Today I find myself in a place that I had hoped never to return to, at least not just yet. I now have to apply myself to the recruiting merry-go-round as an applicant. It will be interesting to note if I will see in myself some of the behaviours seen from the other side of the fence. More importantly it will be very interesting to see how others react to and treat me, especially in consideration of the job am hoping I might secure.

So this is Day 1

The target is to be in a position, earning money by mid September

Activities today, that will I hope secure me my next big adventure started with a very thorough review of my CV. I am one of these people that keeps a CV up to date as I progress throughout a year to be sure I note down the important responsibilities and achievements as they happen. Then when I need to use it, I edit it to conform to the rest of the CV. The review is to be sure that all is kept clean, the small things are attended to, i.e. typos, grammar and spelling and it is still not too long. It is hard to believe that people spend such little time on such things when the stakes are so high!

Being objective is almost impossible when reviewing your own CV and I have been coincidently fortunate to get to know a professional career coach and CV writer who has offered some fantastic help.

So with the CV primed, I am all set and ready to go.

People have stated that I am one of the most widely networked and connected recruiters in the business, however I have spoken and written that it is not how many people I am connected to that counts, but the relationships I have created and mutual trust I have established with some of them that is important. So to let people know. If they don’t know my plight they can’t help. I have no allusions that I will be a magic switch. It is all about timing and to quote two of the greatest poets of this and the last century “you can’t always get what you want” (sic)

I also wanted to update my old files on the Personnel Today site and ensure that my profile was up to date and my searches were defined for what I am looking for now. It was like pulling teeth. It was not intuitive and didn’t navigate well at all. It also kept failing causing me to start again; very frustrating when I wanted to get as much done as I could in the shortest amount of time! Deep breath! 1,2,3,4….. Then having done a search and found what looked like a fantastic result the job/page wouldn’t load. So Personnel Today not the greatest experience. Onwards – Changebord next – an easier affair, albeit it still not complete as so much to do on my part to ensure thoroughness. Tomorrow!

Then I looked on The FIRMs job listing and was pleased to see some new jobs posted, some of interest as well and needing further investigation.

Emails and Twitter DM messages sent to a number of contacts which resulted in some very good results.

Two interviews for two different roles in the diary by close

Most of the people I have spoken to online or in person over the last few days have offered help, some with sound and welcome advice. Above all and most importantly the majority offered friendship and support. I couldn’t be more grateful and spoiled. To you, Thank You.

Tomorrow is new day with a new approach to a different set of known and unknown contacts. I am committed to not discounting any opportunity at the moment with the view that if I create enough opportunities very fast then I will have control.

One bit of advice I have always given candidates is that they must always go for the offer. Without offer the candidate doesn’t have any options and doesn’t have any choices. Without either the candidate has no control over the process.

Lets see if it works, shall we?