Trump, Rump, Tramp and Tripe!
Warning! Posting your CV online will cause Neuralgia.
After my torturous night out with the super nurses I trained with, I’ve been determined to find myself a permanent post with a future. So, I took the plunge and quickly updated my CV. When I pressed ‘upload’ on the job site I felt more nervous than when I signed up with the dodgy dating site – hopefully I would get a few more hits and less abuse.
3 days in and I’m thinking ‘how wrong am I?’. More hits than Rihanna and more abuse than Donald Trump deserves. People are actually insulted when I tell them I’m not interested in a Consultant Gynaecologist’s post, I’m all for transferring my skills but that might be a step too far.
I’ve had a load of health care recruitment agencies ring me too and some of them are just plain rude. One woman told me I couldn’t afford to be fussy and another one said she had the perfect nursing associate role for me. I tried to explain that I was a fully qualified nurse but she was having none of it. ‘Not with that CV’ she said. I soon put the phone down on her (my mum always told me if you had nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all – and believe me I had nothing nice to say to her).
To be fair, she did get me thinking. So, I looked at my CV again and decided I would try to make it more informative and appealing. But what on earth was I supposed to put in it? ‘I’ve worked in care homes as an agency nurse so giz a job’ isn’t quite the professional image that I’m trying to portray but that about sums it up.
I won’t lie, I got a bit down in the dumps after that. The very thought of spending the next forty years as a professional tramp, wandering aimlessly from place to place with no vision and no real purpose made me want to apply for the nursing associate position. Why had I decided to go rogue at the end of my training? I could have been settled in a job now and looking forward to promotion – instead I had a job that picked the phone up to me when they couldn’t get anyone else – not much good for a girl’s ego.
I padded out my CV as best I could and chucked it back out there. Within nanoseconds I was fielding calls. In a moment of weakness, I answered one and before I knew it I was receiving an email confirming two interviews the following day for a clinical lead and a deputy manager job! How the hell had that just happened? I’m sure ‘let me think about it’ doesn’t translate into ‘of course I will go for interviews, book me in tomorrow’ in anybody’s language.
But this is the world of recruitment, and not one I feel entirely comfortable in.
I rocked up for the first interview the next day. This was for the deputy manager’s position in a medium sized care home. According to the recruitment agency, it was a ‘Good’ rated home, had a stable staff team and a lovely Home manager who had an excellent reputation in the industry.
Lies, all big fat lies! There wasn’t a manager in post –the last one had gone AWOL after her holidays, and rumour had it that she had found herself a toyboy in Barbados. The ‘Good’ CQC rating was accurate – about 3 yrs ago, and the staff team looked straight off the set of Jeremy Kyle. The Deputy position was actually the owner’s ploy to get a manager on the cheap. He wanted me to start there and then. He didn’t ask me a single question about my abilities just when could I start and could I have a look at his ingrowing toenail while I was there. I legged it (I don’t do feet) and made a beeline for the bus. My plan had been to go straight to the next interview, but I was so traumatised about which body part the next one might want me to look at, that I went home and got straight under the duvet.
Just as I was about to chuck it all in and commit death by toffee crisp, the phone rang again. You guessed it, another recruitment agency. I waited for the sneering tones of superiority and nearly passed out holding my breath when it didn’t come. Instead, a really kind, motherly sounding woman told me she was calling from a place called ‘Recruitment Panda’. I was about to tell her my zookeeper’s licence had expired when she asked me if I was feeling a little overwhelmed, said she could hear the stress in my voice.
Well, I wasn’t falling for that one again so I said very little. After a pause, the consultant started to explain to me how the process would work if I wanted her to help me with the next step in my career. I couldn’t quite believe that I had choices in all this, not after my first experiences with old Bossy Boots. I could hear the warmth in her voice when she told me that of course I had a choice, it was my career after all and that she was there to help me find the best opportunities for me, not her! Happy days! We then had a really good conversation about the information she would need from me and how this would help her to match me to an employer and a role, not the other way around. She said that they weren’t in the habit of forcing square pegs into round holes, instead she would look for square holes. I really liked that analogy and I came off the phone feeling that someone really cared about me.
I actually felt hopeful, in fact, I felt that hopeful that I ditched the uneaten toffee crisp into the bin! I’ve learnt a lot over the last ten months and I’ve actually got a lot of skills. I just need someone to help me get them down on paper. I can’t wait to see what she comes back with for me – as long as it doesn’t involve feet I’ll give it a go!
3 days in and I’m thinking ‘how wrong am I?’. More hits than Rihanna and more abuse than Donald Trump deserves. People are actually insulted when I tell them I’m not interested in a Consultant Gynaecologist’s post, I’m all for transferring my skills but that might be a step too far.
I’ve had a load of health care recruitment agencies ring me too and some of them are just plain rude. One woman told me I couldn’t afford to be fussy and another one said she had the perfect nursing associate role for me. I tried to explain that I was a fully qualified nurse but she was having none of it. ‘Not with that CV’ she said. I soon put the phone down on her (my mum always told me if you had nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all – and believe me I had nothing nice to say to her).To be fair, she did get me thinking. So, I looked at my CV again and decided I would try to make it more informative and appealing. But what on earth was I supposed to put in it? ‘I’ve worked in care homes as an agency nurse so giz a job’ isn’t quite the professional image that I’m trying to portray but that about sums it up.
I won’t lie, I got a bit down in the dumps after that. The very thought of spending the next forty years as a professional tramp, wandering aimlessly from place to place with no vision and no real purpose made me want to apply for the nursing associate position. Why had I decided to go rogue at the end of my training? I could have been settled in a job now and looking forward to promotion – instead I had a job that picked the phone up to me when they couldn’t get anyone else – not much good for a girl’s ego.I padded out my CV as best I could and chucked it back out there. Within nanoseconds I was fielding calls. In a moment of weakness, I answered one and before I knew it I was receiving an email confirming two interviews the following day for a clinical lead and a deputy manager job! How the hell had that just happened? I’m sure ‘let me think about it’ doesn’t translate into ‘of course I will go for interviews, book me in tomorrow’ in anybody’s language.
But this is the world of recruitment, and not one I feel entirely comfortable in.
I rocked up for the first interview the next day. This was for the deputy manager’s position in a medium sized care home. According to the recruitment agency, it was a ‘Good’ rated home, had a stable staff team and a lovely Home manager who had an excellent reputation in the industry.
Lies, all big fat lies! There wasn’t a manager in post –the last one had gone AWOL after her holidays, and rumour had it that she had found herself a toyboy in Barbados. The ‘Good’ CQC rating was accurate – about 3 yrs ago, and the staff team looked straight off the set of Jeremy Kyle. The Deputy position was actually the owner’s ploy to get a manager on the cheap. He wanted me to start there and then. He didn’t ask me a single question about my abilities just when could I start and could I have a look at his ingrowing toenail while I was there. I legged it (I don’t do feet) and made a beeline for the bus. My plan had been to go straight to the next interview, but I was so traumatised about which body part the next one might want me to look at, that I went home and got straight under the duvet.Just as I was about to chuck it all in and commit death by toffee crisp, the phone rang again. You guessed it, another recruitment agency. I waited for the sneering tones of superiority and nearly passed out holding my breath when it didn’t come. Instead, a really kind, motherly sounding woman told me she was calling from a place called ‘Recruitment Panda’. I was about to tell her my zookeeper’s licence had expired when she asked me if I was feeling a little overwhelmed, said she could hear the stress in my voice.
Well, I wasn’t falling for that one again so I said very little. After a pause, the consultant started to explain to me how the process would work if I wanted her to help me with the next step in my career. I couldn’t quite believe that I had choices in all this, not after my first experiences with old Bossy Boots. I could hear the warmth in her voice when she told me that of course I had a choice, it was my career after all and that she was there to help me find the best opportunities for me, not her! Happy days! We then had a really good conversation about the information she would need from me and how this would help her to match me to an employer and a role, not the other way around. She said that they weren’t in the habit of forcing square pegs into round holes, instead she would look for square holes. I really liked that analogy and I came off the phone feeling that someone really cared about me. I actually felt hopeful, in fact, I felt that hopeful that I ditched the uneaten toffee crisp into the bin! I’ve learnt a lot over the last ten months and I’ve actually got a lot of skills. I just need someone to help me get them down on paper. I can’t wait to see what she comes back with for me – as long as it doesn’t involve feet I’ll give it a go!
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