Mona lands her dream job

Mona, 46, who was recently featured in the Bexhill Observer describing her job search experiences in a fiercely competitive market, has been offered a position as office manager with World Satellite based at Catsfield; a position which she initially applied for two months ago.

Mona, who has been unemployed for approximately six months, said: "Two months ago I applied for what I thought was a dream job as an office manager. I'd been really excited. The owner was a really nice man, I liked the company, it was in a lovely country setting, and I thought it would really suit me."

However Mona's hopes of finally being able to leave the dole queue were dashed when, due to the volume of highly experienced people who had applied for the same position, owner of World Satellite, Brian Goodridge, chose to make the most of the experiences of one particular applicant, creating a different role from the one advertised.

Mona said: "There were so many applicants that were well-educated and over-qualified, who had been made redundant, and who applied for the same position, that the company decided to change their plans, created a new position, and hired a man as a business development manager."

She added: " I was very disappointed and the owner mentioned that he may get back in touch with me but I didn't like to read too much into it."

Mona continued with her job search and then a couple of weeks ago, right out of the blue one Sunday afternoon, she received a call at home asking her to return to World Satellite for a second interview.

She said: "The owner said that having given the new gentleman time to settle into his new role he'd had time to create more business, find new accounts and, one of the two ladies in the office had also left, so it was then possible for him to bring me on board."

She added: "The second interview went really well and I met the new business manager. They offered me the job there and then. It was the same job that I had originally been interviewed for, with the same pay as previously discussed; I'm very happy, very excited."

Mona starts her new job on June 1st and said the last six months have been tough and she is relieved to finally be back in employment and saying goodbye to Bexhill's Job Centre Plus.

She said: "I am about to go up the road to the Job Centre for my final bi-weekly appointment, but this time I will be signing off. I think I am going to enjoy that '“ nothing against the very nice people up there, of course!The last six months have not been fun or easy. I'd reached the point of having had enough of the job search. It's hard work to keep mentally and emotionally focused in such a tough market but you never know what's round the corner. I'm chuffed to bits."