footpad, posts by tag: jobs - LiveJournal (original) (raw)

Oh woe and despond.	[Nov. 14th, 2008\|12:04 am]Footpad
[Tags\|jobs, life, moving, zurich] [Current Mood	sleepy]Damn. It looks like I've got a job.It's about a year and a half since I last worked and, while I've made the occasional noise about needing a job, I can't say I've been looking hard. I still have enough money to keep me and Aki in beer and warm socks for at least another eighteen months. I know I've lost my edge, so I've been sorely unconfident about finding a job in the contracting market around Düsseldorf. The alternative would be to work (for considerably less money) in a German office, but I still doubt that my spoken German would be up to the demands of business. Finally, I lost a lot of time to depression, and for the past few months it's been really nice just to actually enjoy my leisure for a while.But now fate has intervened. My old boss from The Bank rang me up, asking if I wanted a permanent contract in Zurich. Aki and I discussed the matter, and we've decided I should go for it, largely because the economic recession makes it a very real likelihood that we might not be able to get good jobs before our money runs out. We'd survive, but it wouldn't be any fun at all. So I took the job; nothing's signed yet, but it was a "we're sending you a contract immediately" sort of thing.Good news, bad news. At least for the immediate future, it'll mean I go to Zurich alone. Once upon a time I liked that idea. Now I don't; I'll miss Aki and I'll sure as hell miss Mischa. We'll visit each other of course, and perhaps they will come out and spend longer periods in Zurich too, but there'll be a lot of separation to start with. We'll both manage, but I'll have no-one to poke me in the ribs when I'm down in the mouth, I just know Aki won't keep the bathroom sink clean on his own, and Mischa will lose his main dog-walker.Still. It's enough money to tide me and Aki over the recession (assuming I don't get laid off too soon); it'll get me technically on the ball again so I'm fitter for the contracting market; and it also restores the prospect of doing something. If I had to get a job, then this came at the right time. I look around and see so many friends plagued by bad luck, that I find it hard to understand why mine seems always good.
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[Nov. 14th, 2008|12:04 am]Footpad

[Tags**|jobs, life, moving, zurich] [Current Mood**

sleepy]Damn. It looks like I've got a job.It's about a year and a half since I last worked and, while I've made the occasional noise about needing a job, I can't say I've been looking hard. I still have enough money to keep me and Aki in beer and warm socks for at least another eighteen months. I know I've lost my edge, so I've been sorely unconfident about finding a job in the contracting market around Düsseldorf. The alternative would be to work (for considerably less money) in a German office, but I still doubt that my spoken German would be up to the demands of business. Finally, I lost a lot of time to depression, and for the past few months it's been really nice just to actually enjoy my leisure for a while.But now fate has intervened. My old boss from The Bank rang me up, asking if I wanted a permanent contract in Zurich. Aki and I discussed the matter, and we've decided I should go for it, largely because the economic recession makes it a very real likelihood that we might not be able to get good jobs before our money runs out. We'd survive, but it wouldn't be any fun at all. So I took the job; nothing's signed yet, but it was a "we're sending you a contract immediately" sort of thing.Good news, bad news. At least for the immediate future, it'll mean I go to Zurich alone. Once upon a time I liked that idea. Now I don't; I'll miss Aki and I'll sure as hell miss Mischa. We'll visit each other of course, and perhaps they will come out and spend longer periods in Zurich too, but there'll be a lot of separation to start with. We'll both manage, but I'll have no-one to poke me in the ribs when I'm down in the mouth, I just know Aki won't keep the bathroom sink clean on his own, and Mischa will lose his main dog-walker.Still. It's enough money to tide me and Aki over the recession (assuming I don't get laid off too soon); it'll get me technically on the ball again so I'm fitter for the contracting market; and it also restores the prospect of doing something. If I had to get a job, then this came at the right time. I look around and see so many friends plagued by bad luck, that I find it hard to understand why mine seems always good.

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Linden	[May. 26th, 2008\|10:00 pm]Footpad
[Tags\|jobs] [Current Mood	boing!]I just had my first interview with Linden. (One of them contacted me over the weekend, apologising for the misunderstanding, which was largely my fault anyway—they'd been away seeing their family.) It went well, and they're interested in going on with further interviews. Yay! _Yay!_There's a potential problem: they have some bureaucratic problems with hiring in Germany at the moment, but I'm hoping that can be resolved either by hiring me as a contractor, or by hiring me under a British contract. They're going to get back to me on that.After that, I still have to prove I'm up to their fairly high standards. But they sound like a wonderfully cool company to work for, with a really nice insouciant vibe. While I'm not counting my chickens just yet, I have high hopes for the rest of the process.
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Linden

[May. 26th, 2008|10:00 pm]Footpad

[Tags**|jobs] [Current Mood**

boing!]I just had my first interview with Linden. (One of them contacted me over the weekend, apologising for the misunderstanding, which was largely my fault anyway—they'd been away seeing their family.) It went well, and they're interested in going on with further interviews. Yay! _Yay!_There's a potential problem: they have some bureaucratic problems with hiring in Germany at the moment, but I'm hoping that can be resolved either by hiring me as a contractor, or by hiring me under a British contract. They're going to get back to me on that.After that, I still have to prove I'm up to their fairly high standards. But they sound like a wonderfully cool company to work for, with a really nice insouciant vibe. While I'm not counting my chickens just yet, I have high hopes for the rest of the process.

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CV	[Jan. 19th, 2008\|10:41 am]Footpad
[Tags\|cv, jobs] [Current Mood	ruminative]Since it was mentioned over coffee that The Bank had a probable job for me, I've been in quiet negotiations with the relevant boss. He asked me for my CV (resumé) for the recruitment formalities, so I tweaked it to make it look like I have competence in the job, and I sent it on to him. (No deceit there—he knows what I can and can't do.)It's still by no means certain that I'll go for this job—lots to discuss with Aki and Mischa—but, if I do, it'll be yet another job that was acquired by recommendation and word-of-mouth rather than by my CV. My CV hasn't actually gotten me a job since I left university in 2000 (and even then it's dubious, since I was hired by a goofy manager who'd take on anybody). The consequence is that I no longer really know how to write the damned thing.For a start, what do I put in it? Though I was a late starter, I've been working and playing with UNIX systems for over ten years now. Being bright and curious, I've learned an awful lot about an awful lot of things. At the same time, I don't have clear expertise in anything: I'm a vast bucket of partial competencies. A jack-of-all-trades. A Swiss-army geek. What can I do? I don't even know any more. And if I did know, it wouldn't fit on a CV. I can't really do anything, but I can sort of do _anything._Recruiters are wearily familiar with the phrase, "I don't know but I can learn," and they've learned to dismiss it by reflex. Unfortunately for me, my great strength is that I don't know but I can learn—I have enough miscellaneous background knowledge to pick up more or less any UNIX-y job and run with it, and in most of my jobs I've done exactly that. My great strength; and it looks like a weasel excuse when you write it on a CV.Just as well the CV never seems to be what gets me the job.
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[Jan. 19th, 2008|10:41 am]Footpad

[Tags**|cv, jobs] [Current Mood**

ruminative]Since it was mentioned over coffee that The Bank had a probable job for me, I've been in quiet negotiations with the relevant boss. He asked me for my CV (resumé) for the recruitment formalities, so I tweaked it to make it look like I have competence in the job, and I sent it on to him. (No deceit there—he knows what I can and can't do.)It's still by no means certain that I'll go for this job—lots to discuss with Aki and Mischa—but, if I do, it'll be yet another job that was acquired by recommendation and word-of-mouth rather than by my CV. My CV hasn't actually gotten me a job since I left university in 2000 (and even then it's dubious, since I was hired by a goofy manager who'd take on anybody). The consequence is that I no longer really know how to write the damned thing.For a start, what do I put in it? Though I was a late starter, I've been working and playing with UNIX systems for over ten years now. Being bright and curious, I've learned an awful lot about an awful lot of things. At the same time, I don't have clear expertise in anything: I'm a vast bucket of partial competencies. A jack-of-all-trades. A Swiss-army geek. What can I do? I don't even know any more. And if I did know, it wouldn't fit on a CV. I can't really do anything, but I can sort of do _anything._Recruiters are wearily familiar with the phrase, "I don't know but I can learn," and they've learned to dismiss it by reflex. Unfortunately for me, my great strength is that I don't know but I can learn—I have enough miscellaneous background knowledge to pick up more or less any UNIX-y job and run with it, and in most of my jobs I've done exactly that. My great strength; and it looks like a weasel excuse when you write it on a CV.Just as well the CV never seems to be what gets me the job.

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