#oneaday, Day 154: Person Specification

I applied for eleven jobs today. Most of them were in similar fields and required similar skills, but irritatingly, most of them were different enough from one another to demand a different cover letter focusing on different aspects of the “person specification”. By the end of the whole miserable experience I felt like I’d said absolutely everything about myself in every possible way it is possible to say it. Or at least every possible way it’s possible to say it in a way appropriate for a job application. There’s something of an expectation for more “formal” language when applying for jobs, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of babbling on about being “passionate” and “dedicated” without actually really meaning either of those things. I believe I avoided that particular problem, but it’s still a pain to have to “hold back” at times.

So tonight’s #oneaday, then, is my unedited personal statement that isn’t for any employers. It’s for me, and no-one else. Except the last bit. Which is for anyone who wants to hire an awesome person.

I’m Pete. I’m a computer geek, writer and musician, and I also like video games. I stay up late in the evening to work on things that other people wouldn’t bother with because I’m that sort of person. I like working on new projects, particularly creative ones, as the last 154 days of this blog will clearly demonstrate. While working on something that demands consistency rather than quality doesn’t always produce the best results, I think that my dedication to the project as a whole, even when through suffering what I firmly believe is the absolute worst time of my life ever, has been a stand-out example of how great I really am.

I love to write. I can spell, I can punctuate and I can write in lots of different styles. The style I use on my blog here is a conversational one. I sometimes break the rules a bit in the name of humour or characterisation. But I know how to use English properly, too. The other sites I’ve written for in the past each demand very different styles due to their different audiences. Over the years, I’ve written for teenage console gamers (the Official Nintendo Magazine), twentysomething PC gamers (PC Zone), parents with child gamers (WhatTheyPlay), older gamers with a fondness for older games (Good Old Games) and current games enthusiasts who like to stay abreast of what the industry is up to (Kombo). And numerous others besides. I’ve found it pretty easy to adapt my style to each of these sites, and believe that’s another example of me being pretty great, really.

I can play the piano, too. I may not be a proper bonafide virtuoso like some people I know, but I can play things well, with expression and emotion. I can channel the things I’m feeling into what I’m playing, so I can really get the emotions of the music across, with a personal twist. I’m a great sight-reader, too, and can pick up a lot of piano pieces very quickly without having to practice a lot. Okay, if they’re difficult, they might not sound great right away, but they will at least be recognisable.

I can type at 85 words per minute. This means I can churn out writing incredibly quickly, and accurately too. This skill was very helpful during E3 week, when we had to get stories up on Kombo in a matter of minutes in many cases. I managed to hammer out some good quality articles just a few minutes after they happened. This, too, is pretty awesome.

I’m also a great friend. I’m patient, calm and understanding in most cases, but I’ll defend the people I love and the things I care about to the death. I’m a great listener and will always empathise with someone else’s plight, even if I don’t really like them, or even if they’ve wronged me in the past. I’ll never deliberately cause someone hurt or upset because doing so makes me feel bad too. I believe that this is one of my best qualities, and I’d hope that my friends agree.

Generally speaking, then, I’m a pretty good person who has a lot to offer the world. So, basically, if you’re reading this and you need someone awesome on your team, whatever you might be doing (so long as it’s not something pointless and boring) you should definitely hire me and pay me a generous salary and benefits package. And give me a company car.

Because, frankly, I think I deserve all that stuff after everything that I’ve had to put up with. I know my problems pale in comparison to some people – everyone has an example of someone who’s worse off – but speaking purely selfishly, I think, no, I know that I deserve some things to go well. So why don’t you help me out a bit?