Redundant: the Find Me a Career Thread!

[buster_broon]

Well after 11 months of being unemployed and living off my pension I've now been working for a month as a bus driver, massive career swing

Passed my category D license the start of November and been working in Fife and Dundee for the last month

And really quite enjoying it

[randombs]

Sounds great

Looking forward to bus-related stories in the smile/irk threads so don’t be shy!

[buster_broon]

Haha sure I've already been shouted at

[vanpeebles]

Sheer bravery!

[Wools]

Arise!

How's everyone's career / job going?

I've worked in Games and then Software QA most of my career and till recently was working as QA Manager for a Virtual Reality company. Obviously, the VR market has gone tits up recently and that combined with various reasons, the company I work for has made the entire QA and Art teams redundant. Luckily, as I'm a Head, I get 3 months notice and for reasons known only to them, rather than use my last few months to help get the product and project solid as I can, they put me on gardening leave that same week.

So I'm back in the job market, looking for work. I got lucky with 1 role the week after I got put on leave for a QA & Release Manager position in a software company. Went through 3 interviews and feedback to my recruiter, and from what I could judge myself, was excellent and positive. On my final stage interview, the CTO came in and asked questions which were very basic (Like what would you do on a day to day basis) and I could tell their was no warmth from his corner of the room. Heard back the same week saying not only did I not get the position, but the other lady I was competing with from the same recruiter didn't get it either... My recruiter then told me he was frustrated as this is the second position where we got through to final stages with no CTO involvement, then at the end, he rejects all the candidates. So that was great!

I went through a cold 2 weeks but this past week has been very positive. Got through to the final stage interview, taking place next week, for a QA Director role at a major software company for the electric car industry. And today, I had my 1st stage interview For a Live Ops QA Director role for a games industry company, which felt like it went really well too. Still a few hoops to jump through but it's nice to go into a weekend on a positive up, rather than silence or rejection.

Which leads me to the current state of the job market in my sector. It feels like there's some good roles open but it's disheartening reading the LinkedIn job spec and seeing the role was posted 16 hours ago and there's 100+ applicants already. However, my previous recruiter said that for the role I sadly didn't get, he posted it, got hit with 400+ applicants in 5 days. But once he sifts through all the applicants who aren't based in the UK, you're left with a manageable number, but he picked my application as it was nearer the top... A reminder to anyone reading if you're feeling down about another ****ty "Sorry but we've rejected your application as you don't meet the criteria" LinkedIn response, that it's really a mixture of luck and timing if a recruiter can see your application. Also, the same recruiter said the amount of responses from (This is what he said and is just quoted for clarity!) India and Africa to any position is extraordinary and all of the one's he reads want a Visa sponsorship and for paid accommodation in the country they're applying for. They're rejected immediately as all those candidates are never suitable due to experience or education and the companies he works for don't offer paid for accommodation, but it takes time for them to sift through.

So a reminder to anyone out of work or a bum like me on gardening leave, to keep their chin up and keep applying as you'll hit pay dirt eventually.

[QualityChimp]

Sorry to hear all of this, Wools, but appreciate your honesty.
Best of luck with finding a new job.
What I'm finding is that if you can find somewhere you enjoy going to on a daily basis, everything else is a bonus.
I think you dodged a bullet from that first application if they're going to mess you around like that.

[Anpanman]

Aye sorry and all that Wools, best of luck with the current job application, fingers crossed for you.

Your comment was both interesting and saddening at the same time. As you said though chin up, something will surely turnup for you.

[Finsbury Girl]

Good luck Wools

[Neon Ignition]

I'll second Wools LinkedIn comments. The missus was this morning made redundant (PS5 Pro insta-cancelled, noo!) and has dived right into the job search because that puts everything immediately on the line. The one thing we have is that my job has always been weak on pay but insanely high on security, working in Recruitment I tend to rely on LinkedIn when needing to recruit for my team and we don't get crazy numbers of applicants but I'd say probably easily at least 120-140 CV's to sift through and without fail - every single time - that figure is an off putting one but comes with an asteroid sized asterisk attached to it. Out of that figure, you're very lucky if more than a dozen are decent and the market shifts so fast that out of that I'd be lucky to see 4-5 at most actually turn up to interview so when you see those huge applicant numbers the real figure will be much lower most of the time unless it's something incredibly low requirements based.

[egparadigm]

Good luck to Wools and Neon Ignition’s missus. Job searching and interviews are miserable business. Fear it won’t be long til I have to do it again.

[Neon Ignition]

Thanks She's past the crying stage this morning and aggressively on the hunt already, been speaking to some contacts from the last time she went through this. I'm past the crying stage this morning too and aggressively holding my mouse icon over the re-order button of the PS5 Pro

[Anpanman]

Sorry about your other half Neon, hope she can get something soon. It seems job hunting is perhaps worse or certainly not any easier than before t'internet days.

[Wools]

Thanks for all the lovely comments people, truly means a lot.

She's past the crying stage this morning and aggressively on the hunt already, been speaking to some contacts from the last time she went through this. I'm past the crying stage this morning too and aggressively holding my mouse icon over the re-order button of the PS5 Pro

Sorry to hear about your Mrs's Neon, hope she finds work soon and manages to stay positive. It's hard to enjoy gardening leave or redundancy packages (If you're even lucky enough to get one) as all you're focusing on is what happens when it ends?

I'll keep my fingers crossed for her, and maybe you too so you can get that PS5 Pro!

Good luck to Wools and Neon Ignition’s missus. Job searching and interviews are miserable business. Fear it won’t be long til I have to do it again.

Thanks mate, means a lot.

Yeah, job searching is **** and I hate that feeling of needing to find work. The sad things is, as my first career (If you can call it that) job was a contract games testing job back in 2003, I'm very used to being made redundant or working small month contracts! As such, I like to think I'm adept at finding and getting work, so never been off work longer than a few months. The longest role I held down was 7 years and another on 6, so got a few long years in the bank. Can't complain though, had a great career so far and being a jammy bastard, worked on some cool projects and have earned more money than I ever thought possible, so I'm alright.

What makes you feel you may have to look for work soon?

[Hirst]

Must be something in the air, they're doing redundancies at my place in the council - asking for voluntary ones first. Not the first time they've asked, tends to happen every 2-3 years, but there's been a lot more urgency and drama to it this time. I've a fair bit of insider knowledge to know where the cuts are swinging this time and they're primarily looking at back office jobs like mine and this is considerably more serious than any previous time it's happened. I'm in Finance and I know just how knackered the budget is, I don't think they're even able to make rational decisions and it will be a case of making as many cuts as possible in a slash-and-burn style and then figuring out if they can salvage anything afterwards.

I've worked there for 19 years so I looked up my figures out of curiosity, it's an awkward figure - maybe 6 months-ish pay, enough to buy me a scabby-looking Maserati Quattroporte III to drive down the Job Centre in but probably not enough to make any financial sense. I've decided not to bother for now, but my worry is that I'll get involuntarily made redundant instead and still end up in the same boat anyway, but with less money. Think it's about a third less. Both my missus and the local union boss have convinced me not to take the money for now. I'm a union officer which actually does give me a degree of protection (politically it wouldn't look good and it'd give me free reign to cause chaos), but my point is that it got me thinking about just how laughably unprepared I'd be if I do get turfed out into the world of work.

For perspective: Last time I did my CV, I banged it out on Microsoft Word 97 and printed it out on a Canon Inkjet printer that originally came with a free year of weekly Blockbuster VHS rentals. It had my landline on it because I didn't have a mobile. My key skills included "MS-DOS".

[CMcK]

My work is closing next year so I’ll likely be redundant in the spring / summer. I’ve been on that site in a few different roles since 1993. Going to be very strange working elsewhere. Been a long time since I’ve had an interview. Joined LinkedIn as it seems to where’s it’s at these days but it just seems to be social media for people that like their work too much.