My "plan"

Sounds good! Start a cheeky blog, "bored from within"

Just joking, wishing you the best.

Good luck with the job hunt iexist, and also good luck finding a way to get involved in organising.

I'm also looking for work atm, and you just reminded me I am still paying dues to a useless mainstream union which I joined in my last workplace- must get round to cancelling that!

I'm looking/applying for internships. Even non-paid ones! Just because I need experience being a disciplined, punctual, obedient worker on my resume.

By May 2015, I shall graduate college and become a nonproductive, 'white collar' member of society.

Oh, why couldn't the revolution come faster? Like tomorrow?

End this missseryyy!!!

I once got denied by a temp agency for an unsatisfactory personality assessment.

Always choose the answer you think they wanna hear.

"What do you feel when you see someone stealing at work?"

a) ambivalent
b) mildly annoyed
c) violated
d) outraged

Outraged, iexist, you feel completely outraged. . .

Your politics are boring from within as fuck.

I'm job-hunting as well and I feel like a lot of those bullshit assessments are really ambiguous at times though. Sometimes it's almost impossible to figure out what they're looking for.

"It's super busy at the register and a line is forming. People look pissed. What do you do?"

a) call your boss for help
b) apologize to people for the wait and try your best
c) ask your co-workers for help
d) don't say anything and try your best

????? Do they want you to be a good lackey and go the boss all the time? Or do they want you to deal with your own problems and not bother the boss every five minutes? Do they look at asking your co-workers for help as showing initiative or as subversive or as wasteful, because STFU and do your own work, wage slave?

Or with your stealing example. "Do you feel?"

a) Angry
b) Enraged
c) Violated
d) Disappointed

WTF do they want?! Good luck with that shit iexist.

I received an e-mail from an employer. I'm scheduled for a phone interview on March 5th.

I'm so scared.

Yeah phone interviews suck. Best advice I can give is just be shamelessly full of shit. This is your dream job cos you have a passion for excellent customer service (or whatever it is), and you plan on making a lifelong career out of working for these assholes. They won't care. HR managers eat it up. I really think it's what they're looking for - if you can bullshit them, you can bullshit their clients.

lol get used to it. Sometimes you're not even a "human resource," you're "human capital". I always particularly resented that one because it's a direct inversion of Marx - capital isn't dead labor; labor is live capital!

You should mention your extensive union-organizing experience. Do you know what you're going to wear?

????????????????????????

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-JeF-C14DE

I don't know. I think they would know if your bullshitting if you say its your 'dream job'. Saying such things is a bit over exaggerating, which I would assume isn't a good thing for an interviewee to do.

I dunno about that, some people will be able to make it convincing that they genuinely want a shit job (its how I got all my previous shit jobs), but obvs if it sounds EVEN MORE absurd than standard HR/ corporate bullshit you probably went over the edge... hard to know really where that line is but def seem v enthusiastic about the prospect of the job.

edit: and good luck!

I once got great advice from a friend (a friend of yours as well Fnordie), that ones MO in an interview is to manipulate the interviewer into seeing a "younger them" in "you". Don't laugh or take that the wrong way gutter minds, its good advice. Basically, folks want to hire a "mini-me". They want folks that look up to their nominal middle management achievements. It makes them feel good, in the interview, you want to make them feel good more than you want to talk yourself up. One strategy I use during the "do you have any questions" section, is to query about the history of the business, press for news about its successes. Middle managers often personally identify with the business identity and boss, its less awkward than asking about personal achievements. Once that is through, and your the new "fast track" entry level drone, you can carry on with the business of feeding yourself and your family and perhaps, if you're a plucky communist bastard (and I know you are iexist) you can make the interviewer regret ever giving you a call back.

A Wotsit, this is some prole-as-fuck solid GOLD and exactly what I'm on about in this post!.

just my advice iexist...stay in the wobs and be cool wob friends with that other wob in your area... you are both dope...you'll make it happen

Excellent advice from the anarchist formerly known as Morgan Presta (that's a pseudonym, don't smack me mods)

I'd just add that it's worth awkwardly asking about personal achievements. The magic question is "So how did YOU get to where you are today?" It strokes their ego and plays off the mini-me thing.

They want you to bullshit. It's the only plausible explanation for how this crap keeps landing me jobs.

I told an interviewer that I wanted a job because I really needed the money and the interview ended 20 seconds later

You mean you didn't want the opportunity to provide excellent customer service, or otherwise add value to the companies product?

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Your definitely not guaranteed a response, the courtesy of refusal letters is far in the past. If you don't hear from them after an application you didn't get it 99% of the time.

P.S I'm going to my 2nd job interview having finished sixth form in the summer of 2012 because I really couldn't be fucked with work then shit happened then I spent the whole of 2013 at varying levels of depression and using it as an excuse to not get a job (how justified that was varied also) then this year so far because I've been trying to set up a business with an ex solfed member delivering junk mail.

How long should it take for a response if your going to get one? It varies, but I'd imagine a couple weeks max.

Yeah you rarely hear back if not successful, unless its a big employer and they have a HR bod who just fires off a load of standard rejection emails after bosses shortlist for interview (sometimes after they actually offered someone the job- by which point it'd be ages so probs not expecting success anyways).

They will usually call everyone who was interviewed, but not contact everyone who applied.

I'd generally assume no success after two weeks or so. I have known it take longer, maybe 3-4 weeks but only when the job advert would have attracted loads of responses (e.g. if it doesn't specify much in terms of experience etc) and if there's a public holiday soon after the deadline.

Once I've submitted an application I try to move on & search for more vacancies and plough on with the next batch of forms, to avoid getting too anxious about checking and disappointed when I hear nowt back. When I was younger I used to call and ask for feedback about 2-3 weeks after the deadline, sometimes I got helpful advice, often not (often clear they couldn't remember my application at all as they'd probably not read it for a fortnight). But if you're not experienced in doing applications it can be helpful to chase feedback, as can getting others to read it before you submit.

Job hunting really sucks but just try not to get too hung up on one vacancy/ application as others will pop up sooner or later.

edit: cross post with croydonian- good luck to all hunting atm

iexist, I applied for a couple of CVS jobs about a week and a half ago and just got a form letter rejection email today. Hope you have better luck than me!