The past few days have been spent attempting to tweak my C.V in a bid to manipulate it into something beyond fantastic and closer to mind blowing. I now have a range of C.Vs; professional, academic, low-skilled, high-skilled and so on and so forth. I have done this so I am more marketable across a range of jobs. Any H.R person worth their weight in bullshit I am sure will quickly identify the hybridity of templates I have used. I decided it was best to ask for C.V advice through the means of twitter, just to check I had not made too many fundamental errors, and I got back the following (actually very useful) links;
- The lovely people at Target Jobs UK http://targetjobs.co.uk/careers-advice/applications-and-cvs
- The equally lovely people at Guardian Jobs http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/cv-advice/
- And the Monstrous people (joke, please laugh) at Monster Careers http://career-advice.monster.co.uk/cvs-applications/cv-advice/the-worst-cv-mistake-ever/article.aspx
- Further kudos goes to the exceptional help and advice I got from Epilepsy Action who explained to me very clearly that I can still apply for jobs even when they ask for a driving licence (if you are epileptic and have frequent seizures you can not drive). As I was in the same job for 3 years and got diagnosed whilst in my last job I never worried about it, but it has put me off applying for particular jobs in recent weeks when they say "Full Clean Driving Licence". More information about that can be found here http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/info/equality/where-equality-act-can-help/employment .
Details over.
Now one of the things I have been examining and thinking about are my skills. What skills do I have? Do I have any skills whatsoever? Are they 'soft' skills or are they 'hard' skills are they even key skills? I really still have no idea. But I compiled a list of sorts and came up with the following;
- Excellent communication skills, both written and spoken =I suffer from both writers and verbal diarrhoea.
- The ability to make complex issues clear and simple =because I am quite simple I go to great lengths to find explanations of things (not Wikipedia even, more like CBEEBIES) which are exceptionally visual and basic so I can understand them and then regurgitate it for someone else.
- Good knowledge and understanding of current educational issues = I am former teacher you know. I know who Gove is.
- Specialist knowledge related to Sociology and Educational Policy = the degree.
- Good organisational and forward planning skills = I can set my alarm and I can check my facebook events on a regular basis if I choose too. I don't.
- Exceptionally competent IT Skills = I can turn a computer on and surf the net. BANG!
- Knitting, Hula-hooping, dancing, Spanish, harmonica, uke, drawing, writing = mediocre and fad like hobbies I have.
So after making this list ,I was faced with a sad truth. I have nothing out of the ordinary or exceptional to offer anyone. I don't even have enthusiasm. But I do have my precious lackofshame. So, in knowledge of my lackofshame and my ability to present in front of people. I have decided to add something new to my repertoire of disappointing skills:
I am going to learn to rap. This is not going to be like my aforementioned fad hobbies. I am going to do this with a purpose.
For what
I have come across two rapping teachers in my life. One was my primary school teacher, who taught me to rap my times tables, she was aided by a terrible video with a fake Madonna lookalike. Thanks to her and the fake Madonna with no conical boobs I still know my two times table. The other teacher I came across was in Central America, she was a Christian,who liked Christian Rap. She was also a maths teacher and she would rap about maths to the kids. Now this is where my advantage lies; I am a sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll teacher. So I am going to rap about that.Dangerous.But there is plenty of workable material out there for me to use. You must remember I am also the idiot who in an interview lesson behaved like a dog and took 20 bananas into another one. So in light of my lack of skills I need to do something to come across as enthusiastic and dedicated. When I get offered my next interview, my aim, and this is serious, is for me to work a rap verse into it.
I think the advantage of having rapping as a skill is quite clear;
- It can demonstrate my personality and confidence.
- I will be able to highlight my poor humour.
- By composing my own raps I will be able to show that I am both literate and culturally astute (as in I am down with the kids).
I have started this task with gusto by attempting to learn the following raps;
Neither are particularly fast and they both have very recognisable backing tracks, so if I rework the lyrics to suit the purpose of an interview I think it could go down quite well.
In other news
- I never made it to the beautician.
- I found my dog reading from the laptop today, ironically it was on a page about dogs on-line. He was pawing at the screen and the keyboard.
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