I have an interview coming up, which I'm happy about, but I don't know if or what kind of job the center can offer me.
I got the interview because I finally decided to get over my nervousness about calling companies. One of the most important things I learned about job hunting in France during my Masters was to end my cover letters saying "I'll contact you before x date" and then to call the person, even (or especially) if I hadn't heard anything from them. With some large companies the receptionist might not want to pass you through to the head of the department or the head of HR, but it's really important to talk to the person yourself (not just leave a message with the receptionist), so our instructor told us to say it was a personal matter or that we were returning a call in those kind of cases.
I hate to write cover letters that are the equivalent of cold calls ("Hi, you don't know me, but I'd like to work for you"), but they are actually the best/only way to get an interview in career fields that work by networking or word of mouth.
So Friday I called one literary festival I'd applied to and learned that the head of communications to whom I'd sent my application no longer worked for the festival. Another good reason to call: people change jobs and no answer could just mean they don't work there anymore. Then I called the dance center and chatted with the woman who suggested we meet. Almost every time I've called someone after sending my résumé they suggest we meet for an interview. I need to keep that in mind so I feel confident enough to call places.
I mentioned other tips and tricks for job/internship hunting back in the spring, but since my post about my convention de stage hunting got a few comments, I thought I'd talk about it again.
Since I'm on the liste des demandeurs d'emploi again, I went through my old file and put old résumés in my scratch paper file and looked at some of the old cover letters I'd written. I know now that I had a too "American" approach in describing myself as someone who went above and beyond the job of secretary or admin assistant. I even wrote a cover letter talking about how being a documentaliste (file clerk, more or less) was not just filing papers, but understanding the organization of the company. The reality is that in France a file clerk is just a file clerk. A secretary is not asked to think about what she's doing or whether or not it's efficient, she's just supposed to do it. This idea is reflected in the many different small diplomas that are available. In practice of course a good employee is someone who understands how what they're doing fits into the big picture, and a small company/business might look for someone who is more than "just a secretary", but in general, don't sell yourself as the person who can do everything: they'll just see you as not an expert in any one position.
I mentioned in the older post you should always find equivalent descriptions for things you've done. My high school diploma is now translated as Bac S with C2I. I don't know that the Bac S necessarily does anything, but the C2I (Certificat Information et Internet) is a computer literacy test, which lets people know I can use a computer. Seeing as how I had to type all papers starting in 6th grade, I think it's honest to say my high school diploma is an equivalent. When I was looking for admin assistant jobs (before going back to school), some people were puzzled by the fact that I was looking for such a job without a BTS assistant administratif. For a while I put that my high school diploma was equivalent to a Bac Pro secretariat. I looked into VAE (validation des acquis de l'éxperience) briefly in order to validate my skills, but was discouraged by the high price. No one at the ANPE bothered to tell me that if you're on the unemployment list your VAE can be paid for either by the Assedic or the Conseil Régional (depending on how much you worked in the past months). Definitely look into getting financial help either from your Conseil Régional or as part of a Droit inviduel à la formation if you want to do a VAE.
Something I didn't mention in my previous post was to email an interview summary to the person you met after the interview. In the email, you thank them of course for taking the time to meet you, then summarize what you understood they're looking for, and remind them that of course you're the perfect person for the job. I interviewed for my internship on a Friday and sent this message over the weekend, and Monday morning when they read my email they called me to say I had the job because I seemed really motivated. I didn't do this for the internship I interviewed for at the space agency and I didn't get the job.
The next thing on my personal to-do list for job hunting is to put up complete profiles on Apec, ANPE, Monster, etc so that anyone searching for a chargé de communication in Toulouse will find my résumé online. It's a pain in the butt to enter all the information several times on different websites, but I need to do it because after looking through the pile of candidatures spontanées they have, the next step is look up people online. It's free or cheaper and less time consuming than placing an ad and receiving an avalanche of applications.
No comments:
Post a Comment