Note this is an archived version of this page. The current blog is now here
I had two more interviews this week - a phone interview with Moneyline on Monday, and a face to face with Autonomy in Cambridge on Tuesday. The phone interview was quite tough, but the face to face seemed to go very well, and Autonomy have now offered me a job starting next week, subject to taking up references.
So that's the end of this particular job-hunt. Mission accomplished, and I'm really looking forward to starting at Autonomy - though I think it's going to be quite challenging, especially to get up to speed at the start.
It's a real weight off my mind to get something before Christmas - it means I don't have the job-hunt hanging over me into the new year, and it also means we can spend some of the redundancy money that we've been using to pay the bills with (not all of it though - I'm going to be much more careful to keep more cash in reserve from now on).
I'm not sure there are any lessons for the wider world in my story other than the obvious ones. Keep looking every day, even when things seem to be going nowhere. Use your contacts - I was introduced to the agent that got me this job by a friend of mine. Finally, give yourself a break - use the time off to enjoy being with your family and get some things done at home.
Finally, I ought just to mention a couple of agents who did a great job trying to find me a new position:
I recommend these chaps to anyone trying to find a technical job in the Cambridge area.
I seemed to get a bit disillusioned with the search at the end of last week, but I feel a bit better about it again now. So today I'm trying to refocus on using a few good agencies and then thinking about networking.
So far today, I've:
I've been trying to put into practice some of what I learnt on the course on Monday and Tuesday, so I've rewritten my CV a bit to include one of those cringe-making summary statements, and I've sharpened the language somewhat. The new version is here in HTML and PDF
I've also been thinking how I ought to focus my efforts, and the best approach (in terms of what I'm told are the actual statistics for how people find jobs) are to work with a few _good_ agencies, and to try to network more effectively.
So I got a couple of agency contacts from a trustworthy source, and I also talked to ECM again about some options we hadn't looked at before. We'll see what happens...
I went to an outplacement course on Monday and Tuesday that my former employer provided as part of the settlement. I wasn't really expecting anything earth-shattering, but it did provide some useful information on tightening up the language in my CV, and also on where to direct the energy in my job search.
The atmosphere was quite pleasant and relaxed, and it was nice to meet up with a couple of ex-colleagues again.
I'm not doing much today as I don't feel all that well - just a cold I think - so it's back to the job search in earnest tomorrow.
A gloomy one to finish with. I didn't get the job near Cambridge that I went to interview for. Still a few irons in the fire though, so it's been another day of phoning to see what's happening. I'm also going to an outplacement course next week Monday and Tuesday - part of the settlement I got from my former employer.
Feeling a bit fed up again. No news from any agencies today (unless you count Deutsche Bank's autoresponder) so I'm on tenterhooks about the outcome of my interview, and also to get some news on the progress of other applications. At the same time, it's starting to get near to the end of November now, so if I don't get something soon, it's probably going to be quite hard to get anything at all this year.
I'm not (yet) worried about the money, but it's going to be really hard to keep motivated through December if that happens. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it I guess. I'm still optimistic about the interview at the moment, but I just don't like to tempt fate by saying so, as it sounds like a really interesting job.
Just a quick one:
Monday morning, so back to work:
I had what seemed like quite a good interview on Friday with a local company. I'm waiting to hear back from the agency about what they thought about it.
Just did a bit of phoning round:
Not much to report really. I feel a bit fed up with it at the moment. Partly it's the thought of having an interview coming up, and another potential offer of work that's making me slack off, but I suppose it's also the lack of any feedback or sense of progress from websearches or phoning.
Of course, interviews are signs of progress, but it doesn't really feel real while I am still unemployed. I guess I need to kick off a new search, and talk to a few more contacts.
Main points:
On the more positive front:
Short update:
Yesterday I sent a CV into Thoughtworks - a consultancy, but I've heard good things about them. Also trawled Jobserve and came up with six leads. Send my CV off to those and got 2 phone calls back within the hour - one from Rakesh at Microcom and the other from Paul and Starfish. I also followed up Lime Tree and Blackley, but Lime Tree has nothing at present, and I've not heard back from Blackley yet.
Today I tried to follow up some personal contacts. Sent an email to Tony at APT, and tried to talk to Alex at Omgeo and Don at Heliograph - couldn't get hold of either one, so have to try those again. More success with John at C24 - I've sent my CV in, so I shall talk to him again soon hopefully.
Still no final word from Start about Trayport, and the other four Jobserve applications are also silent so far. I also found another new thing on ECM but the agent I normally deal with is away, so I need to talk to someone else there.
I reached the second stage of selection with Trayport, so I went down to London on Friday for an interview. They were polite, but I don't think they'll hire me -- I don't think I would have hired me on the performance I gave in the interview.
I reached the second stage of selection with Trayport, so I went down to London on Friday for an interview. They were polite, but I don't think they'll hire me -- I don't think I would have hired me on the performance I gave in the interview.
I definitely screwed up some technical questions and I think that alone would sink me, but I also found myself saying the wrong things to the more HR related questions. It's hard to put my finger on it exactly, but I talked too much about negative things that had happened. I also found that they probed to a deeper level than I normally get in interviews -- I'd give an answer and they'd want to go down to a level below that. I'm not sure if that was a deliberate technique to unsettle the candidate, or whether it was just that we got off on the wrong foot.
I came home in a bit of a bad mood, and then I got a call from ECM saying that EDS weren't hiring me either. So not a good day. EDS at least seem interested in talking to me again if a more senior position comes up, and there may be something soon, but I certainly can't afford to wait to see if that happens.
Objectively, this isn't really a huge setback -- I've really only been unemployed for 2 weeks so far, and I have enough redundancy money to last for quite a while yet (months rather than weeks). Psychologically though, it is a bit of a blow. I guess I partly had this hope of going straight into another job (ideally locally) and having the luxury of having some money in the bank. Realistically it's going to be at least a month of unemployment now, and quite possibly I won't be back at work till after Christmas.
Also, when you are at work, if you go to an interview and get knocked back, you can always say to yourself that it wasn't the right job, or that you at least still have your current job to fall back on. When you are unemployed, rejections sap your confidence that you are fit to do any job, and even rejection from something that's clearly unsuitable is likely to bring on a bit of panic about how you aren't doing enough to get something -- anything -- before the money runs out.
Oh well. Back to the fray on Monday. I think I need to broaden the search a bit -- maybe go back to the job boards and see what other agencies have got.
Spoke to Bill at Sector - recommended to me by a former work colleague. I mailed him my CV. Also followed up with Lime Tree to see whether anything is going on there.
Just had a phone interview with Trayport. It wouldn't be fair to talk about it in detail, but it was a technical C++ interview, and I think it went reasonably well. Hopefully I may hear back from the agency later today.
No further news from ECM about EDS, but Green Cathedral are not interested in me. Graeme also had something else that he's putting me forward for, but I think it's better if I don't say any more about what it is for now. Probably won't hear anything for maybe a week or two anyway.
Still no word from Lime Tree. I feel some phoning round coming on this afternoon.
Well, some progress today at last - Simon at Start Resourcing phoned me to say I will be having a phone interview with Trayport. I also got a call from Phil at Lime Tree to say another chap - Nick, I think - would be phoning me to talk about a position in the City. Not heard back yet.
The other thing I did was to brave the Job Centre. Not an experience you'd really want if you didn't need the money, but I suppose that's the point. After I got a ticket for the DSS office, and they explained to me I had to go to the Job Centre which is next door, I then had only to take another ticket (it's like those supermarket Deli systems) from a machine merely wait for an hour or so until someone could talk to me.
It then took about 10 minutes to go through the various forms (which I could have worked out myself), enter me onto the computer (could have been done remotely) and book me an appointment to come back next week. It's not at all clear to me why it was necessary for any of this to require my physical presence when phone and post would have sufficed, except possibly that the government don't want you to claim unless you really have to.
You could argue that I don't really have to - I have some money in the bank (for which I am penalised by not being able to claim certain benefits) and I am not in imminent danger of destitution. I still like to think of these benefits as something to which I'm entitled however, and moreover that if people like me think that benefits are only for "other people", then it creates a similar effect to the withdrawal of the middle classes from public schools and public healthcare - ie what you don't have a stake in, you don't care about.
When that's the case, you come to see the benefit system as something that should be tightened up against scroungers, rather than something you may need to fall back on at some point in your life. As more and more of us are going to have patchy careers, that seems most unwise.
Just a quick one - I sent my CV into Phil at Lime Tree Consulting. Not heard back yet. Phoned ECM to see what was happening with EDS - no news so far as they've been very busy. Graeme at ECM also wants me to see another company - Green Cathedral, so we'll see what happens there.
On a different note, I tried to find out how to claim benefits. The Yellow Pages was less than helpful but I eventually found something called JobSeeker Plus. They put me onto another national line, who said they couldn't deal with me and eventually gave me the number of the Cambridge Job Centre. I phoned them, and they asked me what benefit I wanted to claim. I'd assumed it was their job to tell me what I was eligible for, but I guessed at Job Seekers Allowance, and was put through to another person who told me that I had to go in person to make an appointment.
I can't understand that at all. I can understand needing to go in person to actually have the consultation, but can they really not take an appointment over the phone? Apparently not, so I shall be down to see them next week.
So after the great resolution of my last piece, I completely failed to follow through. The reason is that I've been made redundant from my job as a software developer. This follows the takeover of my company -- Mercator Software -- by another one called Ascential which is made of the leftover bits of Informix after they sold their database platform to IBM. Ascential have a big pile of money after selling the database, so they are in an aquisitive mode at the moment. Suffice it to say that the UK development operation never looked a good fit for Ascential's strategic plan, so in the end the inevitable happened.
This is the first day when I haven't had to go into work, and it's a strange sensation being alone at home (my wife has taken our daughter out to playgroup). I've never not had a job since I started my first one after college almost exactly 10 years ago, so I have this odd feeling of being let out to play, coupled with a fairly profound sense of worry about what will happen if I can't find another job before the redundancy money runs out.
It's annoying in a way -- I don't have to find another job immediately and it would be nice to enjoy some time at home with my family, do some jobs around the house and so forth, but I won't be able to enjoy it until I know where the money is going to come from. Not only that but I feel it would be all too easy to settle into a blissful domestic routine that will be idyllic until the day that the bailiffs come round.
But at least I now have both time and material to write about, so expect a bit more activity on the site for a while at least.