one of my favourite ways of flirting in high school lulz.
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Post by floplexter on Nov 21, 2008 12:00:42 GMT
Great. Now I have this picture in my head of elth as Kurt Cobain.
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Post by Sonic on Nov 22, 2008 9:35:21 GMT
I've seen that boobs picture before, but with the caption something about buttons and popping. I can't remember how it was written.
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Post by Narcizo on Dec 3, 2008 8:50:55 GMT
So all the jobs I've applied for and where they've got back to me, they want me to fill in a competence profile. Or incompetence profile as I oh-so-amusingly call it. Oddly enough I don't tend to hear back from them much after I've filled one in.
I think a change of "career" is in order. Secretary school here I come.
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Post by Moo on Dec 3, 2008 9:04:40 GMT
Gah! Not good news, Narkle, although just before santa-time is always a slow time for job searching. Just got to keep going though, fella.
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Post by Narcizo on Dec 3, 2008 9:15:14 GMT
There's actually been a fair bit of initial interest shown by IT companies and whatnot, but that soon evaporates when they realise that a) what I "did" wasn't really proper programming. b) I don't really have much eperience of anything else c) I don't know any of the jargon or know much about the business at all, because it interests me not a jot. Leading me to suspect it might not be the branch for me.
All this seriously leads me to believe that I'm on a hiding to nothing going after these sorts of jobs and I should be trying to sell myself based on a) being English b) being good at learning new computery skills that don't involve "proper" programming (ie what my previous job was)
The only problem with that is there aren't a huge amount of those sorts of jobs going around, and for most other administrationy type jobs they want you to have some sort of administratory type job experience. And most of them are borong as hell, anyway.
I'm going to take a look at any books/courses I can find about database development and the like. Because that's, obviously, the easier option.
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Post by Sonic on Dec 3, 2008 9:49:22 GMT
Over here Narkle, it's generally the worst time of year to be looking for these types of jobs. It's also the worst time of year to be looking for a job in science too. It's good that companies are looking at you, as eventually(hopefully not too long), the company that is willing will come along. Database development is a good skill for administration too, as well as the direction that you want to go as well. The guys and gals in my finance department in the building have developed databases for certain conundrums within the building over the years. That sounds like a good direction to take there Narkle.
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Post by Boony on Dec 3, 2008 10:18:22 GMT
How about teaching? Or local politics?
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Post by Narcizo on Dec 8, 2008 13:06:05 GMT
No and no.
Anyway, my boss has £3k budgeted for me to do some training so I'm agoing to be buying shed loads of on-line training bollocks in the upcoming weeks so hopefully people will be suitably impressed with my "can-do" attitude and hire me.
And then be sorely disappointed.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Dec 8, 2008 13:07:14 GMT
That's the spirit.
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