YOU could say I failed. My mission was to find a job, and if success is to be measured only against the crude and clumsy outcome of meaningful employment then, yes, I concede, I have been a little less than successful.
At the start, it looked so easy: get a job, they said, and here are some experts to help you. Great. Visions of a fat salary and a plump package fired me up. I assumed that I would step, stubbly and scruffy, into some Superman-style corporate call box and emerge after a quick sprinkle of talent-management magic dust as the complete company man. So, 12 weeks later, is it a bird? A plane? A high-flying executive? Is it heck. It’s still a scruffy, stubbly freelance journalist. Where did it all go wrong?
Well, I’m not sure that it did. To be honest, I like what I do at the moment. I can choose my hours and my bosses, and I don’t have to make tea for 12 people whenever I want a cuppa. Having said that, the prospect of change appealed, and I began this project willing to be guided, shaped and improved.
All the consultants and recruitment specialists who advised me were professional and knowledgeable. They helped me to decide the direction in which my job-search should go, told me how to sell myself, how to present myself and how to be interviewed. But had I been paying for their services, I think I might have felt short-changed. There is a whole industry out there built on polishing people to enhance their employment prospects and on helping bosses to pick the polished people. It has become self-generating and while I learnt a lot from those I consulted there were times when I thought, “I knew that”.
But knowing it and applying it are different, and I think that this is where the specialists really helped. By the time I went for an interview, thanks to their input, I felt confident, professional and able to state my case. Before, I would have been uncertain, hesitant and probably underprepared.
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So why didn’t I find a job? My consultant friends and I decided early on, with the help of psychometric profiling, that I might be suited to the charity sector, working in publications, perhaps, or communications. But advertised posts were either at a salary level far beneath my own — and you can take charity only so far — or they demanded skills that I don’t possess or, if I do, are extremely rusty.
And perhaps that is what this exercise has taught me: however polished you may be, it’s hard to blag it if you don’t have the competencies; and that if you want to get those that you lack, you must constantly develop your career rather than loaf about in shorts for seven years, sustaining yourself on one limited set of skills, as I have done.
So, yes, I failed: I didn’t get a job. But I learned what I must do to get one and — cheesy moment — I also discovered a lot about myself.
A failure, then, but at least becoming one was rewarding.
THE LOWDOWN
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So what practical tips did our job-hunter learn?
1. Looking and applying for posts is a full-time job.
2. Find out what you’re good at. Personality profiling can help.
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3. Do your homework before applying.
4. Read up on CVs. A good one will be invaluable.
5. Make your references work for you. Include statements from referees.
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6. Match your application to the skills required.
7. Job-hunting can become dispiriting — remember your strengths.
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8. First impressions count — more than they should.
9. Prepare for interviews. Rehearse answers to possible questions.
10. Smarten up. Eye contact, tone of voice, posture — be aware.
We kept our job-hunter anonymous to give him a sporting chance of getting employment, but now it’s time to name and shame: he is Daniel Allen.