How To Get A Job - Part 2

Right, now we’re suited and booted and raring to go – let’s hand out those beautiful CVs.

If you’re in a position where you can be picky about where you work, then I would suggest doing a search on google or yell.com to find the type of shop you would preferably like to work in. It can tell you how far from your address it is too, which is quite handy.

If you’re a ‘beggar’, and consequently it is impractical for you to simultaneously be a ‘chooser’ then your best bet it to literally walk around wherever it is you’d like to work and give every shop, café, and brothel your CV. Go to the high street and pop a CV in to every shop you can get to, it might mean you hand them out to places you don’t like, but what did I tell you about being a ‘chooser’?! No way, Jose!

Go to places other people might not have thought of – hotels need a lot of staff but often people don’t think of them because they’re not a shop or a bit out of the way. Smaller offices are also good places to try.

Always, always ask your friends and family if they know of any jobs that are going. They might have a friend of a friend of a dog who needs someone to work in an ice cream factory for them for £100 an hour. This is how I’ve ended up in 50% of my jobs so far, so it’s definitely a good idea to ask.

It’s always better to hand out more CVs than you think you should. The more people that have it, the more interview offer you will get, and you can always turn them down if something better comes along.

When you go into the shop and do the following:

• Have a look around before you try to talk to the staff
• Wait until they’re not busy to talk to them
• Talk to the person who looks the friendliest
• If possible, buy something
• Be friendly, and make some sort of comment or observation that makes you seem friendly – talk to them because you want them to want to work with you!
• Speak clearly
• Listen to them
  
• If they say no, ask them if they know when they will be in the future
• If they say no again, ask if you can give them your CV to get back to you if anything comes up
• Give them a cheeky, cheeky little grin
• Skip out of the store like a magical pixie, flapping your arms as if they were wings

The last point is optional.

So, now you’ve handed them out, it's time to have a nice cup of tea and stress over your financial situation! And maybe have a biscuit too!

They may or may not get back to you in a week or so. If you’ve heard nothing after 3 weeks then I’d keep looking. It could be that they’re keeping your CV on file and you’ll get a call from them in 4 months time when you’ve forgotten all about them, or have resorted to going on the game, or worse – McDonalds.

If you're a lucky little goose you might get an interview. I may or may not write about interviews, because to be honest I'm shockingly bad at interviews and the only reason anybody has given me a job as a result of one is that they felt sorry for me after I'd made such an enormous arse of myself.