Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Simple Philosophy

It has almost been four months since I returned to Blighty after sixteen years of living and working in Australia. Prior to the move, I had this notion in my head that I would spend the weeks over Christmas simply relaxing and catching up with friends and family and, once the festivities were over, I'd find a job and resume the sort of lifestyle that I had become accustomed to.

Well, talk about naïvety!

The truth is, I wasn't so innocent to believe that I would be head-hunted and snatched up by the nearest TV company or maybe be spotted by a conveniently passing Hollywood producer in his limousine; "Hey, would you like to be a movie star?" I just thought that maybe, just maybe, I would be able to start afresh without too much rigmarole.

Alas. It was not to be so. Although I was not eligible for Job Seekers Allowance until three months had passed, it did not stop me from pursuing avenues right from day one. I know I said I'd treat Christmas as a holiday, but I still kept my ear to the ground and put my feelers out there.

I spruced up my CV; joined multiple Internet job-sites and agencies; travelled up and down the country visiting possible locations for desirable living conditions and employment opportunities; but it was not as fruitful as I had hoped. More 'fraughtful'. Yes, let's invent new words. Why not, eh?

Once upon a time, it was a little more straightforward to apply for jobs. You had a CV, you sent it in. Bang. Sorted.

These days, whenever you find a job that suits your needs, it seems you have to go through a recruitment agency or similar. There isn't just one, either. It seems for every job I apply for, I have to input my entire history into another database. I am now on (to name a few) CV-Library, Total Jobs, Geeky Jobs, Glassdoor, All The Top Bananas, UK Recruitment, Job Placements, Monster, NHS Jobs, Brighterbox, Guardian Jobs, BBC Jobs, and, of course, LinkedIn.

Although I can see the advantages of being listed on these various sites, I still get frustrated by the unfathomably atrocious lack of decent punctuation and grammar plus the repetitive nature of the forms. Anyway, I'm not going to blog about that as it will just turn into another pointless rant (Me? Never!)

One of the hardest obstacles to overcome, however, is the simple fact that I am wanting a change of career. I have been doing sales for over fifteen years and, although good at it, I need to do something that makes me happy. However, when you have a CV that details one's successes, the jobs that get highlighted for you are all the same. I have made sure that my CV features my writing skills predominantly mentioning the books that I have written and the web-content management extracurricular work I did during my previous job (plus a number of freelance/voluntary online reviews/essays etc.), but this always seems to get overlooked. I am a born writer. I just love playing with words. If I could get a job that somehow takes advantage of this talent (and, trust me, anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I do not blow my own trumpet very often, so I do not say 'talent' lightly) I may finally have a vocation and a career that I genuinely love. Isn't that what we are all told to do? It's a simple philosophy.

So, with this in mind, I am applying for Communications roles, Web-Content Management, Copy-writing jobs... anything that allows me be creative with the written form.

Four months in and I am not at quite the spot that I intended to be, but hopefully soon. I want a nice job working with nice people. I want a little flat where I can own a cat, bake lemon drizzle cakes, and watch all my favourite blu-rays on a decent surround-sound home theatre.

Is that too much to ask?

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