Whether you are looking for your first or your 50th job, the search for employment will always be annoying and frustrating and time consuming and exhausting and draining and, we could go on forever.
The point is, in our current economic climate, this task involves a lot more than going to find somewhere that needs vacancies, telling them that you want to work for them and then suddenly getting the job. More than 95% of the time, it involves giving lots and lots of companies your CV and never hearing anything back from them. Or, if you are lucky, you'll firstly be invited to a phone/face to face interview or a trial and then hear nothing back from them.
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Having not been able to legally work part-time whilst growing up in Dubai, I was only able to get jobs through word of mouth but nothing where I was able to actively search for it. So this Summer, instead of being fed-up and constantly worried about my student loans and spending from my first year of Uni, I decided to dedicate my summer holidays to finding a job which I could give most of my time to and then work reduced hours when University begins again at the end of September.
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I started the search in late May as soon as my exams finished with an optimistic outlook. I was a hard-working, committed, young and friendly individual who could see myself working in nice and trendy clothes shops such as 'Fatface' or 'Aldo' a few days during the week and most of the weekend. I got my CV together and took it to roughly 5 places in my local shopping centre which were looking for part-time vacancies and also emailed it to a few places on the high-street. Within one week, I had a call back! They wanted a phone interview which seemed to go well - enough so that they invited me for a face to face interview. I was so excited, mostly because it was for a shop that I regularly used to shop at. (Notice how I now say used to).
As it was my first interview, I was nervous but very excited. After 10 minutes of waiting, I was brought into the Manager's office where I was sat face to face with him for 35 minutes. He began the interview by asking me what I knew about the brand and if I knew about its on-going feud between its two different owners. This idea of politics and drama within retail business was completely new to me and sounded exciting so I was keen to listen. The Manager then changed topic and started to speak about himself, explaining why he decided to leave his As-Levels at 15 to start sales full-time, working his way up to his current position as Manager of this store, now at 19 years old. As he strangely prompted me at how this was a great thing without any qualifications, I agreed without thinking about it. He then asked me what I would change about the shop for which I had no clue, but quickly cutting me short by telling me what he would change and why.
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15 minutes in, we began to speak about my CV and my past work experience. I have no problem with speaking about myself and was therefore confident to answer his questions whilst trying to make a good impression. With a sheet in his hand, he then outlined some questions from a questionnaire in conjunction with the policies of the shop such as refunds, exchanges and then questions based upon the idea of what I would do in certain scenarios. This was tough as it was new to me, but I still felt I answered well. At the end of the interview he asked me if I had any questions and I wanted to know the age range of his staff, purely because he told me he was 19 years and I was interested to see what age range he was looking to employ. He told me his employees ranged from 16-18. And so my first interview ended there, with no hand-shake but a muttered ''we'll get back to you soon''.
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Overall, I was really pleased with how the interview went - but within 2 weeks, I had heard nothing. Friends and family told me this was normal but I should phone or check with them face to face to see if they'd filled the position with another person. As someone who has a fault for getting intimidated too easily, I proudly gathered up the balls to go and ask the shop what the situation was. I walked in head held high, saw the manager at the end of my line of vision where the cash desk was straight ahead and chuckled to myself at the thought of how entertaining this could be. To my surprise, as I approached the area where he was helping some young girls, he looked up at me, quickly finished with them and scuttled away round the back to where his office is. I then asked the young man behind the cash desk whether they had found someone to fill the position to be told that they had found someone else recently.
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My next experience was after looking online for jobs. I had found a restaurant about 5 minutes' walk away that needed waitresses 3 days a week from 6-11pm. I sent my CV to them in the morning and was surprised to get a call within 2 hours to come for a interview that afternoon. I initially didn't really want to work as a waitress but as my current progress was looking poor I decided I could not afford to be picky in this situation (hopefully not being taken literally!). The first interview lasted 3 minutes long - I waited with about 10 others who had all sent their CV's and during my turn was pleased to be asked to a trial on Wednesday from 5.45-10pm. I was surprised to do my trial alone but was excited with the concept of working in a restaurant as I had worked in Hospitality and Catering but never in the fast pace of a restaurant or Cafe.
In the first hour of my trial, I was asked to sweep the floor, wipe all of the menus, and remove all of the 7Up Cans and Water Jugs to clean the surfaces under the sink. In the four 4 hours of my trial, the restaurant had just one customer, and lucky as I was, he turned out to be a depressed alcoholic.
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He arrived with his young daughter shortly after I began my trial. I was told to only hand them the menus and collect their food as I was not trained enough to take orders just yet. They seemed happy with their food, until I noticed that the young girl appeared to be constantly getting told off by her large bald-headed father. She kept trying to text on her phone and at one point almost tried to leave the restaurant whilst the father was repeatedly swearing at her. He had a bottle of wine to himself, which didn't cross my mind as a problem until a woman appeared at the door of the restaurant and the girl quickly ran to take her hand and quickly left. The man stayed at the restaurant for another 2-3 hours. He sent the food back, claiming that the chef tried to 'fucking poison him' and refused to pay for 4 of his dishes. He left the restaurant at one point to go next door to buy another bottle of wine and a packet of cigarettes to continue smoking and drinking in the outside area of the restaurant. Finally at about 8.30pm, he got up, stood by the doors looking in to the restaurant and said ''if my daughter gets sick like I do then I'm going to fucking sue you.'' Thinking that he'd finally left, I went to go and tidy his table and collect up the wine bottle that had rolled across the floor. Suddenly, I spotted him across the road staring. I ran back inside and tell the two owners. He then shuffled outside the entrance of the restaurant and shouts in ''I'll get the fucking home office on you lot!''.
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He arrived with his young daughter shortly after I began my trial. I was told to only hand them the menus and collect their food as I was not trained enough to take orders just yet. They seemed happy with their food, until I noticed that the young girl appeared to be constantly getting told off by her large bald-headed father. She kept trying to text on her phone and at one point almost tried to leave the restaurant whilst the father was repeatedly swearing at her. He had a bottle of wine to himself, which didn't cross my mind as a problem until a woman appeared at the door of the restaurant and the girl quickly ran to take her hand and quickly left. The man stayed at the restaurant for another 2-3 hours. He sent the food back, claiming that the chef tried to 'fucking poison him' and refused to pay for 4 of his dishes. He left the restaurant at one point to go next door to buy another bottle of wine and a packet of cigarettes to continue smoking and drinking in the outside area of the restaurant. Finally at about 8.30pm, he got up, stood by the doors looking in to the restaurant and said ''if my daughter gets sick like I do then I'm going to fucking sue you.'' Thinking that he'd finally left, I went to go and tidy his table and collect up the wine bottle that had rolled across the floor. Suddenly, I spotted him across the road staring. I ran back inside and tell the two owners. He then shuffled outside the entrance of the restaurant and shouts in ''I'll get the fucking home office on you lot!''.
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My 'trial' ended at 9.30pm - it consisted purely of cleaning/folding napkins and one unpleasant customer. I was told that they would get back to me within 3-5 days. I heard nothing from them until 2 weeks later when they asked me to do another trial (this time paid) as last time I didn't have many customers. At this point, I had 2 interviews booked for Monday and with a sore throat that day I did not want to work from 6-10pm so I asked them to call me on Wednesday (by then I would know if I had the other job) and then we could arrange the trial the following weekend. By the time they eventually called again, (which was the day of the next planned trial) I had already got a job.
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These are just a few of the experiences I had at the time and whilst these events were going on, I was constantly applying for other jobs that I never heard anything back from. These stories are from the few that took the time to respond. Overall, the whole process was pretty exhausting and miserable. This was mostly due to the fact that each time you venture out, you must always try to look your best as you are giving a company their first impression of you. The other annoying thing is when you've applied somewhere that you personally feel would be a good place for you to work, they reject you in an interview and 3 weeks later they've still got the same ad up! Eventually, you will find a company who are looking for candidates like you and what seems like the never ending tunnel of job-doom will be over! That's until you have to find another one...
