"I'm sorry, we didn't receive your CV"

Not surprising really that its tough to get a job if you get the words "Sorry, there must have been a hitch in our system because we didn't receive your CV last week as you said." as a reply to "What did you think of my CV"

Following up on an application I sent last week out to a company seeking a Swedish speaking marketer for an online digital media campaign, I received that comment above. Now the recruiter rectified the problem immediately and gave me excellent service and really tried to help me out. As with all the recruitment agencies I've spoken to, they seem to be very scared about presenting candidates without exact relevant experience. Its not enough that you've handled customers before, you have to have handled left handed customers who have green eyes and short black hair and who like long strolls on the beach, coconut fudge sundaes and books by Les Franklin (whoever the hell that is.. its a made up name so if there really is an author named that... WOW... what a coincidence :-))

What was nice was the kind and good service this recruiter gave to me. The first such good service from a recruiter I've had. Now I realise that they probably have their fair share of "how the hell can this person be applying to this" especially with things as they are and people not only able to focus on getting jobs that they have done in the past... but its no fun sitting on the receiving end of a bunch of negativity. Funny thing I've noticed is this... its often women who are sitting in the recruitment agencies that I'm calling about jobs that have been posted or about possibly having interviews with the recruitment agencies. Its often guys who call me from recruitment agencies that are looking for sales people, telemarketers etc who have received my CV from monster and who have picked up on the fact that I speak Swedish and I could call and talk to Swedes from here. To be perfectly honest, if I wanted to speak to Swedes on the phone as a telemarketer I'd have stayed in Sweden... but I am lookin to use my Swedish as an advantage in other interesting roles. Have no problems calling to Sweden in more than a telemarketer type or role.

A professor of mine Joey Reiman at Emory told us... you have to call 5 times, you have to email 5 times. And you will always get a reply on the 5th! I think this could be quite cultural. This might be generalising quite a lot but I think if a Swede got 5 telephone calls or emails from the same person in a short space of time they would get extremely ticked off. I think that if you contacted an American man who was watching some NASCAR 5 times in the same evening... it could get quite nasty but generally I think business people in the US might expect to be pestered cause they've got them little blackberry's with them and convenientely read the mail but have far too many more important ones to answer so they forget about it until they are sitting at home or at the office... in London with the Blackberry culture this'll happen too in places but instead of 5 I reckon its more likely to be around 3ish. There is still that courtesy/ polite way of looking at things here. Nevertheless... its all about constantly following up on things...


Yesterday on my "Todo list" that I try to write every morning, I wrote "1 hour brainstorm about other opportunities". So thats what I did. I started a group on Facebook called Lon-doers. You see I hear from a lot of people that "Lots of my friends are in the same situation" etc etc. If that in fact is the case that there are a lot of people struggling to find something to do, why not find a way of connecting these people together. Never before (in our generation) have so many clever and intelligent people been without a job. One typical question you'll get from interviewers will be "what did you do with the time between jobs". If there are any other people out there that want to DO something... and might want some friendly ears or some expertise, some contacts, my idea was that that could be the place to go. I started it on Facebook because I knew I could ask my friends in London to join and/or invite others they knew that are in similar positions. If successful I'd like to make it independent of Facebook but obviously it depends on how many people find it useful. Its still in its infancy but we'll see if some people join that want to work on some "un-paid" projects that they themselves think up. ie. organise a fun day in the park for loads of people... organise an afterschool event for kids... start a little company doing something...


Over the past few weeks I've spoken to or met up with a few old friends... some of whom have laughed and commented, I remember those crazy Christmas stories you always wrote... and those summer stories. It got me thinking. Now that I have a little more time on my hands. Now that I need some way to let my creativity run free... why not start writing a little... some short stories... with me Short is often not that easy though.. always becomes longer than expected:-)
Anyway... so what I've done is I've set up a new blogpage called KraiseeCookie (Click here to go there) where I (under my pseudonym Jayes) will write a few stories when I have the time, when i have the creativity, when I have the craving. You're more than welcome to read along.


About this pseudonym... I've always wanted to have a Pseudonym... thought a little about it today and pressdo.. I came up with Jayes. It stands for Ja (yes in Swedish) and Yes (yes in English) :-) Positive and Positive!! :-D

Before I go I wanted to mention some "Sport industry" news...
Today the IOC (International Olympic Committee) announced an agreement with the Sportfive agency for the broadcast rights to the 2014 Winter and 2016 Olympic Games. For a significant number of years the European Broadcast Union were in charge of it but now it is Sportfive who will sell this on to different channels around Europe. Imagine not being able to see the Olympics on Free-to-air tv channels like BBC in the UK or SVT in Sweden. Thats not going to happen because the IOC require whoever buy the rights that it is shown on free-to-air channels. This little deal though is probably a huge blow to the EBU... interesting how things change... nevertheless, there's still plenty of money in sports... but as the recruiter said yesterday ...

Sports is something everyone wants to get into...

Is it really? I haven't met anyone who has given it an honest chance ... I don't know anyone close to me in it... sure it sounds more exciting than selling dishwashers (no offence to any dishwasher sales people of course) but I think there's more talk and less action regarding sport. It's often a dream... and never becomes reality!!!