JobSearch Statistics

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Time I’ve been in London: Approximately 5 Months

Number of Job search sites registered at: 12

CV versions: 4

Number of applications sent: A few hundred.

Number of times my CV has been looked at by agents: about 700

Number of agents called me to talk to me about a job opportunity: At least 30

Number of Interviews: 6 (9 including the second and thirds for the same company)
Number of job offers: 1

Location of New Job: Frankfurt, Germany (!)

Number of agents contacting me after looking at my CV: Less than 1 in 20

Job Description: 1st Line Support

Conclusion 1: Agents lie. A lot. When they tell call you for a job, being all excited and shit, 50% of the time, they won’t ever call you or email you back as they said they would.

Conclusion 2: Most of the time, when you send your CV to job vacancies advertised, it doesn’t even get looked at by anyone. Most of the times I called the Agency to confirm that they got and saw my CV, they never had.

Conclusion 3: Cover Letters don’t do jack shit. I used to send Custom Cover letter all the time when I started looking. Later I tended to copy-paste a bit more. In the end I didn’t even bother changing the default one. I had the most success when I used the Jobserve site, which incidentally does not have even have an option for a Cover Letter.

Conclusion 4: Don’t even bother to send CV to Google.

Final Outcome: I’m tired of searching…

I have been pissed by a black cat

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“Konstantine I have some really bad news”

This is how my Agent for ECB opened the conversation last Thursday when he called me to tell me what progress we had.

“Oh no” – Is what is thought, with “no” echoing in my head.

To make a long story short, what my agent told me, is that they changed their mind and decided not to hire me after all at ECB. I was dumbstruck…at least until desperation set in.

I felt like the earth opened up and swallowed my hopes.

“How? Why?” – I asked, choking back some tears.

“I don’t know, but Melva (The intermediate between agency and ECB) is very angry and is going to a meeting to find out what happened.”

At this point, I couldn’t really say anything. I was just incredibly sad.

My agent continued – “I’m truly sorry Konstantine, I will try and find you another job…” but I was too gone to really carry a conversation.

“How can a company as big as ECB do this?” – I kept thinking to myself.
I’ve truly never heard before of an employer “changing his mind” about a job offer after he made it. It just seemed incredibly irresponsible and I was determined to get to the bottom of it.

After letting my sister and cousin know, I couldn’t really gather the courage to go job hunting for that day. Having the single break I had these five months so cruelly shattered, dissipated any enthusiasm I would be able to gather for job search. I left it for the other day, although It’s frankly something that I cannot afford to set aside.
Since I didn’t get the job afterall, I now need to pay rent and I don’t have a job.

An unforeseen consequence of all this is that I lost two jobs that could sustain me. The day my agent told me I got the ECB job, two people called me for bar work and I turned them down because I thought that a) I wouldn’t need it. b) I would be leaving soon and there was no reason to leave them hanging.
How was I supposed to know.

That day, I did manage to sent a (pretty dramatic) mail to Melva to ask what happened but I never received a reply. I left things as they were for the time and attempted to call her Monday afternoon. What she told me was unbelievable.

They never did accept me. All they told the agent is that I had things looked very good and that they were waiting for the final result. Why my agent decided to tell me that I got the position is anyone’s guess.
Furthermore, when I contacted him 5 days later to ask what was happening, he would tell me that “my position has not been compromised” and that “I should not worry”.

Now how can that be, when they never even said yes in the first place?
Funny thing is that I had a gut feeling that something was going to go awry (and so did my sister) but…hell…damn the optimist in me.
Anyway, Melva did not know why they decided not to hire me after all and they do not need to disclose the reason, but deep down, for some reason, I have the feeling that it’s because they read my last entry and did it to punish me for jumping to conlcusions.

sigh

So, here I am. Still at London and not going anywhere. My big break came and spat me in the eye for being so damn happy about it.

Great.

Starting adventuring again.

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After this last Sunday, I got in the mood to work on [tag]Chronopia Adventures[/tag] again. I don’t know why but I think it was the board game I played, Hunt for Dracula or something, that did it.

It’s been a long time since I worked on that game and the rules are more polished than I remember leaving them at. Still, I never liked that fact that all dungeon encounters were from the same, which meant that every dungeon, of the same level, had the same creatures inhabiting it.

My idea now is to have dungeon types, so for instance a Warped dungeon will be inhabited more by demonic forces while a Desecrated one will have more undead. This will help, imho, to keep a sence of “focus”/realism and not have everything be so random.

Right now the idea is to create a Generic encounter table for each type, that the characters roll at when encounting hostile forces and that is the same for all levels. However when you look the results at their own table, they vary depenging on the level of the party.

The other idea that occured to me is that it would be great to create a program to handle the encounters for the game, in order to cut down on the paperwork. Then all one had to do is bring in a laptop instead of flipping through dozens of papers to find the right tables.

It would also be a great start to pick up on python as well as I’ve been meaning to do.

Sorry Bob

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Well, I managed to get someone angry with me without really meaning to. You see, there is a group of boardgamers that gather every Sunday at a guy’s house and play games and I contected them in order to meet up with them. However due to heavy amount of drinking and dancing the previous night at Slime Light I ended going home at 8 and sleeping until 1 (and that was lucky).

Problem is that I was supposed to let him know if I was coming or not by 12 and I should be there by 2. I didn’t have his phone number and I didn’t have his address since I was planning to get them from the library on Saturday, which I didn’t find the time to do so afterall.

So, I just thought that since I didn’t call, he would assume I’m not coming and decided to go and find another gaming group that was gathering downtown.

Unfortunately, I didn’t understand how things work exactly and the guy who was hosting the event at his place called me, being a little pissed off, to ask me if I’m going after all. Well, I didn’t really have a good excuse, and I could only apologise.

Well, I blew my chance with that specific gaming group unfortunately and that’s a pity but at least I won’t be here long so it doesn’t make much of a difference. Still, I dislike pissing off people.

Wo0oOhooo

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AAAAaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I found a job.

FINALLY!

After many months of searching and many more weeks of waiting, I finally was accepted in a position, and what a position it is!

I find it kinda strange how I left Greece and came to London to find a Job and I will end up in Frankfurt… eh

Finally a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. No need to try and find a whatever job just to be able to afford the rent (which in retrospect, after visiting today a friend who is paying much less than me for a room not much smaller, I realize was a bad choice). Fortunately I was saved the experience of having to become a bar tender at a gay bar (and concert hall, but I believe the first fact is more important)

So European Central Bank, here I come!

Rejection

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I just don’t get, am I just so unlucky or what?

First [tag]Interview[/tag]: Good impression

Second Interview: Good impression, great vibe and some unexpected compliments

Final result: The other candidate get the job.

Total times this has happened until now: 2

I mean, WTF!

Do I always end up running against a person that is just a bit better than me or what?

I am truly and utterly disappointed by my (non)success rate… I am just hoping for some good news after this week is through.

Mapa

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It seems that the one thing I do not look like, is a Greek.

Ever since I came to London, people have thought I was Italian, Polish, Russian, British, French and anything else you can think of.
Just yesterday, while I was on the airplane, the stewardess, as she was handing out drinks, turned and said something to me. After I asked her to repeat it twice, she spoke it almost to my ear and then I understood that it wasn’t the noise of the airplane that was making it difficult for me to listen; she was actually speaking in another language – Russian – as it turned out. She just, for some strange reason, assumed I was from the great North.

As a matter of fact, the only people that have pinned me as a Greek were ones that have lived in Greece for extended periods and as such, could recall the accent.

There is an upside to all this however, minor as it is. I can approach other Greeks without them knowing I can understand them. Usually they continue talking in Greek thinking that their conversation is almost private, and as previous examples have shown, that is an illusion. You can never be sure of whom is listening.

This Friday, I happened to be waiting for the (fuckin’ perpetually late) N171 bus in Tottenham Court Road. As chance would have it, two girls sitting next to me were speaking in Greek. I didn’t have anything to say so I just kept my silence until I saw we were boarding the same bus. I did surprise them by replying to them in Greek as we were getting in. It turned out that we had actually gone to the same place before (The Electric Ballroom) and they were returning home by the same bus I was. They had no idea I was Greek either. One of them actually thought I was some kind of Goth wannabe, what with my black leather trench coat, tired face and tangled hair. Eh.

Library windows

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I wonder how much money the library, from where I am writing this post, has spent to buy and install windows and office 2000 on all computers. I can’t help wondering how much cheaper it would be if they were all based on Linux.

As a matter of fact, I have seen many systems around running on [tag]Windows[/tag] only in order to run another application, for example, for displaying a looping video all day.

The train schedule display in London bridge, and by that I presume everywhere else, obviously runs on windows (I noticed that after they performed an illegal operation and crashed the schedule). Why? Why not run on a lightweight Linuxbox, or thin client? Why do they need the whole (expensive) windows package when they don’t even use it?

The post office’s ad display runs on windows. The only thing that does is cycle through marketing images. Did they really pay the price for an OS just to be able to put a few images in a loop?

This just doesn’t make sense.

NetΓκαϊφέ in London

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Έγραψα αυτό το μακρυνάρι σε ένα post στα forum του Mazanet και μιας και είναι σχετικό με την ζωή μου εδω πέρα τον τελευταίο καιρό λέω να το αντιγράψω και ‘δω μέσα να το θυμάμαι.

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Το πρώτο netcafe που πήγα στο Λονδίνο είχε 1 λίρα την ώρα (το στανταρ εδω πέρα), δεν επέτρεπε να κατεβάσω τίποτα απο το internet (ούτε το βιογραφικο μου), διέθετε μόνο internet explorer 5 ο οποίος πολλές φορές έκλεινε μόνος του διότι, έλεγε, έβλεπα απρεπή πράγματα (πχ την τελευταία αίτηση μου για δουλειά). Για να μην μιλήσω για την απίστευτη καθυστέρηση για να ανοίξει μια σελίδα (spyware οργασμός) και τα διάφορα παιδάκια που έτρεχαν δεξια και αρίστερα μαλλώνοντας για το ποιο θα χρησιμοποιήσει το computer της μαμάς. Μόνο η κότες έλειπαν απο εκεί μέσα. Α ναι, και μια εκτύπωση έκανε 50 pence. [1]

Το επόμενο internet gκαϊφέ (Απο συνήθεια τα λέω ακόμα έτσι, στην πραγματικότητα ούτε νερό δεν έχουν) που πήγα ήταν στο κέντρο και πάλι είχε 1 λίρα την ώρα. Τουλάχιστον εκεί μπορούσα να χρησιμοποιήσω firefox αλλα ξενέρωσα απίστευτα όταν με χρέωσαν έξτα 25 pence για το ένα λεπτο που “έκατσα” παραπάνω (που παρεπιπτόντως ήταν το λεπτό που πήγαινα απο τον υπολογιστή στο ταμείο. Παραλίγο να τσακωθώ εκεί μέσα αλλα τελικά τους πλήρωσα και έφυγα χωρίς να πω “Bye”…έτσι για να μάθουν… (Πού’ν το καταραμένο το :rolleyes: 😉

Στο τρίτο ήταν λίγο καλύτερα αν εξαιρέσει κανείς το γεγονός οτι οι πλάσμα οθόνες έπαιζαν συνέχεια ταινίες και δεν μπορούσα να συγκεντρωθώ σε αυτό που διάβαζα. Τουλάχιστον εκεί μπορούσες να διατηρήσεις την μια ώρα που πλήρωσες για μια εβδομάδα, οπότε το χρησιμοποιώ για να τσεκάρω τα email μου σε 5 λεπτά όταν δεν έχω χρόνο.

Το τελευταίο που βρήκα, και αυτό απο το οποίο γράφω αυτό το post, είναι επιτέλους πιο φθηνό, με 1 λίρα τις 2 ώρες και αρκετά πιο χύμα. Μπορώ να κατεβάσω και να εγκαταστήσω ότι θέλω (πχ το last.fm player για να ακούω μουσική). Το μόνο κακό είναι οταν ο διπλανός μου αποφασίζει να τσεκάρει gay/tans porno και λόγο της απόστασής, όποτε φεύγει η ματιά μου πέφτει πάνω σε άντρα με βυζιά να παίρνει τσιμπούκι απο γυνάικα…ugh. Μόλις τώρα αναγκάστηκα να βλέπω τον τυπά απένταντι μου να κάνει επίδειξη τα μούσκουλα του στην webcam του, προφανώς για να γοητέψει οποιοδήποτε πιπινάκι προσπαθούσε να ψήσει στο chat… (:rolleyes: :rooooleeeeyes!:)
Τουλάχιστον είναι φθηνό.

Α ναι, σε όλα αυτά, πλην του δευτερου, δεν είδα κανένα να παίζει παιχνίδι. Το μόνο που κάνουν είναι να surfάρουν και να κάνουν chat. Αυτό με γλυτώνει τουλάχιστον απο το να έχω τα διάφορα πιτσιρίκια που παίζουν “Κάουντερ” – όπως αναφέρει ο αγαπητός PlutoΝίκος – να βρίζουν τον “Παλιοκαμπερά”, ένα πολύ συνηθές φαινόμενο εν Ελλάδι.

Είναι και το internet της βιβλιοθήκης το οποίο είναι τζαμπε για 1 ώρα την ημέρα αλλα έχει ανάλυση 800×600 (μη σου πω 640×480) και δεν διαθέτει firefox. Πάλι καλά που το καλό παλικάρι, που ξέρει κι’αλλο μονοπάτι, βρήκε τρόπο να το εγκαταστήσει μέσα στο cache folder του exploder στον οποίο έχω δικαιώματα r/w Grin

Αυτά. Να μην ακούσω κανένα να παραπονιέται ξανά.

…Τουλάχιστον μέχρι να βάλω τα 8mbit , τα οποία btw, θα αργήσουν πολύ ακόμα. Η ΒΤ υποτίθεται οτι ενεργοποίησε την γραμμη χθές αλλα …testicles! Λενε έχει πρόβλημα και θα είναι ΟΚ απο το Σάββατο. Μετά απο εκεί θέλει άλλες 15 μέρες ωστε να πάρει τον έλεγχο η Tiscalli, τουλάχιστον απ’ότι λέει στο FAQ.