The futility cycle

Another week has dawned and I am still without gainful employment.

I have noticed a pattern in my job hunting over the past few weeks, it goes: Excitement, Impatience, Sinking and Resignation.

Each time I find an advert for a job which looks tailor-made for me it's all very exciting as I tweak my CV and send off my application.
The impatience kicks in when the agent inevitably doesn't get back to me, or there's a delay for some reason, or things are put on hold. This can last from a couple of days to a couple of weeks.
The sinking feeling comes when the overwhelming evidence finally hits me and I realise that I am either not going to be called for first interview, or subsequent interview or not given the job.
I usually managed to keep in the sinking phase for a couple of days by telling myself it's not over til it's over, but the inevitable phone call usually kicks me onto the final phase.
Resignation that yet another job has slipped through my clutches is the last phase. This is especially bad when there are few other prospects around. The phase is usually characterised by stomping, muttering and use of excessive pressure on the keyboard. This phase continues until another tailor-made job is advertised at which point the cycle starts all over again.

To be honest, the situation is made worse by an increasing number of agents who choose to be very aloof and only ever communicate with you on their terms and by companies who place adverts either for non-existent jobs, or for jobs that are later withdrawn with little or no warning. Having looked for work many times in my career, I have to say that the process is far more painful at the moment than it's ever been.

So, in order to break out of this cycle, I've taken the hard decision to invest some of my dwindling funds in some training so I can plaster some shiny new qualifications on my CV. Employing the MacDonald's gold star approach, I'm going for the least effort, maximum shinyness route of PRINCE2 and ITIL certification, possibly followed by some nasty Microsoft ones. This is based on what I've seen employers asking for, what is cheap enough and what won't take me too long to do.

I shall now see if training also has a futility cycle, because right now I'm at the excited bit and already planning how to emblazon my new qualifications across my CV.

FOOTNOTE: The two jobs that looked promising both fell through last week. Reasons were not exactly convincing.