Categories: work
Tags: jobs, interviews
Date: 07 August 2009 20:46:28
Today I got offered a job, working for Natural England, the countryside conservation agency who are the advisers to government on matters of conservation. These are the people I have been wanting to work for for a long time. And while this is only temporary, its a really good start, and a very exciting job.
Technically the job is doing condition assessments of Sites of Special Scientific Interest. These sites are protected as the best examples of certain habitats in the UK, and are monitored on a regular basis to see if they are meeting their targets. However, as the field season will be on its way out soonish, I could be doing all sorts of other stuff as well. All in all, very exciting indeed. I think I'm going to be based in the Cambridge office, which is easily commutable from London, and a lovely place it is too.
In the last 6 months I've had an interesting relationship with Natural England recruitment. I applied for, and was interviewed for, a job back in March which I didn't get. I asked for some feedback, which I got about 2 weeks ago. Yes, about 4 months later. After not getting this one, I applied for the same post in another region, had a telephone interview in May, and had heard nothing (except many promises that I would be 'kept in touch' and would 'hear soon') until today (yes everything happens at once) when I got home to an email thanking me for my patience, but they would 'not be running any more assessment events for this campaign'. Not only very bad to keep people waiting this long and then ditch them all, but also the lack of contact and information the whole way through was pretty shocking.
If they hadn't just given me a job I might be even more unimpressed ;)