The Work Thread

Got a feeling my psycho Director has been put on gardening leave and is basically being told to strawberry float off . I think her reign of terror is finally coming to an end!

Roll on the next nutter boss!

Green Gecko wrote:

Death's Head wrote:

Green Gecko wrote:Sometimes you just need someone else to sell for you, it might help. Agents do that over the phone which is a lot better than writing covering letters.

Having said that, some websites used for applications don't allow a covering letter. Or maybe that is just the mobile version.

That's bad recruitment, the covering letter is far more important than anything in the CV in my view, unless it's a smashing one that outlines and quantifies achievements and includes a short and effective personal statement (and I mean a statement, not a small biography). In which case it's worth doing that in the CV if they're going to not bother with reading x words.

When we are recruiting I review the covering letter mainly to see how good their writing skills are. If I find it is poorly written, I won't consider them further. If they pass that test and their CV suggests they have something I'm interested in, I'll bring them in.

Green Gecko wrote:

Death's Head wrote:

Green Gecko wrote:Sometimes you just need someone else to sell for you, it might help. Agents do that over the phone which is a lot better than writing covering letters.

Having said that, some websites used for applications don't allow a covering letter. Or maybe that is just the mobile version.

That's bad recruitment, the covering letter is far more important than anything in the CV in my view, unless it's a smashing one that outlines and quantifies achievements and includes a short and effective personal statement (and I mean a statement, not a small biography). In which case it's worth doing that in the CV if they're going to not bother with reading x words.

I’ve been involved in a fair amount of recruitment at work over the years (IT Consultancy / Software Dev stuff), mostly in terms of conducting the interviews.

I’ve never seen a covering letter make it as far as me. All we ever get are CVs at best, or in lots of cases it’s just a “skills profile” put together by the recruiter. I assume someone somewhere may have read covering letters and used it to whittle down the pile of CVs but I get the impression that, in our industry at least, your skills and experience are more what get your door in the door than anything.

Application submitted .

Now to await the crushing rejection, or worse, invitation to interview .

I'm on holiday in Portugal for the rest of this week and next, really nice not to have the stress of work. Even though I've only been here since yesterday, already feel semi wound down as I have a real difficulty disconnecting from work. As quarter end is happening whilst I'm away I'm sure there will be a few "interesting" e-mails for me when I return as every month end I have a battle with finance having to tell them why their figures are wrong, but this time the mess won't be sorted for a couple of weeks into the next quarter. I'm kind of expecting (and hoping for) a backlash from some senior people asking me why I didn't check my e-mails but they will be in for a gooseberry fool storm from me if they do.

Work is pissing me off at the moment. Cant get anything done. Any kind of headway I made has now been completely lost.

So, after years of dodging the bullet, the library authority I work for is looking at completely reorganising. There is going to be a public consultation but we're looking at possible library closures (or handing them over to community groups), redeployment and possible redundancies. In an effort to reassure staff managers from HQ have arranged a series of meetings where they will talk to staff and explain what is going on. It was an open invite and all staff were welcome as long as they were either not working that day or relief staff were available to cover their shift. So far so surprisingly reasonable. Yesterday we had the meeting at our library, the biggest in the county. Management at our library went out of their way to make sure library assistants did NOT attend, only managers and librarians were encouraged to go. We missed out on the meeting and time to talk to the union reps who were there. All its done is foster resentment and the feeling that things are being hidden from us. All the the things HQ management wanted to avoid. It has leaked back to HQ and the head of department is not happy.

You must have seen this coming. Public libraries are quite the relic.

1cmanny1 wrote:You must have seen this coming. Public libraries are quite the relic.

1) Yes, I saw it coming. The writing has been on the wall for ages. The point of my post wasn't surprise that the review was happening. It was the sheer incompetence of how the meeting has been handled by the management of my particular library.

2) Public libraries are hardly a relic and still have a place. Are there libraries in our authority that aren't used? Sure, and they should be looked at and reviewed. On the other hand there are still libraries within the county where visitor numbers are still high (and in some cases actually increased over the past few years). You'd be surprised how many people still haven't got a computer and come in to use ours. You'd be equally surprised at the number of people (and no, not only old people) who have zero ability and/or confidence with computers who need help with rudimentary computer queries. We have university and college students who use our libraries regularly. Our childrens library is so busy that we are actually having to put a cap on how many people can come to the weekly Storytime sessions. We have loads of people get sent to us from the job centre because they don't have the facilities to do online job searches at home. A large percentage of them either have have minimal IT skills or don't have ANY IT skills at all. We are expected to help them as much as we can. Our library service for housebound borrowers is expanding beyond the services ability to reasonably supply it. Then there's the community aspect. There are people whose only contact with other people are through the library. It's literally the only place they have as community centres and such are being closed.

I'm back to work tomorrow after a week off. strawberry float.

Qikz wrote:I'm back to work tomorrow after a week off. strawberry float.

I always dread the return to work after the weekend, let alone a week off, but when you get back into it, I find it is never as bad as you feel it is going to be and the working week seems to go by quite quickly.

tl;dr you will be retiring before you know it.

Outrunner wrote:

1cmanny1 wrote:You must have seen this coming. Public libraries are quite the relic.

1) Yes, I saw it coming. The writing has been on the wall for ages. The point of my post wasn't surprise that the review was happening. It was the sheer incompetence of how the meeting has been handled by the management of my particular library.

2) Public libraries are hardly a relic and still have a place. Are there libraries in our authority that aren't used? Sure, and they should be looked at and reviewed. On the other hand there are still libraries within the county where visitor numbers are still high (and in some cases actually increased over the past few years). You'd be surprised how many people still haven't got a computer and come in to use ours. You'd be equally surprised at the number of people (and no, not only old people) who have zero ability and/or confidence with computers who need help with rudimentary computer queries. We have university and college students who use our libraries regularly. Our childrens library is so busy that we are actually having to put a cap on how many people can come to the weekly Storytime sessions. We have loads of people get sent to us from the job centre because they don't have the facilities to do online job searches at home. A large percentage of them either have have minimal IT skills or don't have ANY IT skills at all. We are expected to help them as much as we can. Our library service for housebound borrowers is expanding beyond the services ability to reasonably supply it. Then there's the community aspect. There are people whose only contact with other people are through the library. It's literally the only place they have as community centres and such are being closed.

Absolutely right. But I imagine that was always their secondary (now primary) function? Thus the restructure.


It's similar to video stores isn't it? I used to love going to the library and getting books out as a kid.

Would you guys dress for an agency meeting as if it were a proper interview?

Yes

Depends if you want them to help you find a job or not.

The better impression you give to the agency, the better the jobs they are going to push you for. They'll priorities the candidates they think will get them the best return.

Errkal wrote:Depends if you want them to help you find a job or not.

This is such an unnecessarily sassy answer.

In a work situation (including interviews etc.) I tend to go with the view that unless I know very well that the environment I'm going into is a "dress down" kind of place and that this is what is expected of everyone then I'll always go with the dressing smart option.

At the end of the day dressing smart is highly unlikely to have a negative impact on the outcome of your day, but dressing "scruffily" could!

Thanks. I'll deffo go for the shirt and tie then.