For most of my life I have worked independently, though I have been in more or less normal jobs in a couple of occasions. Recently (early 2011) I decided to try to get a job that to show that I am not a complete misfit. I wanted (as I still do) to work in the field of online collaboration between citizens and institutions - hence the video above. I engaged in four interactions:
- a European level government institution, that I approached through the traditional channel of applying for a job
- a high-profile, government-backed charity in the UK, also approached through the traditional recruitment channel
- a multinational tech company, who got in touch with me on the Internet and asked me to engage in their famously exhausting recruitment procedure
- another European level government institution, who knew me through previous work and straight-out offered me a position
Number 2 was good: a fast, flexible (interviews on Skype) procedure. The people who interviewed me, I think, got what they needed. They did not hire me, I came second. But that is probably OK, they made a call that the other person was a better match.
Number 3 was not so great: good, clever people, but they seemed to oscillate between looking for somebody with my profile and looking for somebody with a totally different profile. Maybe the recruitment panel had internal disagreement. Problem is, they were taking forever to do this (last time I checked the position was still open, 8 full months after they got in touch with me and 5 months after I accepted another offer!). To be fair, they did warn me that the process could be long.
Number 4 worked great.
My take home from the experience: formal recruitment processes seem to be useless for people with non-standard profiles as me. What is your experience?