Day Eleven

Thursday last week was a mad rush to buy everything needed to survive a festival. Outlook said rain, so on went the wellies. Outlook said sunny, so sunglasses and a hat were added to the equation. Two packs of cleansing wipes were packed (suitable for the removal of make-up, mud and grime), tent, sleeping bag, cider and airbed. “Um, Shiv?” I queried, rolling up the airbed with skills from years of crafting origami birds. Unfortunately the bird shaped airbed wasn’t fitting into the bag. “Yeah-huh” 

“How do we pump up the airbed once we’re there?” 

“There’s a pump in the box” 

“Yes” I said, unravelling the pump “Do the tree’s in Cambridge come with electrical sockets?” waving the plug of our very electrical looking pump. 

“Shit.”

An hour later I was standing in a queue in Argos in wellies complete with their own mud from last years festival antics, my hat, sunglasses and bag big enough for me to wonder why I had packed a tent at all and not just decided to zip myself into the bag each night when my phone started to buzz. Unknown number. “Hello?”
 “Hi Clancy, thanks for sending us the answers to the questions we e-mailed you. I was wondering if you were free to come in for an interview?”

Two weeks, one interview. Take that unemployment!

So I am back from the festival. Soul rested (definitely not body) and ready to prepare for my first interview.

Please Sir, can I have a Google+ ?

I nearly forgot! I either don't know you or you are one of my close friends who have already been subject to my puppy dog stares, but will someone please send me a Google+ invite?

I can hardly claim to be a social media mastermind when I lack the new toys.

Day Eight: The keyword is "networking"

Day eight?  You say. But you have been going on about this for nearly two weeks now. Yes. The thing about that is that I don't count weekends. Everyone needs a little down time to re-charge for another packed week of unemployment. To tell you the truth unemployment is a lot busier than I thought it would be. There are applications with deadlines, recruiters to meet, networking to be done.

This morning I had a meeting with Dominic Proctor of Mindshare. Dom is a lovely gentleman and an old friend of my Dad who was kind enough to give me some advice when I first left uni two years ago with naive aspirations of walking into a copywriting role with no experience but a trendy handbag full of dreams. Today, taking time out of a very busy schedule, we talked about all the experience I have gained, my love of social media ("Old fart's like me know nothing about that stuff") and generally where I should go next and who he might know to help me. A networking success.

I hardly had time to get over that caffeine buzz before I was off to a cafe around the corner to meet Max, a friend of a friend and current account executive at Dare Digital. Again the chat was only informal, with some sound job hunting advice taken on but probably most importantly, and e-mail address to send my CV where it might just get a little further than HR's over flowing inbox.

Talk about taking advantage of my spare time. I haven't even started on the new cushions I was going to hand sew.

Impressed by my own productivity, I'm going to give it to you in stats

Recruiters signed with:                                 4

Applications sent through recruiters:         5

Applications sent through job sites:            3

Industry professionals met for coffee:        3

Not bad for a week and a half I think.

Day Six. Nothing says "hire me" more than an emancipated looking ginger

Job applications: 4

Recruiters met: 1.5 (I'm meeting someone from The Talent Business in a few hours)

Number of hours procrastinating: Procrastination is only more material for writing.

I wish someone would take a picture of me here, spread out in the cafe around the corner with my laptop looking like a nodding dog with my oversized headphones making for a ridiculous head to headphones ratio. One photo every day and nothing would change except for my outfit and my body mass. Unemployment is working a treat on my waistline. Nothing says "hire me" more than an emancipated looking ginger.

It's only week two and my initial enthusiasm is already waning. I have a self perpetuating issue that recruiters are happy to point out over watery coffee; although I have been working in agencies for almost two years, most junior roles ask for one to two years experience in the role advertised. Grad schemes are the other option (of which I have applied to many in the past) however 250 applications per place isn't a basket I feel I can put all my eggs into, no matter how pretty those eggs may be. The solution? do all of it. Recruiters, grad schemes, random job sites, begging friends, family, pets. 

Now as I have been writing (something I should really do at the end of a hunt rather than putting off the inevitable) a friend of mine has responded to my Facebook woes of job hunting with a position. 

"Media, marketing & reserach: Sunday Times Best Company"

Spec says they are looking for someone with a good academic record (tick) and an enthusiasm for social media (tick).

Logging off to log my application.

Day two

Recruiters contacted: 1
Jobs applied for: 1

Again it was a bit of a slow start. Little things got in the way. You know, the things that usually get in the way of your life, sleeping in, deciding to make breakfast, realizing you have no food, deciding to go to the shops to buy some food, remembering the social indecency of going to the shops in tiny pajamas, thinking it is probably best to shower before getting dressed to go to the shops to buy the food to make your breakfast. Little things.

I have found my new office. It is called the Boulangerie Bon Matin. It is exactly 1 minute 30 from my house if I drag my feet and the sounds of the neighbor clipping her toe nails has been replaced by the quiet hum of people that also don't have jobs getting high on lattes. It has free wifi and I have found that as long as I order a new cup of tea every 40 minutes, the staff seem friendly enough.

The lack of house bound distractions has meant that even after my late start I have finally started to chip away at the metaphorical mountain of job hunting ahead of me. I may not have yet created the interactive CV I dream of (my developer knowledge doesn't quite match my grand strategies, but this is where I start to call in favors from more technically proficient friends) but I have updated my basic CV with all the wonderful things I have done and sent it off to at least one recruiter. It is also now in the hands of one excellent agency who I am sure have been looking for me all their life.

It doesn't hurt to be optimistic.  You can always cry later.  
-Lucimar Santos de Lima

The end of Day One

Recruiters signed to: 0

TV programs watched: 2 (It was Mad Men so it was basically research)

Ok so today was a little bit slow. I had to drive my parents car back down to South London and I may have shuffled my feet on the way back up. It is all about easing yourself in though. I managed to edit my CV, or at least change everything to the past tense (quite depressing in itself) and then watched enough Mad Men to learn that you can move from being a receptionist to a copy writer in a matter of weeks, oysters and martinis probably aren't the best combination before a pitch, and that I strongly needed a drink. And a cigarette. And a 1950's wardrobe.

I don't have a table let alone a desk in my house so I have set up camp at the picnic table out in our "back yard". I am only able to do this past six pm when the sun doesn't cause glare on my laptop screen, and I am currently listening to the soothing tune of my neighbor clipping her toe nails whilst singing Breakfast at Tiffany's by Deep Blue Something like a cat with it's foot trapped in a blender.

For now I am going to open up my CV again, very slowly, and hope that my housemates come home before I am actually forced to do any real thinking.

Dusting off the notebook

Two weeks ago I 1) turned 24,  2) became unemployed and 3) made the difficult decision to move back home with Jacqui (more a great basis for a future novel than a great mother) after point (2) directly affected my final point (4) the inability to afford my rent.

Having hit the bottom I thought it might be nice to catalogue what can only now possibly be a turn of luck for the better as I job hunt, that or an amusing tale of my decent into madness.

It is day one.

Applications out: 0
Recruiters signed up to: 0
Agencies approached: 0
Creative side-projects: Does a new hairstyle count?
Hours of procrastination: Many.