| by Lou | 10.55am UK time |
Hi everyone! It's me! I'm back! And for the third time in three years, I'm an unemployed bum engaging in all the soul-searching and self-pitying that that entails.
For reasons I can't put into a public forum, I ended up with some money in my bank account after a (very personally unpleasant, but professionally successful) one-year stint at a major studio working as an Analyst. And I was like "This will be easy! I'll find a new job no trouble! It took two-and-a-bit months to find that job, but this time will be different!"
Nope.
Well, yes actually - it will be different...Because three months later I'm like WHAT THE FUCK.
I've gotten an interview for one role, for which I was told I had too much experience (I did, so that was fine, it was at the very beginning when I was just testing the water).
I've since had absolutely no response to any job applications, even those for which I am perfectly (and, I assume, reasonably uniquely) qualified.
Oh, except for one where the agent replied to say that the job was too junior for me. (I then directly submitted a CV to the company itself, making myself appear slightly younger and slightly less experienced, and got no interest from that either.)
Contrarily, anything more senior and I don't even get a phonecall, let alone an interview, let alone the job.
What the fuck is going on??!
I've read probably literally hundreds of job-hunting blogs/ advice columns/ tips/ motivators.
I've refined my CV over and over.
I've kept in touch with every agency in town that handles media and entertainment.
I've scoured every jobs board, every day, and signed up to every job alert email.
I've written custom cover letters and custom refined my CV for every application, always applying within a day or two of the job ad appearing.
And NOTHING.
Okay, so you're thinking: Well, there's a recession on. The job market is rammed with people, and lacking in jobs. In fact, people are in much worse positions.
But it's London! And I'm highly qualified, highly experienced, and looking at jobs of all levels... including ones at about where I was six years ago when I left New Zealand.
In fact, after six years of working my way up again from nothing, having already established a career in New Zealand, now is when I should be leveraging all that to land a great job that actually increases my salary for the first time since 2008, not desperately scrambling about for anything.
And I think what's really, really bothering me is that I genuinely think that a lot of the people I've worked with are incompetent, disinterested, and lazy. Yet their careers seem to have happened so easily for them. And additionally, it seemed to me like a lot of the people I worked with in a film studio didn't even particularly like films. So I'm like "how come they have a job, and I don't?" But the secret is that they all got in on permanent jobs, while I've been stuck with contract positions, which are of course the easiest and quickest to cut (and thanks to the Tories, getting ever easier to cut).
So... any ideas? New careers I could try out that it's easy to move sideways into...?? Any magic positive thought manifestos out there to help keep someone like me motivated......???
Because I'm very quickly descending into sitting-on-the-sofa-watching-tv-for-the-rest-of-my-life mode.
Hi everyone! It's me! I'm back! And for the third time in three years, I'm an unemployed bum engaging in all the soul-searching and self-pitying that that entails.
For reasons I can't put into a public forum, I ended up with some money in my bank account after a (very personally unpleasant, but professionally successful) one-year stint at a major studio working as an Analyst. And I was like "This will be easy! I'll find a new job no trouble! It took two-and-a-bit months to find that job, but this time will be different!"
Nope.
Well, yes actually - it will be different...Because three months later I'm like WHAT THE FUCK.
I've gotten an interview for one role, for which I was told I had too much experience (I did, so that was fine, it was at the very beginning when I was just testing the water).
I've since had absolutely no response to any job applications, even those for which I am perfectly (and, I assume, reasonably uniquely) qualified.
Oh, except for one where the agent replied to say that the job was too junior for me. (I then directly submitted a CV to the company itself, making myself appear slightly younger and slightly less experienced, and got no interest from that either.)
Contrarily, anything more senior and I don't even get a phonecall, let alone an interview, let alone the job.
What the fuck is going on??!
I've read probably literally hundreds of job-hunting blogs/ advice columns/ tips/ motivators.
I've refined my CV over and over.
I've kept in touch with every agency in town that handles media and entertainment.
I've scoured every jobs board, every day, and signed up to every job alert email.
I've written custom cover letters and custom refined my CV for every application, always applying within a day or two of the job ad appearing.
And NOTHING.
Okay, so you're thinking: Well, there's a recession on. The job market is rammed with people, and lacking in jobs. In fact, people are in much worse positions.
But it's London! And I'm highly qualified, highly experienced, and looking at jobs of all levels... including ones at about where I was six years ago when I left New Zealand.
In fact, after six years of working my way up again from nothing, having already established a career in New Zealand, now is when I should be leveraging all that to land a great job that actually increases my salary for the first time since 2008, not desperately scrambling about for anything.
And I think what's really, really bothering me is that I genuinely think that a lot of the people I've worked with are incompetent, disinterested, and lazy. Yet their careers seem to have happened so easily for them. And additionally, it seemed to me like a lot of the people I worked with in a film studio didn't even particularly like films. So I'm like "how come they have a job, and I don't?" But the secret is that they all got in on permanent jobs, while I've been stuck with contract positions, which are of course the easiest and quickest to cut (and thanks to the Tories, getting ever easier to cut).
So... any ideas? New careers I could try out that it's easy to move sideways into...?? Any magic positive thought manifestos out there to help keep someone like me motivated......???
Because I'm very quickly descending into sitting-on-the-sofa-watching-tv-for-the-rest-of-my-life mode.
