Urgh NHS Jobs

I'm sure you will have guessed from the title that I'm talking about the NHS Jobs website.

I seem to have spent endless hours on this website over the past year. (Albeit less frequently recently).

As an aside, I haven't applied for any jobs for about a month now, and it's been wonderful!

If you're not familiar with the website; it's basically where people (existing NHS Employees or the rest of us mere mortals) can apply for jobs within the NHS.

I've lost count of the number of jobs that I've applied to through this website. I'm grateful for its ease, but sometimes it's infuriating.

I have the daily job email from them; where they send me an email every evening with the new jobs in my area that have been advertised. Yesterday, there was an advert for two new Receptionists to work at my local ED. It said that the deadline was the 22nd April and that potential applicants would benefit from an informal visit, so should email or call the relevant people (blah, blah, blah...)

So, I thought: 'Oh, I'll email tomorrow'.

I don't normally go for these informal visits, but this job advert genuinely interested me.

Low and behold, I checked again this evening to get the email address of the contact when I see:

'PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS POST WILL BE CLOSING EARLY AT 12NOON TODAY (FRIDAY 12 APRIL 2013)'

The bumholes.

This isn't the first time NHS Jobs have done this. It's so annoying!! You're forced into applying for jobs that you really want immediately because you're worried that they'll be taken down by the next time you check.

Now I appreciate the employers might well have an unexpectedly large number of candidates applying, but surely doing this is a bit... mean?

Ooh, It's Been a While!

Hello!

I'm not going to apologise for the (predictable) lack of updates; because there is nothing to update you on really...

Here's what's happened recently:

• I've become a hermit.
• Today I finally hit the 200 job applications milestone!!
• I've had four job interviews now (all of which have been unsuccessful...)
• I've still got no money coming in.
• My next door neighbour recently got a slapped wrist from the police for assaulting my Dad (who's disabled...) More on that in a future post... if you're really that interested...
• I swear I'm on my way to developing a vitamin D deficiency (because of said hermit-ness... Or maybe I'm just becoming a hypochondriac because of all the spare time on my hands...)
• I keep on getting bombarded with spam emails from a company called 'Meaningful Help'... And in actual fact; I'm quite close to going to their headquarters in Texas and... well, after that, I'm not exactly sure what I'd do...
• I've discovered that it's not just me who's feeling isolated since leaving University. My friends are feeling exactly the same way. (Even though they've got jobs or are doing Postgrad stuff...)
• This whole unemployment lark has induced a new lax attitude; my 'pendantic-ness' is disappearing. It's really making me a lot less uptight (at times...)
• Friends/Peers/People I went to school with and didn't really warm to are all announcing pregnancies and engagements. In fact, some are now having their second kids. I'm still unsure as to whether this makes me feel: ridiculously old, incredibly young or a massive failure... (even though I'm only 21, I swear my Mum's tapping her watch impatiently; waiting, just waiting to get grandkids. No pressure...)

I'm also so sad well-organised that since I first started applying for jobs, back in May, I've been keeping a log of all applications that I've made. It's official: I'm ridiculously sad...

That's from the first page... From May/June.

And this is the last... From Today.

It's eleven pages long now, which makes me feel ever so slightly useless. I've been rejected or ignored for an insurmountable number of jobs. I've been rejected for: Temp Christmas jobs, Cleaning jobs, Healthcare Assistant Jobs, Receptionist jobs, Admin jobs, Waitressing jobs, Factory jobs, Marketing/Communications Jobs (which are actually related to my degree!), Sales jobs, Retail jobs etc. I could go on, but I wouldn't want to bore you into oblivion. 

Still, at least it's a beautiful evening:

I don't know if you've noticed, but I've become slightly addicted to Instagram...

News!!

Just a brief post with a little bit of good news...

I've somehow managed to bag myself a couple of job interviews!

I'm not holding my breath, but this time next month I could be a Phlebotomist or a Healthcare Assistant.

Fingers crossed!