My contract job at Linfox finished recently (I'll write more about that when I continue my MBA-at-work blog post series) so I spent the last week watching the Olympics (which was awesome). Now that I've had a nice break, I'm back to looking for jobs.

An Unsuccessful Job Application

Actually, I did interview for a job during my last week at Linfox -- the recruitment consultants at Hudson are very efficient -- but, after three rounds of interviews and reaching the final stage of the process (with just two candidates in the running) I didn't get end up getting it.

This was unfortunate because it was a good job, at a good company, and I really liked the people I would have been working with. Oh well. Such is life.

The Silver Lining

It's not all bad, though: this was only my second serious job application since completing the MBA -- i.e. an application to a permanent position that I really wanted to get and could then see myself growing with over the following year or two -- and, in both cases, I reached the final stage before being dropped. [More on my job application philosophy here]

What this means is that I have what it takes to do these kinds of jobs -- that is, I have the 'can do', 'will do', and 'fit', as my interviewers from both companies told me -- it's just that one of the other applicants was more appropriate for that particular role at that particular time. In other words, that applicant's Unique Selling Proposition (USP) was more suited to that role than mine was. In the job I just applied to, for example, the winning applicant had the marketing agency experience that the company wanted.

This is good: this means the company is paying very close attention to the people it is hiring and, when it happens that my USP is the most suitable for that role, that company, and that team, I'll win out over the other applicants and will know that the company did it for all the right reasons.

Next Steps

So, what next? Well, the people at Hudson have me on their radar -- in fact I met with another recruitment consultant of theirs this morning -- so I expect to get a good lead from them (they're very good at what they do). Hopefully that lead will come sooner rather than later.

Otherwise, I continue to look for jobs online and continue to network for openings in the hidden job market. Let's see how things go. If you know of anything I might be interested in, please let me know. Thanks.