Okay, update time
I've been absent for a while, haven't I? Oh well.
This week I've been getting up at 7:30 (read: turning the alarm off at 7:30, pretending to be asleep for half an hour, then getting up) in order to go to the "Pre-Employment Training" Centrelink/my Job Network Member is making me do. And I'll have to do it all next week too.
So now I know what mornings are. Don't see what all the fuss was about, really.
I don't have to go today though (will explain why shortly, it is very cool), but I'm up anyawy to keep my sleep cycle from resetting back to 6 hours out of synch with the world. The PET itself has been not too mind-numbing, but they're not telling me anything they themselves haven't told me before. If I had been putting all the effort I should have been into job hunting, I would be really annoyed by them taking 6-8 hours a day (including transport time) for two weeks away from it. But being honest, it hasn't really impacted on it at all. *looks guilty* We have this scarily chirpy woman training us though. And in the first day she went on amusingly about how twisted and bitter she was about all the things John Howard had done to her, still in her usual smiley chirpy manner.
And one of these days I am going to get up to asking someone (whichever representative of Centrelink is currently talking at me) if they know where the "in an interview only 7% of the employer's opinion of you is formed by what you say, the other 93% being presentation and body language" thing comes from. Why 93%, why not 92% or 94%? It seems extremely dubious to me, because I can't think how you'd even go about measuring that, let alone to the implied level of accuracy. Not to mention, even if it is there are questions about what sort of sample they used to get that figure, as I sincerely doubt even a very large sample that is representative of all employers in Australia (or even some other country if they're pulling the statistic from somewhere else) is likely to be a representative sample of the sort of employers I apply to. And lets not even get into trying to figure out what it actually means. Not that I doubt the principle they're trying to sell me, just that particular statistic seems odd. I strongly suspect it's either made up, or a vastly oversimplified claim based on a complicated experimental result, and it's worked its way into general knowledge so that nobody actually bothers to wonder where it comes from anymore.
Anyway. I should be rushing out the door annoyed at myself for being late right about now (late start on Fridays), but I'm not going at all today, because I have a job interview at 1 o'clock. The position is with a games prorgramming company, working on a successor to a computer game I already own and like!! And they're in the city, 20-30 minutes walk away from here (or at least, that's where the interview is). So yeah, that's pretty cool. I'm rather amazed I got the interview, really. I found the add during "free job-searching time" at the PET place, and then one of the guys who works there (it's also a kind of reverse recruiting agency) saw over my shoulder the big bold words "GAMES PROGRAMMER" and as he knew I wanted to get into that field he picked up the phone right next to me and called the employer and arranged to send over my resume with a letter written by him. I was a little dubious about this, as he knew nothing about programming and there were some things I definitely would've wanted to stress in my application letter, but apparantly it worked because I got a call when I got home yesterday asking me to come in for an interview today.
One problem may be that I don't (or didn't) know Python, the language they're doing all their programming in at on this project (one of the things I would've said in my own application letter being that I don't know Python but am willing to learn it and was intending to do so on my own time anyway). Familiarity with Python was listed in the add as a "significant advantage" but not an absolute must-have. I read through half a book on Python yesterday (on I went and found after I found the job ad), so I am now moderately familliar with the feel of the language, and most of the basic syntax, at least (dunno how efficient I'd be at writing Python programs yet, but I can probably understand a pre-written one that is presented to me). But I'm definitely going to have to be selling myself on general programming skills, good uni marks, familiarity with the game series, and being able to learn things quickly.
Wish me luck everyone!
This week I've been getting up at 7:30 (read: turning the alarm off at 7:30, pretending to be asleep for half an hour, then getting up) in order to go to the "Pre-Employment Training" Centrelink/my Job Network Member is making me do. And I'll have to do it all next week too.
So now I know what mornings are. Don't see what all the fuss was about, really.
I don't have to go today though (will explain why shortly, it is very cool), but I'm up anyawy to keep my sleep cycle from resetting back to 6 hours out of synch with the world. The PET itself has been not too mind-numbing, but they're not telling me anything they themselves haven't told me before. If I had been putting all the effort I should have been into job hunting, I would be really annoyed by them taking 6-8 hours a day (including transport time) for two weeks away from it. But being honest, it hasn't really impacted on it at all. *looks guilty* We have this scarily chirpy woman training us though. And in the first day she went on amusingly about how twisted and bitter she was about all the things John Howard had done to her, still in her usual smiley chirpy manner.
And one of these days I am going to get up to asking someone (whichever representative of Centrelink is currently talking at me) if they know where the "in an interview only 7% of the employer's opinion of you is formed by what you say, the other 93% being presentation and body language" thing comes from. Why 93%, why not 92% or 94%? It seems extremely dubious to me, because I can't think how you'd even go about measuring that, let alone to the implied level of accuracy. Not to mention, even if it is there are questions about what sort of sample they used to get that figure, as I sincerely doubt even a very large sample that is representative of all employers in Australia (or even some other country if they're pulling the statistic from somewhere else) is likely to be a representative sample of the sort of employers I apply to. And lets not even get into trying to figure out what it actually means. Not that I doubt the principle they're trying to sell me, just that particular statistic seems odd. I strongly suspect it's either made up, or a vastly oversimplified claim based on a complicated experimental result, and it's worked its way into general knowledge so that nobody actually bothers to wonder where it comes from anymore.
Anyway. I should be rushing out the door annoyed at myself for being late right about now (late start on Fridays), but I'm not going at all today, because I have a job interview at 1 o'clock. The position is with a games prorgramming company, working on a successor to a computer game I already own and like!! And they're in the city, 20-30 minutes walk away from here (or at least, that's where the interview is). So yeah, that's pretty cool. I'm rather amazed I got the interview, really. I found the add during "free job-searching time" at the PET place, and then one of the guys who works there (it's also a kind of reverse recruiting agency) saw over my shoulder the big bold words "GAMES PROGRAMMER" and as he knew I wanted to get into that field he picked up the phone right next to me and called the employer and arranged to send over my resume with a letter written by him. I was a little dubious about this, as he knew nothing about programming and there were some things I definitely would've wanted to stress in my application letter, but apparantly it worked because I got a call when I got home yesterday asking me to come in for an interview today.
One problem may be that I don't (or didn't) know Python, the language they're doing all their programming in at on this project (one of the things I would've said in my own application letter being that I don't know Python but am willing to learn it and was intending to do so on my own time anyway). Familiarity with Python was listed in the add as a "significant advantage" but not an absolute must-have. I read through half a book on Python yesterday (on I went and found after I found the job ad), so I am now moderately familliar with the feel of the language, and most of the basic syntax, at least (dunno how efficient I'd be at writing Python programs yet, but I can probably understand a pre-written one that is presented to me). But I'm definitely going to have to be selling myself on general programming skills, good uni marks, familiarity with the game series, and being able to learn things quickly.
Wish me luck everyone!