How To Get A New Job

Looking back over a fifty plus year career in a wide range of occupations I was struggling to think of a single job I had succeeded in landing through the conventional method of sending an application form to the company in question. During that half a century I have had about fifty different jobs and they all came to me in a variety of methods, not one of which involved posting an envelope stuffed with my cv and a covering letter.

That is not to say that I didn't use the conventional way of applying for jobs, I did plenty of times, but not a single one of them resulted even in so much as an interview. Does that mean I wasn't very good at writing a cv? It could be. However, I did do a great deal of research after many of those jobs were filled only to discover that the successful applicant did not get the job via a postal application. So what exactly is going on here is that the postal service are doing a roaring trade in delivering mail that will come to nothing for the senders.

Many years ago I learned that it was absolutely useless to apply for any job with the BBC. That's because the job has already been awarded to somebody by some other means. The problem is the BBC are compelled by the Government to advertise all positions to the world at large. To avoid any problems with the Government the Beeb simply pay lip service to the rules by advertising the job and then simply bin all applications which have been sent in as soon as they arrive. Funnily enough I have worked for the BBC, but not as a result of sending them an application form.

On the subject of how the BBC go about things, I have to tell you this little tale of skulduggery. A certain radio producer wanted to transmit a symphony by Bach and decided to use a pre-existing recording done at the BBC studios three years earlier. However, in those days the Beeb still had their own symphony orchestra based in London, who complained to the Musicians Union that they were being done out of work by the Beeb using that earlier recording and not having the piece performed live. Ever creative with the licence payers money, the BBC paid for the entire orchestra to travel all the way to Manchester to perform the symphonic piece. The concert was performed and some pretence was made to record it. Then the musicians were sent back home to London and the producers simply used the note perfect earlier recording. I digress.

Lots of companies promote from within or appoint somebody who is a relative of an existing employee. Some use recruitment agencies or ask friends in the industry to which the company belongs. I have enjoyed success via both of these last two routes. I was headhunted at least half a dozen times, either directly by the company itself or by an agency. And I once landed my most financially rewarding job ever by virtue of a Senior Media Manager chatting with somebody he knew who I had once left my business card with some weeks before the two gentlemen met at a local bar.

Another successful method I used was to just turn up uninvited at the company premises on the off-chance. That worked very well indeed. It was all about being in the right place at the right time. On one occasion the recruitment manager was just about to place an ad in a regional newspaper and I walked in. He put the phone down and gave me job right there and then.

The most surprising job I landed was when I wasn't even looking for a job! One day, at a loose end, I took myself off to the city to have a wander around a music exposition at the GMEX Centre in the centre of Manchester. On my walk around I saw a stall that intrigued me a little. Oldham Technical College were touting for students for their Popular Music studies courses and I decided to enrol. However, after a brief chat about my previous experience the recruitment manager had a better idea. He told me I knew far more than any other members of staff and offered me a job right their on the spot. That job lead me not just to a job teaching, but also a new career as an actor for film and television and a post graduate qualification.

The most bizarre method by which I got a job was by going to take a pee. Let me explain. I was on my way home from Manchester and as I came off the motorway I felt the sudden urge to relieve myself. So I stopped at an airport hotel to use their toilets. I was busy doing what comes natural when somebody came and stood next to me. We exchanged a polite nod of the head and then turned to wash our hands. The man asked me if I was with the group about to go into the conference and I said no. But I was curious about what the conference was about. The man told me it was a teaching presentation and recruitment drive. By the time I walked back to my car I had a new job at a local secondary modern school. That beats licking a stamp any day of the week.

You would think that after all this time I would have given up applying for jobs by mail, or email for that matter. But if something takes my fancy I may be tempted to get out the A4 paper and an envelope and get writing. Only recently on Linkedin something caught my eye and I applied via an email, as requested. I was what I would call dead ringer for the job. I never even got so much as an emailed reply. That costs nothing. Of course, I would not want to work for such ill mannered people anyway. Thankfully, these days I am in the fortunate position to pick and choose who I work for.