What the hell am I going to do with a Film Degree?!

What the hell am I going to blog about

2014-11-30T17:30:00.001+00:00

I really need to get back into this. Not so much a need, but I really really want to.

My dream of a graduate job has slowly melted away, I'm no longer a recent graduate and the prospect of only having one job bores me senseless. I am not a 9-5er. I am very much relishing the freelancer lifestyle.

I am still completely lost in what I actually want to do. Or should that be achieve?

I have recently sacrificed the majority of my social life to go back to running the bar my boyfriend and I own. Although hospitality was never what I wanted to get back into after moving to London last year, at least working for myself is a million times more empowering, albeit more stressful than making money for someone else.

I have now spent nearly a year with the job title "Community Manger" and the company I'm working with is going from strength to strength. In fact it's going so well that our website crashed today because it had more traffic than the servers could handled. I love working for start-ups, my job is varied and I get input into every aspect of the marketing. I also get to do a bit of copywriting here and there and also make redic videos for the website. I have met so many people through it as well.

I'm not sure what direction this blog will take now I'm not applying for five jobs a day and hunting for work 24/7 but I'm sure with time I'll work it out.

Are interviews too much chat not enough do?

2014-04-14T16:58:00.000+01:00

With my money running out and limited prospects of full-time work in a job I want I am currently returning to my old faithful: bar work. In fact I have a trial on Wednesday.

This lead me to think about why not more interviews are trial based? I know most jobs have a trial period, but why is the interview process based on chat and exampled not chat and challenges.

I'll admit it, on paper I don't seem like much; bar work, bar work, special effects make-up, bar work, bar work, social media. To me it reads like "Can't make up her mind" when in reality it's "Needed money fast".

I made a promise to myself when I moved to London, move away from hospitality, get a "proper job". When in reality I love bar work. I love talking to people, making yummy drinks and I really love making other people happy. So bar work could be my perfect job. After all despite having a degree I am far more qualified in cellar management and making ferns in coffee because I've actually done it, for ages. But because I've been doing this for ages it's no longer a challenge. I can learn a bar, till system, cellar, menu in about half an hour. Not by studying it, by actually working it.

You know how you go about getting a job in hospitality? It's a lot like becoming a stuntman. Know someone doing it already. So in that respect it's like getting any job: networking. Back to the point, for any of my hospitality roles it's never really been a case of my CV. I got recommended and offered a trial shift. Not an interview, a trial. A lets see if you can actually do the job.

I'm pretty sure it's nearly the same with teachers (or so my mum told me). You're invited to the school you've applied for, teach a class, get interviewed by the students then get interviewed by the senior team.

Now this may seem like a much longer process, but you're guaranteed to pick the right candidate for the job and as a candidate you'll know if you want the job or not. If it's your first job in a particular industry how do you know you'll love it if you haven't done it?

Am I just not applying for jobs I'll enjoy if all I want from an interview is to prove myself from a practical demonstration rather than telling people what I've done in the past.

Or is it that entry-level jobs don't test for this?

Thoughts, comments? Anyone been on a really cool interview process. Or a really bad interview?

The nine emotions you'll feel while job hunting

2014-02-06T10:00:00.000+00:00

Job hunting is an emotional roller coaster. Here's just what to expect from finding the advert to landing that awesome job.

You see a job advert that is totally perfect for you.

You write a kick-ass CV and covering letter for it.

Then you wait nervously.

You wait for what seems like forever. And it's been so long you start to lose all hope.

But then you get that phone call/ email asking you to come for an interview. And you're just so happy.

On the way to your interview you're just so excited.

You walk into the that interview like a boss.

And leave convinced you messed it up.

But you didn't and they phone you and offer you the job and your just like;

Am I too old to intern?

2014-02-05T18:48:00.000+00:00

Internship, work experience, graduate program. There is a lot of faffy words, I would just like an entry level job please.

From trawling though miles of job adverts it has come to my attention there is a ridiculous amount of jargon to understand while looking for your first career making job. I have come to believe the following;

Work experience - travel expenses only, will usually last 2 weeks
Internship - paid if you're lucky, usually lasting 3 months
Entry Level - have a degree and some experience under your belt
Graduate program - need only apply if you went to a Russell Group University and got a 2:1 or higher

Recently my Google search words have been "Internship London", but should I still be looking for internships? I'm 24, I've managed medium capacity hospitality venues. From bars and nightclubs to restaurants. I know how to manage co-workers as well as customers. I've shaped the running of a restaurant even though it was my first front of house role, and I was part time. There's a lot of transferable skills there.

I never got any of my hospitality jobs by handing in a CV, in fact the only job I've got from applying with a CV is the one I currently had. I looked back at it the other day and realised the covering letter had a few typos. I think I was in the right place at the right time.

In Falmouth I relied wholly on my reputation as a bad-ass bartender and the fact that I knew a ton of people from working in a fair few of the bars and pubs there. I didn't apply for jobs, I got offered them. And occasional <s>poached</s> head-hunted.

But in London it's a completely different story. People don't know what I've done, what I can do. I need to prove myself all over. And as I've decided not to carry on with the hospitality career, it's like starting from scratch.

But is an internship the right way for me to start a brand new shiny career?

Pushing aside the current argument of paid or unpaid, is apply for an internship selling myself short? Do I need to become more confident in my skills and start applying for entry level jobs? I do know things. And I know how to do them well. I've started working for a start-up, thrown straight into the deep end and haven't freaked out. I'm a community manager. No one checks my tweets before they go out. And yes I'll admit with my dyslexia a few typos have gone out. But the majority of the time I spot them before it's too late. Within a week of starting work I had taught myself two new pieces of software, I just got on with it. This job has taught me that all I need is to be told an outcome and I'll work out the process myself. But isn't the point of an internship to be taught how to do stuff? I already know how to do stuff, you've just got to let me show you.

The dictionary definition of intern: A student or a recent graduate undergoing supervised practical training.

I don't think there is any way I can call myself a recent graduate any more. In September it will be three years out of education. That is a terrifying thought. And I don't need to be supervised that much. I'm currently working from home.

Don't get me wrong, in no way do I think I am better than an internship, I know I still have a lot to learn. And if I was offered one tomorrow I'd more than likely accept it. I'm just not sure if it's the right thing for me to do.

But should I spend three months doing an internship when I could be three months into a secure job. Or is it going to be super hard to land a job without doing an internship?

I think it's time for some networking.

There are not enough hours in the day

2014-02-03T18:19:00.004+00:00

I have just about settled into my new job. Working with a start- up I've been thrown into the deep end and it's been a fantastic learning curve for me. I am now emerged in the world of KPI's, engagement reports and spread sheets. So many spread sheets. And I feel like I've written a billion news letters.

You can see me in action at @oneminutelondon

It's good and I'm enjoying learning on my feet. Every week I get excited writing the engagement reports seeing that it's improving every week, and that's because of me.

As it stands, I go into the office for a few hours one day a week so I'm still looking for a few other pieces of work to do. Since last Monday I've been the oldest work experience kid ever. I'm working in GoThinkBig's office. I've been doing a menagerie of activities including writing an editorial on how gaming is like finding a job. It totally is.

I'm currently finding there is not enough hours in the day any more. And going from having no job to working 9-5 ever day and having a part-time job on top of that is exhausted. Waking up while it's still dark is not at all fun. How do you deal with going from Freelance to office? and to office AND freelance?

Happy belated Christmas and heres to a prosperous new year

2013-12-28T20:05:00.000+00:00

Apologies for the Radio silence. The last few days have been a bit of a whirlwind.

Hope everyone had a fantastic overindulgent Christmas time. I have been blessed with the best present ever. I got a job! Sort of. Ish. Internship. I applied for it last Friday. Got invited to interview on Sunday. Went to interview on Monday. Got offered it Monday night. Signed my contract on Tuesday. Started out of office work today. Monday I start in the office.

I'm going to be a Community Manager! I get to tweet, Instagram and Facebook (these are nouns now yes?) and write blogs.

My day in Narnia at Inspiring Interns

2013-12-20T17:11:00.002+00:00

You know the feeling when you've applied to every job ever, and no one has replied to you. Not even to stay sorry but no. Well on Monday I was feeling a lot like that. At about 11pm I had an epiphany. A light bulb moment. Why don't I have a job helping people like me. I saw a HR internship available at Inspiring Interns, I stayed up far to late writing the most heartfelt covering letter ever. At 10am the next morning I send it all off to them.

Nothing else interesting happened until 3:15pm that day. That's five hours. I waited a whole five hours for somebody to get back to me. Even net-a-porter took at least 2 days to tell me I was unsuccessful.

But this wasn't unsuccessful. I can not explain the euphoric feel when you see an email appear in your inbox when the subject line is "Successful Application". If you've ever gone a long time without a job, and have been apply for up to 4 or 5 jobs a day, you will understand the calming wave of "finally".

Unfortunately the position I applied for had already been filled, but they invited me in for a chat anyway.

If you haven't heard, inspiring interns reception room is decorated to look like Narnia. And you get to walk through a wardrobe. Strangely enough it all seemed quite normal considering I was named after Lucy for Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe.

Inspiring Interns are a graduate recruitment company who help businesses find graduates for internships. And therefore, help graduates find internships. The stand out point for them is they use video CV's to show prospective employers. And if you don't have a camera to film on, their happy to do that at their office.

The lovely Annie was the to help me yesterday. We had a brief chat about what kind of internship I wanted, which I have to admit was quite vague. What I did at university, what I've been doing since. Which when people ask me is quite a lot of stuff, not all cramed onto my CV. She the gave me a few minutes to get ready to make my video CV. Which consisted of me writing a short speech over and over again in my note book. But it worked. And by the 3 time I just about managed to not say Umm or trip over my words.

Annie then gave me some internships to look at to see if I wanted to be put forward for any of them. I think my yes pile was a lot bigger than my no pile.

So now I get to play the waiting game. I think I might develop this into an actual game so it's more fun.

If you are struggling with finding an internship I really recommend getting in contact with inspiring Interns. I think I've ended up talking to three of for different people in the office for different things but they've all very lovely and helpful.

If you want to see what internship opportunities they currently have you can check out their website.

Or if you have a question, or would like to registrar with them you can fill in a form here.

After you have become registered with them, you have the option to join the refer a friend scheme. So if you'd like to help me out email though this address and let them know I sent you :)

30 Reasons London isn't Cornwall. Or photos from my instagram and Flickr

2013-12-08T11:00:00.000+00:00

1. London seem to have an obsession with frozen yogurt. Our frozen yogurt shop caught on fire.

2. I haven't yet seen anyone wearing flip-flops/ bare foot walking around like it's a normal thing.

3. The hills are inferrer. After living in Cornwall for five years, and living at the top of every massive hill there was your flat surfaces unnerve me.

4. No one I've met in London has been an extra on Doc Martin.

5. I haven't seen one person use their own hessian/canvas bags when they go food shopping.

6. There is no sea. Or beaches for that matter. Where do you londoners go to paddle when you're drunk?

7.The Christmas lights here are move extravagant than Falmouth.

8. The world doesn't come to an end at 4pm on a Sunday things are still open here. You can still have dinner if you forgot to go shopping.

9. The public transport here is amazing. I see people getting pissed off when a tube is stopped at a station 30 seconds too long. Try waiting for a bus in Falmouth. On a Sunday they only come once ever half an hour. If you're lucky.

10. Londoners don't paint your house fun colours.

11. The cinema prices are ridiculous. As I found out for the price of two cinema tickets you could have got two pizzas and four beers to sit-in in soho.

12. The lack of Tesco around the corner disturbs me. This may just be relevant to East Finchley. I used to have a chose of two Tesco, metro and express minutes from my door. Now I have to walk like ten minutes to a Budgens.

13. Crossing the road is like playing chicken. Luckily I've only nearly died like twice. Those taxi's just don't stop.

14. Coconut water is a thing here.

15. Bubble tea is also a thing here. A thing that I don't really understand.

16. No one walks out the house for just a nice stroll. Everyone seems to be on an a-b mission.

17. "Cornish pasties" here taste weird.

18. You have so many restaurants I haven't eaten at the same one more than twice. I haven't even been to the same brand of fast-food Restaurant twice.

19. If you talk to a stranger on the tube people assume you're a drunk.

20. Above point is not exclusive to the tube.

21. Where are all your aggressive birds? I have not been attacked once since being in London, Falmouth on the other hand it's a day-to-day fear.

22. The weather in London is quite dull. It's always quite meh. No extremes.

23. I'll be there in ten has completely left my vocabulary.

24. Everyone works in PR or says they work in PR.

25. Every time I walk around central the apprentice theme enters my head, in Falmouth it was usually drunken sailor.

26. You actually have fibrotic broadband. It's not just a lie.

27. The view from my window is slightly different.

28. There is no real cider on tap at every pub. I still haven't found and old Rosie or Thatchers Katy.

29. Some take-aways deliver until 1am. That's insane.

30. The water here tastes disgusting.

My favourite twitter feeds

2013-12-07T18:21:00.000+00:00

Over on the inspiring interns blog I wrote about why Twitter is my favourite job hunting site. For a nice tie in, here are the twitter feeds I religiously follow, and find helpful. And have favorited probably every tweet they tweet (These are mostly media jobs, mainly London based. But not always)

In no particular order;

@InspiringIntern - internships/jobs range from marketing, advertising, finance and IT. Not only jobs, but lots of helpful videos and content to help you write your CV, and everything inbetween till you become a success story.

@GoThinkBig - so many different job sectors covered (including spy at the moment) but epecially a lot of publishing oppitunities, as well as tons of content about everything job related you could ever want.

@mediamuppet - as the name suggests, media paid internships/jobs. These range mainly over journalism, broadcasting, PR and social media. And all over the country. Website also has a lovely blog and some brilliant practical advice. Best thing, email contact for the job is always given.

@enternships - a wide rang of job sectors covered, manily with startups with internships and entry level jobs advertised. Fantastic search options to find just what you're looking for. You can be as specific as you want. Mainly London based jobs, but occasionally Newport, Munich, Shefford, München. Also have a blog with useful job hunting advice.

@MediaNationuk - Obviously another meda based job hunting site. From work experience to more experienced roles. The website also has relevant industry news, events, competitions and more.

There you have it. A short list of the feeds I use for job hunting.

Anyone else have any favourite twitter feeds for job hunting? Leave them in the comments below and we can start a definitive "best twitter feeds for job hunting" list.

This week I taught some people about blogging

2013-12-01T17:39:00.000+00:00

Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of teaching some lovely ladies about blogging. With the help of gothinkbig I hosted my own google hangout to help people with their blogging woes. And it was awesome. You can read about a round up that I wrote on their website.

It helped me realise I do actually know a lot about blogging, and that teaching it was slightly hypocritical as half the things I taught I am lax at doing. But this was a good realisation and now while I have pretty much unlimited time, bar the job hunting itself, I am planning on throwing myself whole-hog and giving this blog some much needed TLC.

If you have been here before you might have noticed the layout is slowly but surely changing. I dedicated the other night to re-learning all the basic coding I used to be able to type off the top of my head. So you can now click that email button and it will auto fill the subject line #feelssmug

If you just want to email me with ideas for the subject line, go ahead. Creativity had left me by the time it came to doing it.

You can also now follow me on bloglovin. Which I advise you do so you don't miss out on all my exciting adventure and huge rants about job hunting in London. And upcoming Falmouth throwback posts.

I'm still getting used to London in general. Coming from a place where I walked 3 minutes down the hill to get to work (5 minutes to get back, it was a steep hill) and now I'm faced with the prospect of getting the tube at rush hour. Something which I have avoided, which is one of the perks of unemployment I guess. And the twenty minutes plus dead time of phone signal. What is that?!

True to form I am in a coffee shop as I write this, I'd love to know if anyone else has a favourite spot to blog from?

6 things films lied to me about RE: jobhunting.

2013-11-26T08:40:00.000+00:00

You can blag your way through an interview. And get the job.

You don't have to be remotely interested in the industry to get the job.

Leonardo DiCaprio will offer you a badass job before you graduate.

It's super easy to get a cushty job hotel sitting.

Lying on your CV is fine. Even really big lies.

A good sound track is all you need to succeed. Sort of (that and a killer montage).

Am I having a mid-twenties crises?

2013-11-25T19:25:00.001+00:00

If you for some reason don't have Facebook, or aren't friends with twenty something's you might not have seen this post doing the rounds

I packed-up and moved from Falmouth, where I had a job, cheap rent and a slightly insane social life to move the 250-odd miles to London, with promises from the media it was far easier to get a job I wanted and I could live a lovely glossy lifestyle with the odd risk of pick-pockets and muggings.

I know live half way up the northern line, I've had one interview, that was unsuccessful, in the month and a half I've been here, and I pay the equivalent of three months rent in Falmouth in a month in London. but touch wood, I haven't yet been pick-pocketed or mugged.

If I am having a mid-twenties crises, it's happened far too early. In fact, I think it might of started the day I graduated University, possible the day I started this blog. I started renting a non-student house, I even started looking for graduate jobs. At the beginning the world was my oyster. I had lots of interviews, but not enough "real life" experience. Then all my university friends left my university town, I only had a part time job. I toyed with having a year out saving like mad and doing a masters degree. That never happened. I ended up in hospitality full time.

Like Madeleine says, we know to much about everyone lives. But Facebook is not my biggest enemy. Linkedin is. Every day I get emails telling me congratulate my friend because they have a new job. A cool media job. Or worse, they're having a two year anniversary at their cool media job.

In the last two years I've run pubs, clubs, bars, restaurants. Helped a bar move from Falmouth to Central London, helped redesign a restaurant, given insanely good graduate job hunting advice, despite failing at it myself, learnt a lot about wine, passed my personal licence, taken a course in cellar management, had my gut instincts proved correct about people, been told the coffee I make is too cold despite being trained by three different companies and being a fucking awesome barista and had to deal with some very unpleasant drunks without using violence. And this one time I got to volt over a bar and stop a fright between two very hench men. I've done my national service in hospitality. I want out. Please.

Most of the above is recorded in 140 characters or less in ranty antidotes on my twitter feed.

As my mum so elegantly put it the other day, when I went home to eat the entire content of my parents fridge, "You have been acting like a student for the last two years". Yes thanks mum.

But she's right. For the past two years I went to work at to serve breakfast/lunch/dinner/coffee/cake/booze to the lovely people of Falmouth, and it's tourists. During summer I was usually working from 9am - 2am. Inevitably, when you finish at gone midnight you go have a drink somewhere else, which in turn becomes an impromptu night out because for some reason in such a small town you will meet someone you know out and before you know it it's 4am and you're diving off a pier into the sea. You go home have a few hours sleep and start the cycle all over again. No hangovers allowed, no bad days. You arrived at work bright eyed and bushy tailed.

By the time my parents where my age they where married, owned a house and where just beginning to jet set all over the world. Me, I'm renting, I have a boyfriend who doesn't want to get married and I haven't been out of the UK since I was 16.

Fortunately, my previous delusions of moving to London have subsided and as I get deeper and deeper into the overdraft I never once had while I was a student, I realise I need to dramatically up my game on the cover letter front if I want to avoid the oh-so-impending do I pay my rent or eat today scenario.

I am probably having not a mid-twenties crisis. Like the majority of graduates I'm having the post-uni blues. Which is slightly better in a way as I haven't got the money to have a crises. I can't do what my dad did when he has his pre-mid-life crises and buy a load of expensive tech. I can't afford therapy like Spencer from Made in Chelsea. But if anyone would like to offer me counselling in the for of a cool media job, that would be awesome.

Update 2: GoThinkBig Digital Exchange

2013-11-12T13:46:00.001+00:00

What seems like forever ago I applied to do a digital exchange program. And guess what? I was asked to do it!

It's now all set for the 27th of November and getting nearer and nearer.

I will be teaching five people about blogging. A little bit of SEO and goggle Adsense. And everything in between that this blog has taught me over the past two years. Yes it has now been two years since I graduated and I pretty much feel like I'm back to square one after the move to London.

And just as a little incentive I believe that one out of the five people I teach will be asked to also teach a session and rumour has it, there's an iPad mini as a thank you gift.

You can go check out all the other amazing opportunities at gothinkbig.co.uk

Update 1: My weekend away

2013-11-11T16:57:00.001+00:00

I have been useless at this. And now there's loads to write. Urrggg.

So for ease, here is the start of my non-chronological hectic mess that is my job hunt in London. Plus exacting things that sort of relate to it but not.

Less than a month after I moved to London I went back to Falmouth for some super-fun bloody, gooey zombie times. My friend was doing what I can only describe as a theatre installation piece at a Halloween party.

A set was made.

I made some interesting props.

And some grim zombies.

And then we all got into the lab and did an unscripted performance of people being experimented on/eaten/and other interesting thing.

It was so much fun and reminds me why I love working with start-up companies. The pay may not be amazing, but I love helping with things people have put so much effort into and being apart of that. At 3 o'clock in the morning when we had sort of finished, although being unbelievably tired, I had the greatest feeling of accomplishment.

An odd coincidence

2013-10-08T18:26:00.001+01:00

It's only taken 100 blog posts, a week on London and I have a job. Ish.

It's an unpaid job where I hot desk it, but it's something for the CV. I have yet to properly start as for the last day and a bit I have just been analysing the companies social media and coming up with new exciting ideas for a start-up fashion magazine/blog.

As my now ex-boss put it, got to start somewhere!

I'm excited and terrified at the same time.

I am now getting used to London. No tescos a five minute walk away, no phone service for 20 minutes while getting into central, no sea. These are all things I took for granted in Falmouth.

I'm still using twitter as my main job seeking tool and it's actually pretty good. I am now considering twesumes.

I'll report back when I have crafted the best 140 characters twitter has ever seen.

For now, here is a photo I recently put on a covering letter.

You have 1 new email.

2013-09-30T18:43:00.000+01:00

I have finally left Falmouth.

Move to London tomorrow.

I do fear I may have broken my nose though.

I would like to say a massive thank you to the man who elbowed me in the face on the last night I was in Falmouth. You have made it very hard to forget. Even if all my friends had no idea about it till I told them about it the next morning. We may have consumed the majority of alcohol in Falmouth.

Anyway, I had an email back. An email which stated that it's nice that I've done a film degree. So I'll be off for what sounds like an informal chat soon. Boom!

Yes I have finally had someone find it good I have a film degree despite the fact I'm applying for non-film related jobs.

So hang in the fresh film graduates. Even if like me you did your degree just to get away from your parents, and had no idea what you actually wanted to do. It's not the end of the world.

As I actually have to move to London tomorrow, this find a job thing is becoming a bit more real than it was a few weeks ago. I am now going to send as many emails as humanly possible to try and line up some interviews so I am not sat around getting frustrated and bored while I'm in London while my boyfriend goes out to work everyday.

Following on with the photo thing I've been doing, as I'm at my parents I get to pretend I am even more proffesh as they have a study. This is HQ for the next few hours.

You have no new emails

2013-09-18T13:00:00.001+01:00

Well I do, but they are mainly junk.

After my week of emailing what seems like a billion people I have had no emails back. Apart for 1000heads, who are lovely and their HR manager has the same first name as me. Pop fact for you there.

So after having no luck with big companies. This weeks challenge is to email little companies. As, quite frankly, job hunting is the most boring yet stressful thing ever so to make myself do it I'm turning it into an experiment.

Last week I just used twitter, last year I used job hunting websites, and when that all failed to work I just made people give me a job. So far only the latter method of job hunting has turned into a job.

I have a week and a half left in Falmouth. I haven't even started to pack, or collect all my stuff into one place. It is still scattered over several houses.

With a move and job hunting I might as well get married just to get divorced as well and just make my life as stressful as possible.

Technical Problems Cont./ Inappropriate Latte Art

2013-09-09T15:16:00.001+01:00

It's like my computer and iPad don't want me to get a job.

Mail is still frozen on computer, iPad being an iPad doesn't let you attach more than one thing to an email, or let you upload files to applications. Safari is also being a little bitch today. Blahhhhhhh.

In good news I have a place to move to in London. Which will mean I will officially not be homeless anymore and I can have all my stuff in one place for the first time in about 5 months. I can also stop living out of a bag. Which will be lovely.

I've had a few days off from job hunting and emails, purely because I still have a job which I worked horrific split shifts on. One of which included training three new people on the bar on a Saturday night. It went well though.

Today I have written a whole new CV and 2 covering letters and applied for work experience at FHM and Zoo. Hello if you're reading :) And I am now currently apply for about every on gothinkbig.co.uk which means I am writing about a billion different CV's and Covering letters because they're all very different jobs.

Currently of the 3 PR companies I emailed last week none have got back to me.

However much I love writing my job hunting frustrations down on this blog, I would quite like to turn it into whatididwithafilmdegree.blogspot.com very soon.

F.Y.I If anyone is looking for a work experience kid to make them coffee, I can do inappropriate latte art if required.

Technical Issues

2013-09-05T13:52:00.001+01:00

Literally just wrote a massive post and it went. All gone.

I spilt coffee everywhere because I chose the table with the wobbly leg. There is sand literally everywhere in my bag because I went for a sea swim yesterday. My phone isn't talking to my iPad. iCloud has given up working. My phone isn't sending emails. My mini mac wont update to mountain lion because it's too old. Massive amount of first world problems today.

But never fear because I have several devises that send emails and I have been using it to my advantage today. By emailing speculative CVs. At least I hope they've sent. I have another 4 tabs of companies I need to send emails to, and then another 3 tabs of actual jobs to apply for.

My mini mac hates me at the moment because I stupidly set up some of my emails as pop so at the moment it looks like this.

And it's stuck like that. I love life lessons.

Should you give up after a rejection?

2013-09-03T15:32:00.001+01:00

I am sat in another coffee shop half procrastinating. I watched 90210 this morning and am now living in the fantasy world where just by blogging someone will use my I.P to track me down and want to offer me a job, or a book deal.

So it was pretty much a straight up no from Glossybox. I say from Glossybox, the company they are using to shortlist candidates. Which came in the form of a badly worded email. With a no reply email address so I can't even ask for feedback on my application. Or ask why I haven't been selected for interview.

Here in lyes the question, should I just give up on this job? Accept defeat? Or do I go the extra mile? So someone will actually read my application and not just have it run through a piece of software.

The last time I persisted after what seemed like months of hard work tracking people down worked out pretty well. I ended up working on a Hollywood film in the make-up department.

But how annoying is persistence? Can it lead to someone just being super annoyed with you? Or does it show dedication to the job.

I'm going to use all my detective skills to track down those ever elusive email addresses or really people who can hire me or tell me to come back when I have more professional experience.

I'm now going back to my dream world where blogging on my iPad in a coffee shop will make every thing work out perfectly. And then if it doesn't happen in 5 minutes I'm going to another coffee shop.

Dear GlossyBox UK

2013-09-02T00:02:00.001+01:00

And the HR manager who is now sifting though what I can only imagine to be thousands of applications. I made an amazing covering letter with photos but the covering letter box didn't allow them. I spent a lot of time on it so I thought I'd post it here so if you where checking up on my links from my CV you might very well get it see it in its intended glory.

Hi :) My names Lucy and I'd love to work as your Jr. Social media marketing manager.

Like many little girls my first foyer into make was with face paint.

During my time at University I was lucky enough to try my hand at many disciplines. Although I chose special effect make-up as my final major practical piece, as many of the films I worked on had skeleton crews I ended up multitasking on them and also worked in the roles of production assistant, prop-maker, producer, wardrobe. With all of the experience I gain I successfully found employment working in the make-up department of World War Z the Summer before I graduated.

Sometime after the face paint obsession I found eyelash curlers, mascara and eyeliner.

Since graduating I have gained full time employment as a bar supervisor and although I thoroughly enjoy this work, I feel it is time for me to take a leap and start a new career path. I have been asked by employers to help consult on their online presents and have relished the opportunity. As a bartender in a small tourist town I am asked frequently about the best places to go in town and what to do, on a very small scale this is the basics of promotion and marketing.

After years of experimentation with make-up I've created some grotesque creations.

A few months ago I found a lost dog while I was at work, I took a picture of him and tweeted it. The dog was reunited with owner within a few hours. The picture got nearly 500 re-tweets and I got a box of Ferrero Rocher. A few years ago I would have had to have gone door to door for hours to inform as many people as less than a minute spent on twitter did.

One day I realised make-up is not just for the face, I spent 4 hours painting myself as a Navi.

My biggest social media campaign to date was the indiegogo project I help mange and promote for Loading Cafe/bars move to Soho. I helped with the video concept and execution of the video as well as promoting it on various social media platforms. We didn't meet the target we wanted, but the press we got off it helped to make connections which ended up in us opening the bar in Soho in April of this year.

My biggest beauty mistake was bleaching my eyebrows. Such a big mistake all photo evidence has been destroyed.

P.S. I can start the end of September/beginning of October.

I need to get my life sorted

2013-09-01T14:35:00.001+01:00

Blahhhhh.

I forgot how much I hate this process. But with 24 days left in Falmouth I still need to fine a place to live in London, organise a move from Falmouth to London and find a job in London.

24 days, just over 3 weeks, while working full time, to sort massively stressful things out.

I think I have become to accustomed to Falmouth life. It's slow, relaxed and nearly everything happens spontaneously. After 5 years of living like this I really do need to snap out of this mind set.

I am now procrastinating by writing this blog and looking at LinkedIn conning myself that it is something productive. I might even by a psychology book and read it and convince myself that that is productive as well.

I'm even taking photos of me procrastinating because photos look nice on blogs and I can con myself onto thinking that it is also productive.

It's been such a long time

2013-08-05T17:05:00.001+01:00

I still have no graduate job, it has been two years since I graduated. It's been almost a year since I blogged about it.

But man have a learnt a lot of life skills.

It's not all doom and gloom. I got my first ever promotion. I invested in a bar in London and I am finally getting around to moving out of Falmouth.

With my move to London just over a month away, what better time to start up this blog again and document my job move to the big city.

Time to write a new CV and decide what I want to go do.

A small step up the ladder

2012-09-19T11:58:00.001+01:00

I am pleased to announce my coulmn pitch was sucessfull :)

I am now officially part of the Big Red Barrel team.

This means 100% success rate in pitching as apposed to 0% CV success.

In other new, I didn't get an interview at stranger collective, but I'm waiting to have feedback on my 5+ page application form.

I've also applied to be an editor for an online games magizine but I haven't heard back from them yet and I emailed it last Thursday, so I'm not sure what's happening there.

I have another day off today but chances are it won't be quite as productive as my last. I can still hope though.

It's not what you know it's who you know

2012-09-14T15:02:00.002+01:00

Today is my first day off in fourteen days. So I'm determined to make it productive.

I think I've mentioned this a few times on here, but it's not what you know but who you know. Today this is very true. And looking back, this is how I've gotten pretty much all my jobs in the past few year. Before uni it was just about being the first person to reply to an advert for semi-unskilled jobs; paper-round, waitressing etc. It's also how I became a photo editor at a photography studio for two years.

Getting back to the point. I've decided I want to write. I don't exactly know what or in which medium but I'm sure that will come in time. I've also been told that many PR agents started life as journalists. So this is my starting point now. Building up a portfolio.

As mentioned in my previous post, I'm now a games review. This lead to my boyfriend suggesting I email someone he knows who is the content manager of a website. This time I did something a little different from my know, plz can I haz some work experience. I sent him a pitch for a column. He replied saying it could be interesting and would I also be willing to do reviews and cover events. Score!

I have now drafted my column, and said I'm open to doing other writing bits. Now I play the waiting game and see what he thinks. I will report back with the results of my mini experiment when I know the outcome.

I would also like to wish all of this years Falmouth Graduates(and any other recent graduates)good luck with their exciting steps into the big bad job seeking world.