Yeah. What the title says. I should have left the country last week, as most of my plans kinda fell through - and those were the only things holding me back. Let's take a look at what helped make my decision to stay.
The dinner - I could have hosted that on a subsequent weekend.
Multisport - we lost, so it's not like I would have been missed.
Work at Main Drug Mart was optional. I'll work now that I know I'm stuck here at home and I've got nothing better to do.
The networking night fell apart after the snow-fall, but that was planned last-minute too. Fuck, if that night wasn't a total waste of time.
Spinning with Mr. G was good, but again, could have been done on another day.
Tonight's festivities have fallen through, despite long-standing plans.
I could have memo'ed ahead of time and skipped army on Friday, and arrived some time on Saturday.
So what the hell am I doing in Toronto? I could be on a cruise in the Bahamas, boozing and smoking in the Dom. Rep., or even Cuba again. Instead, I'm gonna work at MDM tonight, make some cash, and spend myself back to contentedness. On a good note, I've been working out so much (out of boredom) that I've lost some flab and gained another 2 lbs. Whatever.
So apparently, a lot of flower shops took a beating yesterday because the supply of fresh flowers was unable to move out of distribution centres due to the unavailability of trucks getting held back by the inclement weather.
Bored and Annoyed,
-d
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Like Charlie
I was invited on a tour of the Cadbury Chocolate Factory on Gladstone Ave. (Dufferin and College, downtown). It was everything I hoped and more. As soon as you walk through the doors, the smell of chocolate just hits you.
I came away with a loot bag FULL of stuff, including fresh Caramilk bars right off the line. Plus, I know, first hand, what the Caramilk secret is now. I watched those suckers being made.
I think I'm gonna love this job.
I came away with a loot bag FULL of stuff, including fresh Caramilk bars right off the line. Plus, I know, first hand, what the Caramilk secret is now. I watched those suckers being made.
I think I'm gonna love this job.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Dinner's on me next weekend.
As promised, I will try to arrange a dinner next weekend (Feb 10/11). Originally planned out of spite, from the Tremblant plans falling through, I've decided instead to make it a celebration.
Yesterday, I received my contract from Cadbury Adams Canada Inc. for a 6 month full-time job in their Regulatory Affairs department. I'll be working with Marketing to ensure label compliance. It's entry level, in the foods industry rather than drugs, but I still see the potential for a good future. Hopefully, I'll be such a pornstar that they'll offer me a full-time indeterminate position when my contract is up. I start on Feb 19.
Anyway, I've learned some lessons about the job hunt in the last month-and-a-half.
I sent out approximately 30-35 resumes and applications. Maybe about a third of those were cold, the rest were in response to postings. Out of those 30-35, I got 2 interviews, one of which resulted in this job offer. So, that's about a 6% response rate, 3% success rate. I remember my Dad telling me that when he was job hunting, he sent out 40 resumes, got maybe a 10% response rate and a 3% success rate. So really, during the process of job hunting, while the rate of return seems discouraging, perseverance seems to pay off.
The Cadbury job was referred to me by Leslie Yang - you all remember Leslie from Haig, right? Anyway, I honestly believe that if I didn't have her help, I wouldn't even have warranted an interview. So, like the Career Centre at U of T says, networking is critical in finding a job. We have friends in all different kinds of industries, who have working siblings and friends. Towards the end, I even thought about Facebook - after all, it originally started as a networking tool for university grads. In retrospect, I would say that more of my effort should have been focused on networking rather than responding to published ads and postings.
While preparing for my interview, I explored a lot of the kinds of questions that managers like to ask. I mean, we all know the typical ones and how to answer, but I was more interested in the WHY behind the question. Why would a manager ask a particular question, and what does my answer tell them? For the longest time, those damn behavioural questions stumped me. I thought they were the stupidest things ever. As I researched interview techniques and stuff like that, I came to realize that those questions are designed to establish if a certain behaviour is normal for you. By that, I mean given a difficult situation, how could you be expected to react? The key here is specificity. The rationale is if you can come up with a specific and recent response, it's something that you know how to deal with, because you deal with it regularly. The only issue I take with behavioural questions now is that I feel they're only effective if the candidate has some solid work experience. Without daily interaction with co-workers or team-mates, the opportunity to come across difficult and relevant situations is rare. Basically, what I'm saying is that they're great tools for interviewers, but only if the interviewee has work experience. Asking behavioural questions to undergrads or high school students is still stupid, in my opinion (U of T Faculty of Pharmacy, I'm talking to YOU).
Anyway, I learned a lot, and I think those three points were the highlight of my experience in the last little while. Besides that stuff, I learned quite a bit about cover letters and resumes, and I compiled a list of potential interview questions, and general pointers on how to answer them. So, if anybody needs help in their job hunt, feel free to hit me up.
Yesterday, I received my contract from Cadbury Adams Canada Inc. for a 6 month full-time job in their Regulatory Affairs department. I'll be working with Marketing to ensure label compliance. It's entry level, in the foods industry rather than drugs, but I still see the potential for a good future. Hopefully, I'll be such a pornstar that they'll offer me a full-time indeterminate position when my contract is up. I start on Feb 19.
Anyway, I've learned some lessons about the job hunt in the last month-and-a-half.
I sent out approximately 30-35 resumes and applications. Maybe about a third of those were cold, the rest were in response to postings. Out of those 30-35, I got 2 interviews, one of which resulted in this job offer. So, that's about a 6% response rate, 3% success rate. I remember my Dad telling me that when he was job hunting, he sent out 40 resumes, got maybe a 10% response rate and a 3% success rate. So really, during the process of job hunting, while the rate of return seems discouraging, perseverance seems to pay off.
The Cadbury job was referred to me by Leslie Yang - you all remember Leslie from Haig, right? Anyway, I honestly believe that if I didn't have her help, I wouldn't even have warranted an interview. So, like the Career Centre at U of T says, networking is critical in finding a job. We have friends in all different kinds of industries, who have working siblings and friends. Towards the end, I even thought about Facebook - after all, it originally started as a networking tool for university grads. In retrospect, I would say that more of my effort should have been focused on networking rather than responding to published ads and postings.
While preparing for my interview, I explored a lot of the kinds of questions that managers like to ask. I mean, we all know the typical ones and how to answer, but I was more interested in the WHY behind the question. Why would a manager ask a particular question, and what does my answer tell them? For the longest time, those damn behavioural questions stumped me. I thought they were the stupidest things ever. As I researched interview techniques and stuff like that, I came to realize that those questions are designed to establish if a certain behaviour is normal for you. By that, I mean given a difficult situation, how could you be expected to react? The key here is specificity. The rationale is if you can come up with a specific and recent response, it's something that you know how to deal with, because you deal with it regularly. The only issue I take with behavioural questions now is that I feel they're only effective if the candidate has some solid work experience. Without daily interaction with co-workers or team-mates, the opportunity to come across difficult and relevant situations is rare. Basically, what I'm saying is that they're great tools for interviewers, but only if the interviewee has work experience. Asking behavioural questions to undergrads or high school students is still stupid, in my opinion (U of T Faculty of Pharmacy, I'm talking to YOU).
Anyway, I learned a lot, and I think those three points were the highlight of my experience in the last little while. Besides that stuff, I learned quite a bit about cover letters and resumes, and I compiled a list of potential interview questions, and general pointers on how to answer them. So, if anybody needs help in their job hunt, feel free to hit me up.
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