I heard that the older you get, the faster time goes by, and I think it must be true.  The past 6 months have passed by in a blink.  But, the question is:  what do I have to show for my 6 months?  Well, I have been trying to organise my life, as many of you might know, if you have read my earlier blog posts.  And if you think that because I haven’t updated my blog, it means that my good intentions have fallen by the wayside … you would be wrong.  I have been very busy, doing many things.  Where to start …
I was off to South Africa for 2 main reasons at the end of May:
  1. I wanted to spend some time with my parents, capturing some of their lives; and
  2. I wanted to spend some quality girly time with my sister.
The update on the above is that (2) was achieved, but (1) is going to take much longer than hoped!  I managed to capture my parents’ childhoods.  Initially I was typing as they spoke, but it soon became clear that that was going to take far too long!  I wouldn’t make any real progress that way.  Instead, I recorded the stories and facts they regaled on my iPhone. (iPhone to the rescue again!) This was much quicker.  But what that means is that I now have hours and hours of stories to transcribe.  I do think it is a much bigger job than I expected.  In fact, that’s not really true – I knew it would be a massive big job – I was just in denial!
Anyhow, I returned a couple of weeks ago, to another project I had initiated just before going on holiday:  buying an investment property to rent out.  This has kept me incredibly busy, as I have been viewing homes, doing the calculations to see if they’re affordable, and whether they meet the bank’s criteria for mortgages (they make it so difficult these days!) etc.
In-between I completed a course called “Managing Successful Programmes” or MSP for short, which was an intensive 5-day course in Manchester.  I sighed a huge relief when we finished on Friday.  I just wish we didn’t have to wait so long for our results!
Anyhow, once that was out the way, I could update my CV, and finally start my job search today.  That in itself if a mountain to climb, as most interims/contractors work in one discipline/industry and have one set of agents to contact.  I, on the other hand, need to contact the following groups of agents:
  • Finance Agents
  • IT Agents
  • Oracle Agents
  • Procurement Agents
  • Executive Agents
And as I haven’t had to look for a job for a very long time, many of my contact details are out-of-date.  So just sending out my CV to all the relevant people today has been a mission and a half.  I have sent out approximately 200 emails, and have more to come!
The ones I have spoken to today, have confirmed my worst fears:  the market is virtually dead, employers are being super-picky about what and who they want, rates are depressed due to the over-supply of contractors and the quietest time of the year (summer holidays) is coming up.
But I refuse to become worried, depressed or feel dejected.  I shall make an effort to contact and meet agents personally, so I can win them over with my charm! Or that is the plan at least … Either way, I think I am going to be busy, and I think it is going to be a long hard search.
My mother taught me a very valuable lesson when I was younger:  “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”.  And I live by that!