the adventures of pinkaholic girl

can has job?

hullo folks, it's been a while since I've written anything, mostly because we've been away for the last 5 months. But now we're back in London, and it's all about coming back down to reality. :( We've been back for about 6 weeks now, and we've noticed quite a few side effects (some good; some not) which have arisen from the credit crunch.

Firstly, the interest rate is at a ludicrous 0.5%, which means that we're better off investing in llama farming than putting our money in the bank. Transferring it home isn't really an option either, because the exchange rate kind of sucks. (I recommend you switch to the one- and five-year views on the graph for some real entertainment.)

Secondly, a whole lot of shops and chains have just disappeared off the London shoppingscape after going into administration. This includes some huge ones like Woolworths (sort of like the K-marts of the UK) and Zavvi (ex-Virgin Megastore emporiums). On the flip side, there are lots of sales around in the stores left standing to entice the un-crunched shoppers to buy up. There are also some really good deals for hoity-toity restaurants in the capital - presumably because their old clientele are pinching the pennies and don't want to eat at posh restaurants every week. We've dined at several Michelin starred restaurants for cheap, and had some great 2 course weekday lunches for just £15. hurrah :)

Thirdly, it is totally a renter's market out there. The recent drop in house prices means that a lot of people aren't willing to sell their houses at the moment, so there's a surplus of properties for rent. When we got back, I expected to go through a month of hell, looking at dingy flats that were way overpriced and having to make decisions about renting them on the spot. Not so! We had a week to browse through virtually all of the properties available in the neighbourhood before eventually putting an offer in on a ridiculously cheap flat 5 days after we first saw it (and during that time the rent dropped another £25 pounds). In any other year, you would have made an appointment during the afternoon to view a flat at 6pm, and in the 3 hours between it will have gone. So, no complaints from me on that one.

Lastly, which brings me to the title of this post - the job hunting. Job hunting in London is never fun anyway, but this time around it is particularly discouraging. Previously, I've been able to get a dozen job specs and at least a couple of interviews lined up before one week is out, and every time I put my cv up on a job board, I'd get harassed by agents for months afterwards. These days, I can count on one hand the number of times I've talked to an agent in the past two weeks. I've had one phone interview for a permanent job that I know I don't want and every single job I apply for online is met with a blank wall of silence from the agency. Ouch :(

The ultimate irony in all of this is that the flow of finance jobs hasn't seemed to abate at all - there are at least four times as many finance jobs advertised compared to non-finance. So here I am, a victim of crunchy credit, trying to find a way to get a recruiter to speak to me, when people who contributed to this mess can still earn a living.

Someone, somewhere, owes me.... big time.

posted by d @ 7:03 pm