Exciting week and more coming…

Job Hunting

I really enjoy my life in Oz and I have enjoyed extreme freedom in doing freelance work and creating our resources site verysimpledesigns.com. And whilst my partner encouraged me to continu my solo ventures, I thought it would be good to look around for a cool job that at least brings in some steady money too. I am a bit too picky to relay on others for that – tho my partner keeps telling me that is the sole reason why some girls marry. Well.. I am a kinda independent girl I guess. Anyways, we talked it over and he told me please don’t go for a high profile job again, you will be all stressed and forget to enjoy life and sure will have no more time for all the cool creative things you do now. So I started looking around for a job that would teach me new things, allow me to develop some skills further and would consider me even tho I might be unqualified for some things (skills that are not much developed yet) but overqualified for others (work that I have done for many years and can do during sleep).

Web Designer/Developer

After a few days I came across an advertisement for a junior web developer/designer for a very company that is known for its search engine optimization work. I have done quite some website design and development, but on a different platform and mainly to provide access portals to adminstrative information systems. So this would be a new area, developing for WordPress and most exciting – learning more about SEO optimization. I wrote a lengthy application letter, included my CV and said there might be a win-win situation – and yes I know it is an entry level job – money isn’t everything (not in my book anyways). We talked about it, I got a technical interview and I ended up with a new job. The very cool thing about this job is that there is no office, except for a virtual one. That cuts 10+ hours travel time out of the working week and should leave me enough time to continu creative work. The contract says that I am bound to work for them exclusively and not to undertake any work in a competitive field – so the freelancing webdesign is put on hold.

Cute Kittens

Also as you may remember our cute cat passed away last month. There was a litter of kittens at a neighbour’s house and my mate came home a few weeks ago and asked carefully if I would be interested in one of those little critters. I thought it would be a bit too soon, but I had to confess I miss a cat around the house. I grew up with cats and have held cats almost all my life. Last Saturday it became clear that all the cats from this litter had found a home already. Sunday we went to the RSPCA – we just went for a look at the kitten home and were sold immediately. There was this cute gray little lady screaming her lungs out to please take her home with us and a few cages down was a cute playful lady that might make a good playmate. We talked to the caretakers and the cats were put together to see if they could make good mates. We went home with both of them. The gray tabby has cute little spots on her belly, we named her Dax. The dark tortoise is 3 weeks older, a bit more dominant but surely the wisest of the two, we named her Moogie. You got to be a Trekkie to see the resemblance.

Dax
Dax
Moogie
Moogie

Interview

Yesterday was my big day. A first interview in a new country. Also my first job interview in 9 years, but as I have dealt with many clients on many contracts over the past few years, that was not what scared me. I was warned about being grilled on the technical component mostly, so I had spent last week in brushing up some knowledge. To my surprise very few technical questions were asked, and I had a good and animated talk with the manager and a developer. The job is exactly what I hoped for, and would place me in an excellent position to easily start up work in a new environment. As far as I know my only negative point is that I do not have any relevant experience for the financial sector, but as I have worked successfully for both the industrial sector as well the public sector, I do not see that as a problem myself. Just a new field to explore and to learn new things about. I hope I made that clear. I know they are interviewing other candidates, so I do have to be a bit patience for a final outcome. If it does not work out, well then at least I have brushed up my knowledge on job interviews in this country 🙂

A small step…

for mankind, but a big step for me. I got contacted by a recruiter to see if I am interested in a certain job. I am very particular in the kind of work I want to do. I want challenges, work in a challenging environment, do a nice mix of design and development. To my surprise the job profile offered exactly that. And within hours I got an invitation for a job interview early next week. Yay! It will be my first interview in a new country and a different language. I keep my fingers crossed and hope any reader will do that too 😀