Job hunting...

Ain't all it's cracked up to be. I'm hammering off heaps of applications, and I've had a couple of agents come back here and there seeming interested, but so far, not-so good. Rhiannon has already started working, so we're not totally bereft of money so far - in fact, we calculated before we left that even if I didn't work, if she got 5 days a week (which is looking pretty likely) then we'd have enough to survive without touching our savings. I'm getting bored though.

So much so, that I applied for a temp, part time IT support role on Gumtree yesterday. It was an.... interesting.... experience.


About 15 minutes after I sent an email, with my CV and what ever else, I got a response via email - it looked and felt automated, and I suspect it was. It basically said "please come in any day between 2:00pm and 5:00pm for a short test and an interview"

Now this place strikes me as being a similar sort of organisation to Myriad... a small business, providing IT support to small businesses. Not on the scale of Myriad though I don't think. anyway - entirely disorganised. There was about 8 guys, jammed in a very small room. About the size of a common Australian bedroom. Maybe smaller than our flat. The first guy who spoke to me, didn't introduce himself, just said "ok, we'll take you up for a test"

So we went upstairs, to a room the same as downstairs, but less people. (Only 4 this time) Filled out the test, which was pretty straight forward and simple really.
Went back downstairs, the guy wasn't there. Noone else had any idea what was going on. Told me to sit at a desk, and do the test, which I said i'd done. So they said "uh, we don't know."
So I sat and waited. The dude came back, had a look over the test, asked how I felt I did, ("pretty straight forward really buddy") then asked if I had any Mac experience, followed with "so do you think you do more desktop or server support"
The answer was server support, and he replied with "ok, if you're shortlisted, someone will contact you within 3 days"

Uh. Wow. Ok. At this point, I walked out, thinkin "well, there was very little job information, except that it was part time. Nothing about hours, rates of pay, anything like that. I didn't get an opportunity to ask questions at all."
On the whole, I feel very unsure. The main thing that attracted me was the fact that it's temporary part time, so I could conceivably work as little as I wanted, which would fit well with our overall plans.


However - based on their perceived lack of organisation, and the overall atmosphere in the place (let alone the cramped workspace) I don't think I really need their job. Although it did highlight one thing to me - there are some very good, and very bad, companies to work for.