England, October 9, 2000
Gotta Gets Me a Job!
Hey you! Yeah, you sitting there reading this. Hire me, please!
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I need a job. No, I really, really
need a job. Yes, after a year and a half of globe trotting and good
living, I'm low on cash. What's worse, my investments, which I've always
viewed as grad school funds and emergency cash, are not as healthy as they
once were after April's tech stock crash and this weeks market gyrations.
Add to the low cash, low investment double whammy, the outrageous London
prices and my wallet is screaming in agony.
With all this financial pressure, not to mention my conscience, Jingmei, and my employed friends talking about 401(k) investments, I'm not having much fun these days. Every Monday I'm up to 3am writing cover letters and sending out my résumé, no, I mean CV to all the jobs I could possibly qualify for from the London papers, websites, and random ads. I want to get into Project Management, for that's what I did in Russia and a little bit in DC and with my experience with this website, and my involvement with the-cake.com, I feel I have a decent nose for what works on the web. Combining the two, I should be a whiz at making e-projects work. Now all I have to do is convince an employer of the same. When I first started, I have to admit my delivery was rough. Not having done the job search since October of 1997, I was a little rusty. I was using an American résumé, which I was taught did not exceed one page in length unless you were a CEO. After the first round of "no's," including the gem below, I realized I'd have to write a European curriculum vitae, or CV for my bid to get more than a quick trip to the trash bin. I guess Luke was jealous I had a life:
Now a CV is not a résumé, for the Europeans like to know a bit more than the Americans about your life. I've added a little paragraph to each job I held, describing the company and my role within it. Also, I was told to add a "Interests" section to tell employers what I enjoy doing when I'm not working. I can't bring myself to add that though, for I feel it would be so lame to have a "I enjoy writing, traveling, quality time with Jingmei, eating, music, etc," section. Like who doesn't? Oh, and I'm not one to be weird enough to have an odd hobby like sky diving, knitting, or S&M with small field animals. I have added work I'm currently doing with the-cake to my CV, just to show someone in the UK trusts me enough to let me run free on a site, even though I'm not getting paid for my efforts. So I will not miss a call, I am hooked up with 21st Century technology, finally buying a cell phone when I knew I would be somewhere long enough to have a use for one. Now all I need to do is make sure my phone is ringing with job offers. I'm not sure what else I can do, but I am getting desperate. In the UK, most jobs are listed through recruitment agencies, so I have to double trouble of convincing a recruiter to even submit my CV to a company in the first place. Unfortunately for them, I've thought of a way around the recruiter gatekeeper. I'm working as a waiter in a café just now to keep the cash flow going while I look and all of the customers have jobs to afford eating out every day. What better way to prove to an employer that I can hustle and have creativity than to serve them my CV along with their meal? I just hope I don't spill coffee on them in the process! |
