Confusion Reigns Supreme

I’m still taking tentative steps into the redeployment pool, though my managers are giving me the water wings that I need to get me back up to speed with selling myself to a new employer.

I say “a new employer”, but essentially I will still be employed by the Civil Service.

I’ve had to update my profile on the CS jobs website in order to make sure that I’m actually considered for any same-level jobs in the areas of my choice (and no, Berlin was not an option, at least not yet).  I’ve chosen to stay local for now and hope for a job that will give me a chance to develop myself in post.  Basically, I’m taking a few baby steps with a view to taking larger strides fairly soon.

A job in Berlin would be my ideal ultimate step, but until such time as that is feasible it has to be taken one step at a time.  The main one being the promotion to grade D.  An E grade post in any overseas post just would not pay enough to support my lifestyle.  Hell, it hardly supports me here!

I’ve also, as I have mentioned before, had to provide my choices of the type of work I’d like to do.  This has always been tricky for me, as I’ve never in my life known what I wanted to do, except for that one evening when I realised that maybe I was now getting on a bit too much to start thinking of designing and building telescopes…  Engineering, science, astronomy all wrapped up in one job – now that would heave suited me, but I missed the boat through indecision when it mattered.  It’s something I could work towards, I suppose, but given my age…  For now I’ve chosen Admin Support (always a necessary role), Information Technology (always needed, and I’m told, even by myself, that I seem to be fairly adept in that field) and just out of curiosity, and because I have a feeling I’d enjoy it, Librarian.  We’ll see what comes up.

Then came the all-important task of letting my future managers know what I’m capable of work-wise – The Core Competences and the statement thereof.

Scared to write what I’m good at?  No.  Flummoxed as to where to start?  Gotcha!

So far I’ve been able to write something about what I do now according to the “S.T.A.R.” system (Situation, Task, Action, Result, in case you wanted to know) but a lot of it just seems to be so mundane that anyone reading it would think “Why the hell is he even applying for this job?”

Describing how I actually do my job was bad enough, but some of the extra tasks I’ve taken on seem as mundane if not more so than my main duties.  Things like phoning for an engineer when the photocopier goes down.  Mind you, that one links back to my previous job as Graphics Officer running a reprographics office single-handedly for two and occasionally three separate organisations within the Ministry, so maybe I should mention that and also that I was actually the one that volunteered to look after that dear little monochrome Canon of ours.

Hmmm…  Methinks my Core Competences need a tiny bit more tweaking…