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Goldilocks and the three bears…

2010 so far has been eventful, but not always in nice ways. In January, my team at work was informed that my company had lost the tech support contract we were doing, and the contract was going to be given to another supplier instead.

In the UK, permanent employees are protected in this case by laws know as TUPE. They basically say that if you provide services, like my team does, and the service provider changes, your employment must transfer over to the new service provider, guaranteeing you continued employment. TUPE can also happen if the company you work for becomes/is sold to another company.

I went through a TUPE last year, when Fujitsu Siemens became Fujitsu. It was uneventful. We were all presuming that in THIS case, however, geography would mean we couldn’t work for the new employer, since they didn’t have offices in Sheffield. When that happens you are usually made redundant if you can’t move to somewhere nearer to the new office, so I started a jobhunt pretty quickly.

After about a month of looking and countless CVs, I got a bite – an interview for a junior web developer post within commutable distance. I (as I am wont to be) was rather happy about this development. I then got another interview for an internal tech supportish position at my current workplace, the day after. I rock, right? I spent oodles of time preparing and revising my PHP/mySQL, CV, thinking of answers to interview questions, purchasing clothes and perfecting a professional look (which I think I managed quite well), freaking out, and so on.

The day before the dev interview we had a work meeting (which took most of the day) that gave us a big bit of info we’d not really been expecting: The new company who was going to be doing our job had leased a building in Sheffield, so we were still all going to have jobs. Hugely unexpected news. It felt too good to be true, too.

The next day, the dev interview went well, had a rapport with the interiewer (He preferred Gnome to KDE! Pffffff….. ;)) but came out aware that I didn’t have enough experience. From what he’d been saying, if someone else came along with more experience they’d get the job, but my interview style was good. (You know when your cheeks hurt from too much smiling?). I was told I’d hear back in about a week, as there were more interviews to perform yet.

The day after was the interview at work, so I wore my interview clothes all day (I already take a backpack to work with a change of clothes in it, I’ll be damned if anyone can convince me to take two changes of clothes). I quite liked when I was asked jokingly if I’d joined the FBI… Once again the interview felt like it had gone well, and I was told I’d hear about this one the next day.

….. a week passes, no news from either of them….

Thursday, two days after I was supposed to hear about the first interview, I broke and emailed both interviewers to enquire. I got a phone call almost immediately to say that I’d not gotten the dev job, although it took an agonising amount of time for him to get to the point…… Simply put, I didn’t have enough experience. Not even for a junior web development job, not even when I have a qualification in web development. It’s hard not to feel stuck when I am working full time (and trying to do well at it), studying in my “free” time, also wanting high marks, cos I’m a fool who sometimes thinks that matters, and trying to keep enough real me-time to stay happy as well. Where am I going to fit in this extra experience that is needed? I just DON’T have time to take on serious freelance clients! I was pretty gutted that I couldn’t even secure a junior position, and had to battle feelings of miserable inadequacy for a bit. I’m purposefully NOT thinking too hard about what I’m writing lest I get stuck feeling sorry for myself and trying to figure out how to work harder / take away more of my free time…

Interview response 2 came the next day. Unsuccessful, this time because I was too interested in programming rather than because I’d done anything wrong – first time I’ve ever experienced that old irritating “you’re OVERqualified” grind… I wasn’t really too bothered about not getting it – if I had gotten it I would have had to think long about whether I wanted to take it. I’d applied for it when I thought I had NO job in my future, meaning anything that put money in my bank account would be okay. Now that I knew I had a job, I wasn’t so sure I would be interested.

The thing that struck me most was the irony. One job too little experience, one job too much experience elsewhere. Hopefully the next bowl of porridge will be JUST right….

*sigh*

06 March 15:23

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Categories: Uncategorized
Written by: yochannah.
  • Shaun

    Since I am currently participating on the other side of the process I thought I’d give you my take. You probably know it already intellectually but it’s also true.

    It’s not personal and the fact that you’ve been rejected doesn’t mean you couldn’t do the job. It’s very hard not to be negative about it but there is bound to be something coming along that will fit for you and which you will also fit.

    Three out of the four interviewees we turned down yesterday were perfectly nice people and will probably make pretty good pharmacists some day. Two of them were better than the others and were probably better in some ways than the two we are going with at the moment. We mostly just liked some aspect of them better and also thought they would fit in better with the culture in our pharmacy and with the group of staff we have. This is a completely subjective judgement and like I say, it doesn’t really say much negative about the others. Except for one, whose interview was appalling, and it doesn’t sound like that was the case with you.

    It just wasn’t the right fit for us or them and I’m sure that’s the case with this web dev job too. Hopefully there will be another similar job for which the fit will be better. The lack of experience certainly is a drawback for those sort of jobs but as you said you need to get it somehow. That only happens because someone some time takes a chance on a newbie.

    The reason for them taking that chance is because they’re impressed by your personality, work ethic, willingness to learn or something else. So, don’t worry too much about the experience issue, just concentrate on your other strengths and emphasise those. Above all don’t get discouraged and don’t give anyone an easy decision to make. Be passionate about how much you want the job and why you want to move into that area in your career and that may well outweigh some person who has done a bunch of similar jobs but doesn’t connect with the interviewer or they don’t think will want to work at it so hard.

    The candidate we have that we are both leaning towards was really passionate about pharmacy, the local area and seems like a really hard worker. That is outweighing the fact that I think some of the others might have better plugged skill gaps I would like to fill and might be better at doing some of the things I would like them to accomplish. I know the two people we are looking at may not have as much experience or talent at doing the things we need but they’ll work very hard at it and will be dedicated and loyal and that counts for a lot. The guy even straight out said in the interview that he isn’t a genius but he has had to work hard for everything he has ever gotten. He said academics don’t come easy but his work ethic makes up for it. I feel like he probably knows who he was up against and it was a way to get his foot in the door but it worked so far!

    Good luck and don’t get downhearted. I’m sure you will get something that’s right and the things you don’t get weren’t meant to be.