On jobhunting

I have always hated jobhunting with a passion. More than once I've resigned myself to a few more months working in a job I've outgrown purely because I hate the whole process. I hate the constant disappointment, the way your personal worth is evaluated in terms of keywords and qualifications, and the way nine recruitment consultants in ten actually bother to read your CV, let alone take the time to understand what it is that you do. For someone like me who has a fairly shaky grip on my own self-esteem, it's a challenging process.

I don't think I've hated it as much as I do right now though. Two months after arriving in the country we've still to gain any real traction with anyone or anything, and as we come to the end of our interim cash, what's irritating me the most is the creeping sense of desperation, the sense of needing something from someone, the increasing feeling that I'm going to have to take the first thing that comes along and just be grateful for it.

Past experience doesn't help, either. All the positions I've ever worked in have come about through a personal contact, one way or another, with the possible exception of Virgin Digital, and as a colleague there rather unprofessionally told me once, I only just got that job, mainly as someone much better pulled out. So I don't have a huge amount of faith in the recruitment community, you could say.

Anyway, there's a little insight into what's going on at the moment. I applied for a few more things today, so chin up, this might be the week. I should probably take a leaf out of Melvtopia's book and find the hidden positives here... watch this space. Next week, if there's still silence on all fronts, I'm going to the pub.

And asking them if they have any jobs going. Backpedalling 10 years in my career could be just the thing to do, who knows?