2473: Closing Date

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It is the closing date for applications for a job I’d actually quite like tomorrow. Supposedly the closing date marks the time when said job will actually start shortlisting applicants, so no-one will have heard anything back from it yet.

This particular job application sticks in my mind because the process was much more than the usual CV and coverletter crapshoot that 95% of positions seem to require. Rather, the application process was more of a “virtual interview”, with a number of questions specifically designed to let the applicant talk about the ways their skills and experience make them eminently suitable for the job.

This strikes me as a good way of finding someone that you would actually like to work for you, because it allows the applicant much more opportunity to talk specifics about how they think they will suit the position, and it allows the employer much more opportunity to judge the applicant through specific examples rather than the usual generic rubbish people put in cover letters about being “passionate” and “enthusiastic” about things no-one in their right mind is passionate and enthusiastic about.

I understand why the majority of positions advertise on the big sites and simply require a CV and cover letter, mind you — with the sheer number of positions each company has to fill, it would probably be impractical to 1) design a unique questionnaire for each position and 2) have someone actually go through the answers in detail rather than simply judging on the basis of a CV and cover letter — perhaps only superficially in some cases.

That said, the organisation that is recruiting for the position I mentioned — I’m not giving specifics just yet because I don’t want to jinx anything — is not exactly a small operation, and doubtless employs hundreds of people for its various roles at the very least. And if they can find the time to produce a tailor-made questionnaire specifically for the position that I’ve applied for, it would be nice to see other companies following suit.

Surely it would be for the best in the long run? It’s pretty easy to lie on CVs and in cover letters, whereas if you’re given specific, directed questions it’s a lot harder to bullshit your way through them if you don’t actually have the answers. For once, I actually felt like I had the answers to the questions and could speak from a position of confidence rather than the subservient position of self-justification that I normally feel like I’m in. That made me feel pretty good about the application — though naturally it will also make me feel pretty bad if I don’t get the position, because it feels like the first good opportunity that has come my way in quite a long time.

I would like a normal life with a normal job. Instead, I’m currently working 7 days a week for peanuts doing something mind-numbingly boring and physically tiring. But I guess I should be semi-grateful, at least: peanuts is, after all, greater than zero, and I hope — I wish more than anything — that this is only temporary, and that good things will come to me soon.

I have to hope that, because the other possibility is becoming increasingly unbearable to contemplate.

2208: Am I Better Than This?

I’ve been wracked with anxiety recently, as the more astute among you may have been able to tell. Partly this has been to do with my work situation — i.e. the fact that currently I don’t have a regular job. Thankfully, I don’t have zero income thanks to some regular freelance work I’ve been doing, but that is a little too erratic to be able to rely on completely.

As such, I’ve been looking for regular positions elsewhere. Having genuinely enjoyed my stint with Game over the Black Friday-Christmas period, I was looking into other retail positions around the place. I’ve actually had a couple of interviews in the past couple of days, but today in particular I was hit with a crisis of confidence. This is nothing unusual for me, but what was a little more unusual was the circumstances surrounding it.

Basically, what happened was this: I was speaking with the company’s area manager about my application and my background. The way the retailer in question does things is a bit different from the retailers I’ve previously worked for (Apple and Game) and he pointed this out. He then said something that gave me pause.

“Your previous job,” he said. “That sounds like it was the ideal job for you. Just speaking to you now, I can say that I’d be happy taking your advice and buying from you; you seem authoritative, knowledgeable and trustworthy.”

He wasn’t wrong; were it not for the low wages — the curse of retail in most instances — then I’d absolutely agree; my stints with both Apple and Game have been the jobs I’ve enjoyed most and derived the most satisfaction from in my “career”, such as it is. And that’s because I felt like I knew what I was doing: I understood the job, I felt comfortable with my responsibilities and as a result, I exuded confidence and passion when speaking with customers.

And that’s where the problem comes in. While interviewing for the positions in the last couple of days, I just felt… uncomfortable. And it was more than the usual sort of discomfort anyone feels when faced with unfamiliar circumstances: I got a very strong gut feeling that I’m Not Doing The Right Thing. And, for the first time in quite some time I felt inspired to look for something more: to look for something that I know I’ll be able to do well at, and preferably be paid appropriately for. I will, however, settle for something I’ll be happy and comfortable doing at this point, because that can always develop into something with better hours and/or pay.

I have the weekend to mull things over a bit but I think I’ll be taking a new approach from the start of next week. Rather than casting a wide net and hoping something sticks, I’ll be pursuing things I know I’ll be good at more aggressively. At the same time, I’ll be upping the tempo on some projects I’ve had on the go for a while: the magazine I shared with you all yesterday, some ideas for non-fiction games books, and many, many ideas for fiction books. I may even look into editing and self-publishing some of the fiction I’ve previously written on this blog as an experiment, and perhaps into using a service like Patreon to allow people who enjoy my work to show their appreciation.

This route will doubtless be harder and take longer to get going, but I want to be happy and satisfied in what I do. I’m tired of constantly falling off the “ladder” and having to start climbing all over again. There has to be a better way. I have to be better than this. I know I am better than this.

Big words, I know. Whether I’ll be able to follow through on them remains to be seen, but I feel that anything is better than settling for something that is convenient but miserable rather than rewarding and fulfilling.

1642: Still On the Hunt

Still trying to secure a job. It’s a stressful process — particularly as I’m not working right now and thus very much need one rather than just wanting one — but at least things are moving, albeit slowly.

I’ve had two interviews this week, one of which I felt I was unlikely to be successful in but figured it was worth a shot anyway, and the other of which was today. I won’t say too much about that as I’m yet to discover what the results were — even if I proved successful at this stage, there’ll be a second interview to contend with — but it was quite a pleasant experience.

I’ve actually had relatively few formal interviews in my overall “career”, if you can call it that. Professional working life, if you can’t. I had formal interviews for when I worked in schools — during which I discovered that, more often than not, any parent governors on the interview panel tended to look positively on candidates who asked them questions about the school and how it was serving their children, rather than the usual, boring, predictable responses to the dreaded “any questions?” Aside from that, however, my work in retail involved a group “interview” that was actually more of an activity day, and my work in the games press tended to involve either being headhunted directly — always a nice boost to the self-confidence — or behind-the-scenes negotiations without a formalised “recruitment” process.

An interview is an important part of the hiring process for many companies, but I’m not sure it’s always the best approach. It’s all too easy for a candidate to overprepare and start spewing cliche after cliche rather than giving a true picture of their personality; I try and avoid this approach as much as possible, answering questions honestly and hopefully letting the real me shine through. Then hoping that the panel actually likes the real me, of course.

What I find much more interesting and useful is an “interview” situation where there are things to do that are directly relevant to the job in question. Perhaps the ability to demonstrate my lightning-fast, super-accurate typing, for example, or maybe the opportunity to show my skills at proofreading and editing. Even the much-maligned practice of role-play can be valuable, encouraging you to put yourself in another’s shoes and determine the best way to resolve a situation.

Anyway. I’m rambling and being vague, and deliberately so, since I don’t want to say too much about the jobs that are still in the running. I have a second interview for a job I went for a little while back on Monday, and I should hear if the company I went to see today wants to see me again next week, too.

Here’s hoping something comes of one of these. They’re both good jobs that could lead on to better things, and I’d be glad to take either one — but I’m mostly just anxious to get a job, full stop, right now.

Wish me luck. I need it.

#oneaday Day 718: Job Hunting… Again

I was turned down for a job today after two strong interviews. I can probably mention what it was now that it’s all done and dusted — I was looking to return to working in the Apple Stores, only this time in one of the three stores near me over at Bath or Bristol (which has two, the greedy pirate-talking bastards).

I’m not too cut up about it. I’m sort of surprised I got as far as I did as, to be perfectly honest, my previous stint working for aforementioned fruit-based corporation didn’t end on the best of terms — though I hasten to add it wasn’t anything to do with the company itself, or indeed anything I did wrong. Rather it was the result of standing up to what essentially amounted to workplace bullying from several senior staff members, and me tending my resignation before things really got out of hand. I bear Apple the company no ill will, though I do find myself wondering if I blotted my copybook somewhat by leaving in the circumstances I did. I contemplated not mentioning my past stint at the company, but in all honesty, the good times at Apple far outweighed the bad; lying is not something I’m good at (nor do I want to be good at it); and, to be frank, I was an awesome employee there that customers liked, and I had sales and satisfaction metrics to back it up. I wanted to talk about my past times there; it’s just a shame they ended the way they did. (And yes, I’m still a bit bitter about it.)

Ah well. This is the second attempt I’ve made to rejoin the company, and the second time I’ve been turned down after getting quite a way through the process. I think I’m calling it quits now, particularly as things are making movements in other territories.

You may already have noted that I’m writing for Inside Social Games and Inside Mobile Apps, covering the latest in Facebook and iOS titles. While these games aren’t the most compelling things in the world for those of us who have been raised on computer and console entertainment, the fact that there are fucking millions of the bastards means that there’s always something to write about, and the different audience of Inside Network’s sites presents an interesting new challenge for my writing skills — now I’m essentially writing for professionals, specialists and businesspeople rather than consumers. While this means that the things I’m writing aren’t as “general interest” (or at least “general gamer interest”) as the things I was covering for GamePro, there is an audience, and plenty of things to cover. Which is good.

As well as this, I got an Exciting Email today which I’m not going to go into details about as yet because maybe nothing will come of it. But if something does come of it it could be potentially Very Exciting News Indeed. And Very Exciting News Indeed is always pleasurable to share, because it leads to lots of comments and Facebook Likes (as lazy a social gesture as they are, getting a bunch of Likes on some Very Exciting News is always quite satisfying). But I’m getting ahead of myself. We are in the territory of naught but Very Exciting Potential right now, but just keep your fingers crossed for me, and I’ll either explain soon or babble on about something completely different in an attempt to make you forget I ever mentioned it.

To any prospective employers who happen to be reading this: hire me. I’m super-awesome. If you want evidence of how committed I am to projects, take a look at the number on top of this post. That’s seven hundred and eighteen days I’ve been posting blogs for. Every day. Even while going through some of the most difficult periods of my life, and even while holding down a full time job which also demanded me writing a ton of stuff every day. I say I’ll do something, and I’ll do it, and I have plenty of highly respectable people who will vouch for that fact. Just ask ’em.

No? Ah c’mon. I’ll do a stickman caricature of you and everything.

Fine. But know that all you’re doing is enabling my Civ V and The Old Republic addictions.

#oneaday Day 555: Social Smarts

This story in the New York Times tells of a year-old startup company called Social Intelligence, whose remit consists of assembling a dossier of information on job applicants based on their online activity over the past seven years.

Now, you may argue that employers are perfectly within their rights to carry out background checks on prospective employees, and you’d be absolutely right — it’s why schools and other positions which place people in positions where they will be dealing with “vulnerable” individuals require a disclosure check to make sure the applicant doesn’t have a checkered criminal past. Evidence of professional honours and charitable work also helps make an employer feel that not everything listed on a CV is a fabrication.

The concerning part is what else Social Intelligence looks for — according to the NYT article, “online evidence of racist remarks; references to drugs; sexually explicit photos, text messages or videos; flagrant displays of weapons or bombs and clearly identifiable violent activity.” The concerning part is not the type of content that the company is looking for — it’s how it might be stumbled across in a typical Internet search. That is, completely lacking in context. I’m not for a moment condoning violent activity, racism or anything else dodgy. But, frankly, everyone makes jokes, and sometimes those jokes are off-colour. Everyone has embarrassing Facebook photos, many of which are not what they seem. And if someone’s had a puff of weed of a weekend and had a good giggle about it with their friends, that doesn’t make them an inherently bad person, either.

“We are not detectives,” said Max Drucker, CEO of the company. “All we assemble is what is publicly available on the Internet today.”

Fair enough; but where does it stop? Once employers get the message that it’s okay for companies like Social Intelligence to start trawling through your online background, what’s to stop them from rejecting you based simply on something you said to your friends, or who you associate with online. This is particularly relevant given the “amusing” practice of friends “facejacking” or “fraping” each other’s accounts given the opportunity — perhaps they left their account logged in, perhaps they left their phone on the table to go for a piss. Regardless of how or why it happened, a good-natured facejacking with all its usual excesses could well lead to someone’s job prospects being dashed on the rocks — through no fault of the candidate.

Then there’s the privacy question. Not necessarily the “what you share” question — that’s a different matter entirely, and one which every individual must decide upon: what are you willing to tell people online? No, the privacy question I’m concerned about here is the divide between the personal and the professional. We’re all different people at work — we behave in one way when we’re on the clock, expected to be that person listed in the Person Specification and deal with customers and clients in the way we’re supposed to, but as soon as 5pm rolls around we’re off down the pub, swearing like a sailor, giving each other light-hearted ribbings and possibly making fools of ourselves. This latter part of the day doesn’t affect our capability to do the job effectively. This latter part of the day is completely irrelevant to an employer — and, given most social networks’ focus on the “personal” rather than the “professional”, most social networks save the interminably boring LinkedIn are also completely irrelevant to an employer.

As someone who suffered workplace bullying from management partly as a result of some extremely vague negative comments on Twitter (which didn’t mention the company in question at all, I hasten to add) — and witnessed several colleagues get fired over a Facebook prank that went awry — I feel particularly strongly about this. The things I said online were vague, not directed at my employer but at my life situation in general, and designed to let my friends who cared about me know how I was feeling — which wasn’t great at the time. My professional life had no place intruding on my personal life — my personal life was not affecting my job performance, which had never been better. There were facts and figures and customer satisfaction surveys to prove it. Ironically, all the poor treatment I received at the hands of this shockingly bad management did was make me more likely to badmouth them now that I’ve left the company. But specifics of that are for another day.

The best analogy I can think of for Social Intelligence’s work would be if as part of your job interview you had someone from the company follow you to the pub in the evening, follow you home, watch you go about your daily business, watch you have a shit, shower, shave, and then go through your bins just for good measure. In the days before social networking sites employers didn’t do this, so just because there is the possibility for unprecedented invasions of privacy doesn’t mean that it should happen.

Sadly, however, in the modern world, a lot of people seem to think that the words can and should are, in fact, interchangeable. And as such we end up with companies such as Social Intelligence rifling through candidates’ virtual dirty laundry in an attempt to come up with the one tragic flaw that means Mr Perfect is not, in fact, quite so perfect for this position after all.

To me, the concept of “watch what you say” goes against everything social media — which should, in essence, be the ultimate form of free speech — stands for. But while this sort of thing is going on, you’d better just double-check those privacy settings, and cancel that account on that swinging site you signed up for “just to take a look.”

#oneaday, Day 309: One Of Those Days

Nearly everyone I’ve spoken to has had an absolutely terrible day today. If you are one of those people who has had a terrible day, I offer my sympathies, condolences, fistbumps, high fives, whattups, hugs, manly nipple tweaks or cock-punches (take your pick) and understand entirely if you’re currently feeling a bit less-than-optimum.

Me, I’m right there with you. I too have had a pretty rubbish day. For starters, I had a job interview. That in itself is not, in fact, rubbish. It’s something which should be celebrated and applauded, given the length of time I’ve been jobhunting without success. However, the fact that I drove 120 miles for said interview only to discover at the interview that the job in question was only likely to be for four or five hours a week? That was rather more irritating. Particularly as the interview itself was lengthy, stressful and presided over by one quite attractive and pleasant woman and one rather rude lady. I spent the whole day with bubbling bowels, and for what? Naff all, it seems.

I then had to drive 120 miles back home. Fortunately, I’d done the driving there last night, as I didn’t fancy going there and back in one day. But, as luck would have it, tonight was National Traffic And Roadworks Appreciation Day, with everyone driving extra-slowly to admire the one set of roadworks on the M25, then the next set of roadworks on the M25, then the roadworks in the Hatfield Tunnel on the A1(M), then the roadworks about two miles further up on the A1(M). All told, it took somewhere in the region of A Very Long Time to get home, during which I was feeling very tired and a bit embittered at the fact I’d pretty much wasted a day I could have spent doing far better and/or more productive things.

Sadly, the surprises the day had to offer didn’t end there, either. I knew that today I’d be hearing from another job—one that I was particularly enthusiastic about and very much looking forward to the possibility of doing—so I was prepared, but feeling reasonably confident after my interview and my contact with the employers in question. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Apparently I was near the top of the list, just not top of the list. Perhaps it was one of those situations where they just had to pick one person or the other. And, as luck would have it, it wasn’t me.

In some senses, it’s a bit of a lottery, applying for a job you really want. Because all the preparation in the world, all the confidence you exude in the interview, all the important buzzwords you try and drop into conversation, all the thought-provoking questions you provide; sometimes it just comes down to a simple choice. And sometimes that choice isn’t going to favour you.

I just kind of think it’s about time one of those choices did favour me, hmm?

#oneaday, Day 206: Hello.

First up, please excuse me for just one moment.

AAAARRRRGHH!!
AAAAAGGGHHHH!!!
GRRRAAAARRR!!!
RAWWWRRR!!!

Thanks for bearing with that for a moment. It was deeply and completely necessary. Also, I had to reformat it so it didn’t mess up the formatting of the page. Rawr.

Right. So, this post then. I thought I’d introduce myself. Why? Because my first ever post on this blog was a long time ago, and many things have changed since then. Also, due to various things that I’m not going to go into and rant about right now, I am still looking for work.

Particularly writing work.

I am a writer. That’s what I do. First and foremost. More than anything. It is what I spend the vast majority of my days doing. I write this blog every day. I write news for the very awesome Kombo, staffed by some of the finest people I’ve ever had the good fortune to work with but not meet in many cases. I’ve written two articles for IGN. I’ve scribed a number of articles for utterly wonderful DRM-free digital-distribution site Good Old Games. I’ve submitted a bunch of stuff to BitMob, most of which was promoted to the front page as a “featured article”. I’ve covered a variety of things for parental gaming advice site WhatTheyPlay. And I edit and produce the podcast for the Squadron of Shame, which will shortly be relaunching in a triumphant new format. I also set up the Squad’s community site, the Squadron of Shame Squawkbox, which you’re welcome to join. In fact, there’s a big-ass list of most of the things I’ve done right here.

I have been semi-to-moderately prolific. And I love it. There’s more stuff in the pipeline, too. Find out more as it happens.

So, using the power of Web 2.0, I’d like to ask a favour of anyone reading this.

Pimp me out. Share my stuff. Tell people how awesome I am. Point them at this blog, and the #oneaday project. Tell them about my stupid stickmen drawings. Show them my in-depth, opinionated news articles on Kombo which actually provoke discussion when I dare to mention Phantasy Star in anything less than positive terms. Dazzle them with my mad interviewing skills on my IGN articles about Crackdown 2, the first time I’d ever visited a developer.

‘Cause I’d very much like this all to work out. Writing is awesome, and through it I’ve learned a lot about myself, met some fantastic and awesome people and joined a community of people who are as passionate about the things we love as I am. It may not always pay well (or indeed at all in many cases), but it’s what I love to do. So if you can help me gain any exposure using your undoubtedly fabulous amounts of influence that you hold on the web—that’s a really nice shirt, by the way—then I’d of course be eternally grateful and will buy you a bag of chocolate raisins or something.

In the meantime, a good friend (and Captain #oneaday), Mr Chris Schilling, has convinced me I should be pitching stuff around the place. So if you’re a writer or involved in the publishing industry yourself and have any contacts you’d be willing and able to introduce me to, I’d very much appreciate that, too.

Shameless, I know. But whadyagunnado?