The date is the 8th September and a good day for me to say the least as I end up with three interviews lined up by the end of it!
Firstly, I receive a call from Company B (see previous post on my attempts at becoming a Recruitment Consultant) who I was previously rejected from, to say that they now had the budget for an extra Graduate and if I was still interested, then they wanted to invite me down for an informal interview. I had put becoming a recruitment consultant to the back of my mind after all the rejections, but I had nothing else in the pipe line so decided to say yes and the interview was scheduled for the next day (9th September).
My second call is from a company in Swindon (I'll use my imagination and call them... Company D!) and the role is for Graduates who are interested in a career in Sales. Again, I'm not too sure why I applied for this role in Sales but it would definitely equip me with invaluable skills that would come in handy throughout my career. The phone call is also a brief interview (the one thing I like about phone interviews, I can do them in my pajamas!!) and I am then invited to a face-to-face interview for two days time (10th September). I agree and am told that it will be a formal, competency based interview and I am to bring with me my passport and two pieces of coursework that highlight what I can bring to the company. I hadn't been asked that before but luckily for me I still had all my university work on my laptop so all I had to do was print off a couple that would show off my skills.
The third call is from another recruitment consultancy (lets call them Company D) who I had given my CV to through a friend of a friend as I knew that someone was leaving. The person that I speak too is pretty keen and the only day left that I can do is Friday 11th, however, he tells me that if the interview goes well, then he would like me to meet his manager who will be in the office on Friday so is it possible for me to come in on Thursday? I tell him that I already have an interview arranged for that day at 12.30pm but I could come in first thing (this is meant to highlight how enthusiastic I am, or something along those lines). So, the interview is arranged for 9am on Thursday 10th September.
By this point I can't believe how popular I am?! But I also know that the next two days are going to involve two 6am starts (before everyone starts shouting at the screen, 'I get up at 6am EVERY day', those of us who are unemployed don't!) and be pretty full on. So to summarise, I have an interview with Company B on the 9th, and interviews with Company D and E on the 10th. I do my usual preparation and keep everything crossed that one of these interviews will lead to a job!
Wednesday arrives and I'm not too nervous about Company B as I know that it is going to be a pretty informal interview, plus I'm not too fussed about getting the job. During the interview I find out that the start date is the 21st September and that the other person that they are going to interview is going to be on the 14th, which if I was successful, would leave me with less then a week to find somewhere to live and move down to Basingstoke. This is my main issue which I express as the other Graduates have had three weeks to suss out the area and find somewhere to live and I will have about three days. Anyways, I'm there for just over an hour and leave feeling not too bothered about whether I am successful or not.
Thursday is here and I am dreading it! I attend my first interview at 9am with Company D and it seems to go well. The person who interviews me does a lot of the talking which is my kind of interview AND he tells me that he is very keen. This is a great start to the day so I head off to my second interview with a smile on my face, little did I know that by the end of the day I would be in tears...
I don't have that long to get to Company E and I arrive just in the nick if time. I head to reception and explain that I am there for an interview to be told that the person who is interviewing me is running a few minutes late. Half an hour later the person who is due to interview me turns up and we commence the interview, however he doesn't even have my CV printed off and has to keep checking his laptop which keeps going into hibernation. I let this slide and as I mentioned earlier, I was told that this interview would be a formal, competency based interview and to bring along two pieces of coursework to highlight my skills for the role. This is mind the questions that I was asked didn't exactly test my competency skills, I was asked questions such as, 'Do you have any siblings?', to which I answer yes and that I was the youngest, I am them asked, 'Does that mean you are spoilt because you are the youngest?' WTF?! If someone could please explain to me what this has to do with being a Sales person I would greatly appreciate it. And I'm sure you've also probably guessed by now that I wasn't asked to present my coursework to the interviewer either!! I then have to complete a test, which out of all the tests I've done, this one was p*ss easy and I felt kinda insulted that I had to do it! I then had ANOTHER interview this time with one of the Directors. I will describe her for you: middle aged but dressing like she was about twenty i.e. long, fake blonde hair, fake boobs and the longest fake nails I have ever seen!!! Not really what you would expect a director to look like lets be honest. Shes pretty hard-faced firing the questions at me like there's no tomorrow, I think I do pretty well with keeping my cool and being a pro at interviews now(!), I can tell that she is trying to get a reaction out of me. I don't rise to it and she then goes on to say something that completely shocked me, 'Your voice is wrong for sales because it goes down at the end of each sentence making you come across too laid-back.' I was speechless. All I can say is, 'okay'. How can someones voice be wrong?! She also has the great pleasure in telling me that, 'I've been in sales since I was fourteen years old and when I walked into Company E I saw a mess and when I came in the next day I saw an opportunity!' Seriously, this women was a your steroetypical Businesswomen, i.e. a Bitch, and someone that I definately didn't want to be like! Finally the interview ends and as soon as I step outside the building I burst into tears!! I have never had anyone make such a personal comment in an interview situation before, add to the fact that I had had two interviews within twenty-four hours, I was done.
Least to say I didn't get that job either and when I received the feedback I mentioned to the women who had told me that the interview was going to be formal that it really wasn't and all she could say was, 'well, that's how we like to do it here'. If that's 'how you like to do it', don't tell me that it's going to be the complete opposite, stupid...
I was all interviewed out, and looking forward to the weekend more then ever as it was my Birthday, bring on the celebrations!!
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
It's All So Quiet..
I am now entering the last week of August and if I was asked in an interview to, 'describe in three words the past two weeks', I would say: dull, boring and tedious. I have heard zilch from anyone, I have applied to so many jobs I can't remember half of them (which can cause an issue when a company rings me and asks, a) why I applied for the role? or b) what do I know about the company?!) This has not done a lot of good for my confidence or motivation, especially as the majority of my friends have now found employment.
To further add to my frustrations I had no money. This lead me to take the leap into a world that is usually occupied by people who you see on The Jeremy Kyle Show, that's right I signed on to claim my Job Seekers Allowance! I really did not want to have to do this and never in a million years did I think that I would be in the situation where I needed to. Nevertheless, beggars can't be choosers and all that so upon my first visit I told myself that any preconceived notions that I had would be forgotten. So, I walk in dressed smart/casual to be greeted at the reception desk by someone who didn't even speak but just looked me up and down like I was a piece of crap stuck to the bottom of his shoe (he obviously hadn't left his preconceived notions at the door) and gestured for me to take a seat. I take a seat and I am surrounded by, you guessed it, people wearing tracksuit bottoms, trainers, Burberry caps and pretty much look like they have spent last night getting high and/or drunk. To say I feel overdressed and out of place is an understatement. I have my first meeting and the women that I deal with is nice enough but does speak to me in a rather patronising way, that said it was pretty painless and I wouldn't have to go there again for another two weeks.
Having had my first experience of going into a Job Centre I start to think that if it wasn't for the City Banker's (feel free to change the 'B' in Banker's to a 'W') and their greed, I wouldn't be in this situation. Maybe leaving school at sixteen to become a Beauty Therapist was a good idea..
To further add to my frustrations I had no money. This lead me to take the leap into a world that is usually occupied by people who you see on The Jeremy Kyle Show, that's right I signed on to claim my Job Seekers Allowance! I really did not want to have to do this and never in a million years did I think that I would be in the situation where I needed to. Nevertheless, beggars can't be choosers and all that so upon my first visit I told myself that any preconceived notions that I had would be forgotten. So, I walk in dressed smart/casual to be greeted at the reception desk by someone who didn't even speak but just looked me up and down like I was a piece of crap stuck to the bottom of his shoe (he obviously hadn't left his preconceived notions at the door) and gestured for me to take a seat. I take a seat and I am surrounded by, you guessed it, people wearing tracksuit bottoms, trainers, Burberry caps and pretty much look like they have spent last night getting high and/or drunk. To say I feel overdressed and out of place is an understatement. I have my first meeting and the women that I deal with is nice enough but does speak to me in a rather patronising way, that said it was pretty painless and I wouldn't have to go there again for another two weeks.
Having had my first experience of going into a Job Centre I start to think that if it wasn't for the City Banker's (feel free to change the 'B' in Banker's to a 'W') and their greed, I wouldn't be in this situation. Maybe leaving school at sixteen to become a Beauty Therapist was a good idea..
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Recruitment Consultant?!
I arrive back from my well deserved break to the States at the beginning of August and to my surprise I have two voicemails from different companies asking me to call them back with regards to my applications. This is great news, so with much excitement I ring them both back and arrange a phone interview with one, and confirm my attendance to an assessment day for the other (I'm a little unsure as to whether I am allowed to mention company names or not, so to be safe I will call them Company A and Company B). At this stage in my adventure, I had applied to a lot of recruitment consultancy roles, looking back I'm not sure why but there were a lot of jobs out there in that area...
The phone interview with Company A is two days later (5th August) so without further ado, I head feet first into preparing for it. This mainly involves researching the company, the job role, anticipating any questions they might ask such as; why have you applied for the role? Why should we pick you over other Graduates...etc. (I must also mention that at this point I was still pretty fixated with getting a job on a Graduate Scheme and both Company A and B are such schemes). The phone interview goes well and at the end of it I get asked to complete the next stage which involves me ringing a nominated member of the company and explaining to them why I would be good at the role, I was not impressed with this. What is it with Companies wanting to make the recruitment process as long as possible?! However, I complete the next stage and to my surprise, I am asked to attend an assessment centre in a couple of weeks time, things are starting to look up!
So, I now have two assessment days lined up: Company A on the 13th August and Company B on the 18th August, I can't believe my luck! I was still applying for other jobs as nothing was guaranteed and I end up with a third company being interested in me! Company C are another recruitment consultancy company and I attend an interview on the 11th August, I always have a number of questions that I ask during an interview and one is, 'what are the next stages in the recruitment process?', Company C tell me that in total there are four stages in the process, FOUR?! What the hell, I'm applying to be a recruitment consultant not some kind of secret agent! However, I am invited back there and then to the next stage: another interview three days later on the 14th August.
My assessment day for Company A (13th August) is in London which involves me being up and raring to go at 5am in order to get there on time as the day starts at 10am. There are six other applicants attending, all with different work experience and university degrees to myself. We have to undertake a number of tasks throughout the day, some by ourselves and some group ones, and finally an interview with one of the assessors at the end. The day doesn't go fantastically, not helped by the arrogant Director whos sat there swearing and generally being up his own arse, I pretty much know that I haven't got the job. Ever the optimist, I know that I still have Company B and C on the cards and all I can do is take what I have learnt from Company A and move on.
August 14th and my second interview with Company C arrives, this interview is with a more senior person then before and a little more formal too. I also have the great pleasure of taking part in a role play, the logical thing would be to assume that as I am applying to be a recruitment consultant that it would be related to that, WRONG! I have to pretend that I am in Dragon's Den and I have fifteen minutes to make up my own company and create a business plan as I would be asking the 'Dragon's' (two recruitment consultants) for £100k in order to implement my business plan. Luckily for me I have a good imagination so I create my own dance company and make up some bull about needing the money to set up a second studio, however, unfortunately for me, finance is not my strong point and I hadn't fully thought through what I would need the money for... The exercise didn't go so well as I didn't get the money from the 'Dragon's' BUT I did handle their objections rather well if I do say so myself i.e. I was asked what are the names of my two biggest competitors, from somewhere Twinkle Toes and Twist and Shout pop into my brain, pretty good huh? After the interview I wasn't feeling too bad but unfortunately I was rejected and the reason why? Because I didn't have enough experience! What did they expect, they are advertising for a Graduate for starters plus they were able to see from my CV that I don't have any experience in that area. As always, I take what I have learnt from Company C and focus on my assessment day with Company B a few days later...
Little did I know that role plays were going to play such a big part in my assessment day with Company B, as that's all we did! I have to be in Basingstoke for 10am, so again I am up bright and early at 5am in order to get their on time (I always seem to be the one who has been up the earliest/travelled the furthest for these things, and this was no exception). There were ten applicants there (four hundred had applied!) including myself and straight away one makes themselves known mainly by talking the loudest and about themselves (it of course had nothing to do with the fact that they were from the Northeast..) I didn't let this phase me and in we all go to the assessment room. As I mentioned earlier, all we did was role plays, this time they did actually relate to being a recruitment consultant but we had so much time to prepare that I spent most of the day chatting to the other candidates. It was very hard to gage how the day had gone because each role play was done only in front of the assessors, so I couldn't see how I had done in comparison to the others. But as with my other interviews, I was rejected. The thought that I had got down to the final ten from four hundred made me feel pretty good so as always, I took what I could from Company B and moved on..
By now, I was starting to think that maybe recruitment consultancy wasn't for me due to all the rejections, so I decided to expand my horizons and start applying for any job going!
The phone interview with Company A is two days later (5th August) so without further ado, I head feet first into preparing for it. This mainly involves researching the company, the job role, anticipating any questions they might ask such as; why have you applied for the role? Why should we pick you over other Graduates...etc. (I must also mention that at this point I was still pretty fixated with getting a job on a Graduate Scheme and both Company A and B are such schemes). The phone interview goes well and at the end of it I get asked to complete the next stage which involves me ringing a nominated member of the company and explaining to them why I would be good at the role, I was not impressed with this. What is it with Companies wanting to make the recruitment process as long as possible?! However, I complete the next stage and to my surprise, I am asked to attend an assessment centre in a couple of weeks time, things are starting to look up!
So, I now have two assessment days lined up: Company A on the 13th August and Company B on the 18th August, I can't believe my luck! I was still applying for other jobs as nothing was guaranteed and I end up with a third company being interested in me! Company C are another recruitment consultancy company and I attend an interview on the 11th August, I always have a number of questions that I ask during an interview and one is, 'what are the next stages in the recruitment process?', Company C tell me that in total there are four stages in the process, FOUR?! What the hell, I'm applying to be a recruitment consultant not some kind of secret agent! However, I am invited back there and then to the next stage: another interview three days later on the 14th August.
My assessment day for Company A (13th August) is in London which involves me being up and raring to go at 5am in order to get there on time as the day starts at 10am. There are six other applicants attending, all with different work experience and university degrees to myself. We have to undertake a number of tasks throughout the day, some by ourselves and some group ones, and finally an interview with one of the assessors at the end. The day doesn't go fantastically, not helped by the arrogant Director whos sat there swearing and generally being up his own arse, I pretty much know that I haven't got the job. Ever the optimist, I know that I still have Company B and C on the cards and all I can do is take what I have learnt from Company A and move on.
August 14th and my second interview with Company C arrives, this interview is with a more senior person then before and a little more formal too. I also have the great pleasure of taking part in a role play, the logical thing would be to assume that as I am applying to be a recruitment consultant that it would be related to that, WRONG! I have to pretend that I am in Dragon's Den and I have fifteen minutes to make up my own company and create a business plan as I would be asking the 'Dragon's' (two recruitment consultants) for £100k in order to implement my business plan. Luckily for me I have a good imagination so I create my own dance company and make up some bull about needing the money to set up a second studio, however, unfortunately for me, finance is not my strong point and I hadn't fully thought through what I would need the money for... The exercise didn't go so well as I didn't get the money from the 'Dragon's' BUT I did handle their objections rather well if I do say so myself i.e. I was asked what are the names of my two biggest competitors, from somewhere Twinkle Toes and Twist and Shout pop into my brain, pretty good huh? After the interview I wasn't feeling too bad but unfortunately I was rejected and the reason why? Because I didn't have enough experience! What did they expect, they are advertising for a Graduate for starters plus they were able to see from my CV that I don't have any experience in that area. As always, I take what I have learnt from Company C and focus on my assessment day with Company B a few days later...
Little did I know that role plays were going to play such a big part in my assessment day with Company B, as that's all we did! I have to be in Basingstoke for 10am, so again I am up bright and early at 5am in order to get their on time (I always seem to be the one who has been up the earliest/travelled the furthest for these things, and this was no exception). There were ten applicants there (four hundred had applied!) including myself and straight away one makes themselves known mainly by talking the loudest and about themselves (it of course had nothing to do with the fact that they were from the Northeast..) I didn't let this phase me and in we all go to the assessment room. As I mentioned earlier, all we did was role plays, this time they did actually relate to being a recruitment consultant but we had so much time to prepare that I spent most of the day chatting to the other candidates. It was very hard to gage how the day had gone because each role play was done only in front of the assessors, so I couldn't see how I had done in comparison to the others. But as with my other interviews, I was rejected. The thought that I had got down to the final ten from four hundred made me feel pretty good so as always, I took what I could from Company B and moved on..
By now, I was starting to think that maybe recruitment consultancy wasn't for me due to all the rejections, so I decided to expand my horizons and start applying for any job going!
Thursday, 5 November 2009
After four long, hard years I end up.... unemployed
So, I've decided to write a blog about all the adventures I've had since graduating from University on the 16th July 2009, unfortunately, it really hasn't been that exciting...
To sum up my life since that day in one word it would have to be: UNEMPLOYED. This is not what I was promised or expected.
During my final year of university I have to admit that I was a little naive in thinking that the recession really wasn't going to affect me, after all I had gone to one of the best Business Schools in the UK, ensured that I undertook a years industry experience and started applying for Graduate Schemes as early as possible. However, my fool-proof plan did not go as expected...
Throughout my final year I applied to a number of Graduate Schemes getting through to various stages but never quite getting far enough. My main Nemesis being: The SHL Online Numerical and Verbal Reasoning Tests. As soon as I knew I had to do these to proceed in the recruitment process, it was Game Over. However, being the resourceful Graduate that I am I did at times enlist the help of my fellow students who could actually pass the tests to help me (well, I use the term 'help me' loosely as they pretty much did it for me!). I know, I know, this is kinda classed as cheating but who can blame me?! Needless to say, my resourcefulness has not helped me as I am still without a job.
So, final year came and went and throughout I had my fair share of telephone interviews, assessment days, face-to-face interviews but to no avail. I stayed positive and once I had finished my exams I decided to go all out to try and get a job, i.e. signing up to as many online job sites as I could, applying to as many jobs as possible and constantly updating my CV. However, Graduation was slowly looming and I was still without a job, I could not understand why I was finding this so tough?!
I continued to stay posititve and put finding a job to one side in order to enjoy Graduation and I would resume my job hunt after I had returned from a well earned holiday to the States.
And now my adventure begins....
To sum up my life since that day in one word it would have to be: UNEMPLOYED. This is not what I was promised or expected.
During my final year of university I have to admit that I was a little naive in thinking that the recession really wasn't going to affect me, after all I had gone to one of the best Business Schools in the UK, ensured that I undertook a years industry experience and started applying for Graduate Schemes as early as possible. However, my fool-proof plan did not go as expected...
Throughout my final year I applied to a number of Graduate Schemes getting through to various stages but never quite getting far enough. My main Nemesis being: The SHL Online Numerical and Verbal Reasoning Tests. As soon as I knew I had to do these to proceed in the recruitment process, it was Game Over. However, being the resourceful Graduate that I am I did at times enlist the help of my fellow students who could actually pass the tests to help me (well, I use the term 'help me' loosely as they pretty much did it for me!). I know, I know, this is kinda classed as cheating but who can blame me?! Needless to say, my resourcefulness has not helped me as I am still without a job.
So, final year came and went and throughout I had my fair share of telephone interviews, assessment days, face-to-face interviews but to no avail. I stayed positive and once I had finished my exams I decided to go all out to try and get a job, i.e. signing up to as many online job sites as I could, applying to as many jobs as possible and constantly updating my CV. However, Graduation was slowly looming and I was still without a job, I could not understand why I was finding this so tough?!
I continued to stay posititve and put finding a job to one side in order to enjoy Graduation and I would resume my job hunt after I had returned from a well earned holiday to the States.
And now my adventure begins....
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