Jobs & Careers

[ByronBlack]

I like working to a pace. In my current job (optics) there is a large amount of pressure to get jobs out with tiny tolerances and to a very tight deadline. Also the similarities are that there is a combination of heavy machinery work (generating and surfacing lenses) and more skilled handwork - drilling, glazine and assembling rimless spectacles etc..

This is partly why I would like to get into the industry as I feel I have the right 'attitude' towards work and the ability to delivery too tight deadlines. During my stint as a self-employed web delevoper there was a great pressure on delivering the product on time and under budget - so hopefully these are skills that I can transfer to a potential new career.

I'm soundling like i'm in a job interview ohwell, good practice though I suppose!


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Wizer - yes it's quite local, about 10miles from me 'Rayleigh' in essex. I'm due to talk to them tomorrow and see whats what! They took on the son of a woman my missus works with, he was only 17 with no skills whatsoever, so i'm a little hopefull.

 

[Anonymous]

I came out of teaching about 8 years ago having been one of the last trained 'woodwork teachers' of the old school, although by the time I left my job title had changed umpteen times. I had been doing woodwork for about 25 years and thought I was reasonably proficient. I went knocking on doors and doing the rounds of the local cabinet shops and got taken on by a local firm who were desperately short of people. My experience as an amateur woodworker in no way prepared me for the cut throat world of proffesional cabinet making, where time, in both the companies I eventually worked for, producing top class work for the London market, was the absolute yardstick (apart from turning out a cracking piece of work). Make the piece in the allotted hours or under and the beers are on you Friday lunchtime - make it in a few hours over and its a quiet word in the office on Friday lunchtime. In my experience the world of professional cabinet making is a universe removed from taking whisper thin shavings of fine timber, resharpening the plane then a little scraping followed by some light sanding as the amateur might do - its get out the belt sander, then the orbital/random sanders with finer papers and then a quick go over with a bit of 320g by hand to finish. I may tend to exagerate slightly, hand tools are used a lot, but if the machine can do it quicker, then that's the way forward. I went into the trade with visions of curly shavings piling up round my feet and was rapidly brought down to earth in a swirling cloud of mdf dust from the router I used most days. In addition there are a whole range of techniques to completely relearn in order to do the job quicker, so I found it was pretty much a case of starting again from square one. Think carefully - Rob

Well said Rob, time is right up there with quality, you have to look very hard to find a curly woodshaving in my workshop, definately no standing back and admiring your work, finish one job, wrap it, start the next. The reward comes from mentally counting the pound notes.

 

[ByronBlack]

Well, I just got off the phone with the joinery company, no vacancies at the moment, but will put my CV on file if anything comes up - atleast they were quite positive towards me though and gave me some pointers to consider.

I think i'll send out a blanket letter to all the firms in my area and see if any of them bite

 

[RogerM]

............ no vacancies at the moment, but will put my CV on file if anything comes up - at least they were quite positive towards me though and gave me some pointers to consider.

Whilst I obviously wish you well, this type of response is usually synonymous with "Not interested - clear off - but we're not sufficiently confrontational to say so in so many words".

The reality with any job search is that it is often a case of being in the right place at the right time. If you cold call a business at the right time, you are likely to get the job, and all the "CVs on file" (probably filed in the wastepaper bin) won't even be considered.

It is generally accepted that 60% of jobs change hands without ever being advertised. If you exclude the public sector where the PC brigade ensure that all jobs are advertised, that probably means that 80% in the private sector go without ever being advertised. So it definitely pays to cold call, as if you just apply for advertised positions you are only applying for 20% of the positions available. The competition is less for unadvertised jobs as well. And don't assume that if you are turned down once that you can't approach them again - a lot of businessmen admire persistence, and the next time might be at a time when they need to recruit! I once got a job in the financial services sector after approaching the same company 4 times in the space of less than a year.

Good luck!

 

[Anonymous]

Have to agree with Roger, CV's sent to me go on file, but I never look at them. If someone was persistant, then I would be interested in them, simply because they are prepared to stick in there and seem to want to work for me.