Post 15

Second!
For all that it is worth I got a second job offer today. You remember the internship I was doing before I got this job offer (http://smilethesmile.blogspot.com/2010/04/job-hunt-i-have-been-avoiding-writing.html ) , well the Europe president mailed me today.

He has asked me to come back to them, this time for a permanent role with a proper salary. Point to be noted is that when I was working with him and asked him if there were any chances of getting a permanent role ( I was desparate for a job) he had told me that the two of us will discuss it after I would have worked with them for 6 months. I had agreed to it.

It has been a month since I left the internship.

I will refuse. For a variety of reasons.

1st My current work place is like 20 minutes from where I live. The internship work place is about 2 hours of travelling in 3 trains and a bus and some walking. That for me is a deal breaker actually!

2nd the role that I am doing right now might not have tremendous growth potential but is a decent one for the time being. Though on paper the role is bigger at the internship- I am still not very convinced

3rd added to point 2 my current job is with a MUCH bigger company!

4th I have spent almost 4 weeks of intense self motivated learning. Now is when I am getting the hang of things! I honestly do not want to let go of this profile right now

5th I had a sales and marketing managerial role in India. With due respect to all the sales managers in the world( I am married to one as well), I never really felt that that role used my brain. Here I am doing complex analysis and if I can find enough enthusiasm, people are very willing to let me take up even more challenging roles

6th My husband works in the same company. Though this seemed like a problem in the very beginning, I don’t mind it now – infact even like it. Its good to get a glimpse of the other one. I don’t really feel alone ever. I know he is there to take of things even though I also know that my stuff is my stuff and his is his.

7th I do not believe my internship people will give me as big a salary as I am getting here. And for all it is worth- money does matter.

So that is it. I am not joining. I am going to say no to a job offer. Do you know whats the coolest thing about this. I spent 5 months believing that this day will never come (http://smilethesmile.blogspot.com/2010/03/maybe-that-day-will-never-come.html ). And that is exactly why they tell you to never say never!

Love

RP

Post 11
First salary in Pounds

Hi,

Today is an important day. I got my first salary in pounds. The pay slip shows an amount thats bigger than I had thought it will be but thats not the point. The point is that I have a job. a job that pays me for the work I do.

I have now known Sid for more than 2 years (I realized that right now!!) and from the moment I met him first my job had been a concern. I spent hours debating marriage with sid thinking about my career (Dont get me wrong, I love him to bits and a million times more than any stupid career )and I spent hours after my wedding crying because I had not gotten through yet another interview.

I am truly grateful for work right now. Its not the money that matters , though ofcourse it is important, but it is just the thrill of earning again. I got my last salary cheque in December. It has been 6 months. Six long months

Job hunting was not easy. I have never had anything this difficult and I have not forgotten the tears and the tension. The depression, the ‘we-are-sorry-but-best-of-luck-for-your-job-hunt’ emails, the interviews, the waiting, the hoping that this would be the one…..

I never really valued work before this, and never valued my ability to earn. I do so now-
very humbly so.

I am therefore truly greatful that I am lucky enough to have a job. This experience has really made me appreciate work like I have never done before and I hope I do not forget this lesson life has in its own way taught me in a hurry.

If you work, think that you hate it- change jobs if you can, but please appreciate the fact that you have work. There are millions in this part of the world who do not.

Love
RP

The positives of a job hunt

Like I promised here, http://smilethesmile.blogspot.com/2010/04/job-hunt-i-have-been-avoiding-writing.html there are some positives about hunting for a job.

I started my internship officially on the 20th of April, 2010. Long story on how I got it and I might blog about it later. However I came to London in the beginning of Jan and it was in the end of April that I first heard a ‘yes’. Even if it was for an internship that would not pay.

So that’s almost 4 months of rejections.

That might not seem too much to most but trust me it has been a very difficult time for me. The reason is simple. Never before have I faced so much rejection. I have always been the teachers pet, excelled in academics with little effort albeit a lot of hard work. Hell, even getting and finding the right guy was very easy for me. There was a multitude of family friends who wanted me as the bahu and yet again I had my pick.

Never before have I struggled so much for a ‘yes’. It still remains elusive.

But I have to confess that I have grown so much because of this experience. I have now learnt to just pick up the phone , look up the website for any contact number, call and speak to who ever picks up the phone. My elite b school mindset of feeling all superior to mankind ( expect those from better b schools) has rightly received a much needed shaking up.

I have learnt to push for setting up of meetings. I have learnt to call people so many times that they stop taking my calls. I have learnt to give a 30 second elevator pitch about myself.

This is new to someone like me who inherently has too much self respect and ego to go around akisng people for 10 minutes of their time!

Initially I would feel hesitant about speaking to the firangs. Honestly I think we have grown up on such a dose of American sitcoms and movies that the british accent seemed quite difficult to follow and I would end up sounding like an idiot asking people to repeat themselves. That, I am glad to say, has indeed changed now because of the numerous interview and calls that I have had.

Each of the interviews has been a huge learning experience. I remember this phase when I had started feeling very low about not having a job. To change my mind I would go out for a run/ jog and on the way I would only see people dressed up in formals. It just made me cringe so much.

It was then that I realized how important work is for me. Till then , I had always felt that I would be better suited to academics but LBS was an eye opener. I have to say getting through would have been great but it would have made my life hell. Because while I was interviewing I did not feel any rush of energy , no inner voice that told me ” yeah! This is what you were meant to do!” and when they informed me that the phd would take 6 years to complete I almost blacked out!

Had I gotten through I know it would have been very difficult to say no because of brand LBS and I was not sure I wanted to do it!

So I am glad they have chosen someone who probably wanted it more and in this process I have for the first time realized that I want to work. It is just that I need the right kind of job. A job that suits me as a person.

I always believed that I was an academic soul. Now I know myself better. However shallow it might sound, I simply want to work and earn some dough for the next couple of years. Simple as that.

S is marvelous at his work. I have learnt to learn from him. If I can be half as good, I will be great.

I have learnt to reply to emails in the most professional manner. I know it is a stupid thing to say but it is a very important skill I have acquired- the right british tone for a work email. INfact on any day I am job hunting I send across more mails than I did while I was working back in india.

I am more comfortable job hunting now. The reason for that is that my leave in my company back in india has been extended to 4th of july ,2010. And Sid has been the single most supportive husband I could have dreamt of. If I do not find a job that I like by that time I will go back to India to restart work and he will put things in motion for his relocation.

I think it is a big thing that he has agreed to do for my sake. Knowing fully well how well he is doing in his present profile and how much he wants to stay on in London for the next couple of years, I cannot but appreciate him.

So, I know now that Sid has thought of ‘us’ and I appreciate and love him so much more for it. We can be happily married when all is good but it is in times like this when one has to sacrifice something that you truly understand how blessed you are to have a husband who is ready to let his career take a hit so that you can have one for yourself.

I was recently asked in an interview why, if I am as career oriented as I claim to be, did I choose to leave the fantastic job I had to get married at 25 and relocate
to a country in deep recession.

My answer is an advice for all young girls. I said this:

“ I think the single most important decision regarding your career is to marry the right man who will support every single career move you make. I wanted to marry right, if for nothing then atleats for the sake of my career”.

Advice: how your career turns out to be depends quite a bit on the kind of man you marry. Marry well. Marry intelligently.

If nothing, for the sake of your career.

Love
RP

Job Hunt

I have been avoiding writing about this for a long time now. Even now I do not know where to begin from, what to write and what to not write.

I started job hunting even before I came to London infact I started it even before I got married. My biggest issue with coming over to London was indeed the job thing. I knew it was going to be difficult but hey I had a fantastic job in India which I had gotten in the midst of heavy recession, I am rank 1 at Bschool, rank 1 in engg
college, can speak well, dress well…my fears seemed really unfounded.

However the reality is indeed in front of me now.

I have been hunting for a long time now. It has been a huge long series of Nos. No from companies after rounds of interviews , from LBS for their PhD and from more jobs. Sometimes I wonder what is the toughest bit about this. Now I have an answer.
It is fine to know that yet again you have not made it but it is just so difficult to inform family and friends that you have not.

It is the whole process of investing in hope and the ‘if’ that is very taxing.
However, I do have something now. After weeks and weeks of looking around I finally have an internship. So I do work. But it does not pay me and it is not a permanent position. I am still giving interviews and applying but nothing concrete is in my hands.

But like they say, what does not kill you makes you stronger. Some day soon I will blog about the positives of the job hunt!

RP

Zidd karo, aur usse poora karo!

So, finally work begins for me in a few days from now! It will be the first time I shall start working full time. But as luck would have it, I have had to start job hunt before joining my company, which we shall call X from now on.

There are times when I don’t want to look for a new job, I want to just sit back and relax and enjoy having a job that pays me well and allows me to do the kind of work I want to do. But that is not to happen and I know I am being silly in thinking so.

As some of the regulars here know, Sid works on a different continent and post the wedding I shall have to join him. Now the entire continent in question is facing the worst of the economic crisis! As fate would have it, it is there that I have to job hunt. That too with almost no work experience.

As I started panicking yesterday when a senior told me grand tales about what an opportunity of a life time X is, Mum had to once again don the cap of my shrink! :P

So, yesterday I cribbed and threw tantrums about why I have to keep fighting ALL the time, Mum told me to remember this-

Zidd karo aur usko poori karo!

I hope I do keep this in mind.

So, finally I am at peace with myself. I am writing this in hope that whenever next I feel weird about what a fight life continuously is I shall remember what mum had to sayJ

You know, today I was watching an episode of Celebrity Apprentice in which one guy feeling very sorry for himself very angrily asks Donald Trump,” Do you have to get up every morning and fight?!!”

“Yes, and I do that every single day, for the entire day and have been doing that my entire life. My entire life has been a fight. One big fight! ”, replied Mr. Trump

In that one sentence ( ok ok ok for the puritans, 2) Mr. Trump rose a couple of thousand feet in my eyes. Not that what I think of him changes anything for him..but who knows…may be one day it might!