It's been a funny week on the job search front. Failed to make second interview for a job in a brewery related company which I could have taken so much to.
I had an interview on Monday quality related which started out rockily but I managed to turn it round, but by the deafening silence, looks like I lucked out on that one too.
Got a call on Friday from a man who's company I applied to a few weeks ago. I apply for so many per week I forget which it was.
My cv hadn't attached so I agreed to send it over. He spoke to me like he had the opportunity of a lifetime. It sounds like a pure cold selling operation so I am less keen. Then he made things worse by being rude to me on the phone.
I sent the cv and he called again. Guess what, he was rude again. I was diplomatically enquiring how he generates his business (is it just phoning people). I asked what mechanisms he had for lead generation and he laid in to me. I'm not going to tell you how I generate leads for my business...
I felt that my line of questioning was polite and quite valid. He's "granted" me an interview and of course, I'm looking forward to seeing him like I would be a dental appointment.
I've decided that if he doesn't open the discussion, I shall ask him what he saw in my application / cv that made him approach me and we can work our way from there. If he digs in for a third time, I really don't need to work for a bully so will terminate the chat.
Anyhow, the warning I made in my title was one which I was suspicious of from the start.
Some job sites are less than fussy what ads they allow to run. I saw one for an e commerce executive and from the text of the job description I smelled a rat. Testing various market, you must have an E Bay account.
It says you need to write creative copy to sell items like cameras and laptops blah blah blah.
Cutting a long story short, I received a phone call on Saturday afternoon from some bloke who "sounded African" in response to my application. As I'd already marked this in my head as dodgy, I just asked one controlling question. Do I use my E Bay account to advertise your stuff? Answer was yes. I ended the chat.
Like what could possibly go wrong ? The buyer enters into a transaction with you, they pay you and you are responsible and duty bound to send them the item.
You don't need much imagination to visualise the shit storm that would ensue when the punter doesn't get their goods.
This cretin who phoned me followed up with an e mail written in such badly English... You have opportunity in the tips of your hands went one sentence.
It ran much along the lines of those e mails you get from Nigeria from people who want to share millions with you for help getting their cocoa bean fortune out of a war torn shithole of a country.
I'm going to report this incident to the jobs board it appeared on, as it is quite clearly dodgy.
Rather like the one I saw a few years back offering £ 12 an hour for data entry (usually a minimum wage pursuit). The MD of the agency telephoned an apology and explanation that an office junior had run the ad without checking its validity. Nothing to do with the fact the smaller agencies have such trouble competing with the bigger arseholes like Reed that they are like turtles who'll snap at anything that comes within striking distance.
Remember that job I was offered an interview time and date for but had to travel 2.5 hours by bus to the agency to sign up with them, only to be told the employer had decided not to take anyone on that side of Christmas ?
Well the same agency have been advertising at least four times since. The most recent incarnations, the job has gone from IT and social media stuff like I was doing to full blown programming and complex server knowledge, yet I can tell it is still the same job and only through this one agency. Yes, you Trinity Personnel of Amblecote.
Seems odd to me that this job hasn't been filled in almost three months and only appears via Trinity, when most other jobs turn up on several sites.
I had another agency ring me on Monday dead keen to slot me into a marketing admin job in Aston. He had me give my work history back to my paper round when I was fourteen. He followed up a reference with a former employer (which came back good). But confessed the employer may be looking for a whizz kid and that my age could be against me. Since then, the phone has been silent.
By law, he nor the employer should use age as a bar, but of course they do and not just in the UK. See the movie the company men for evidence of this.
Actually, I appreciated his frankness, because it was an opportunity I knew not to dwell on rather like the moron with opportunity I hold in the tips of my hands.
The job from Monday, I've not had any feedback yet, but as it was arranged by an agency and taking into account the snapping turtle effect, I think that one's gone belly up and is dead in the water like a dead turtle. Like the play on words there ?
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