Saturday morning musings - woozy musings on a competitive world

I often wake very early. By nature, I am not an early riser. However, there was a period in my life when the only free undistracted writing time was between 4 and 6am. That period has passed, but the habit of waking early has become entrenched.

Up a little after 4am and feeling somewhat woozy, I staggered to the kitchen and turned the jug on. It's been a very busy, busy, week. I don't know about you, it depends on your age, but as I get older I find that I can't quite maintain the same pace.

Objectively, I'm still no slouch. I still wrote thousands of words this week across print and electronic outlets. As a university student, I found a two thousand word essay a challenge. Now I write the equivalent of several such essays each week, all outside the time bounds set by daily work needs.

The world changes. I know that must seem dreadfully obvious, but it's still true.

I was interviewing this week. It was a short term contract project officer position, low level. I looked at the CVs and blinked. In fact, I read them several times. Every single applicant was grossly, I mean grossly, over-qualified for the position. Some had been out of work for almost twelve months. We interviewed four. 

My fellow interviewer, the boss of the area, looked at me and said "I wish that I could employ them all!"  I agreed. Put the four together and you would have a very powerful team.

Want project management skills? Try multiple qualifications in project management with capacity demonstrated in multiple projects. Want mapinfo? Got it. Want high level Excel?  Got it. Want statistical capacity in analysing the results of major national data collections? Got it. Want to set performance standards, develop contracts and then manage contracts against standards? Got it. Want to map a process so that you can improve it? Got it. And so it goes on. 

Remember, this is a low level position we are talking about, 

Interestingly, what you didn't get was experience in managing others, That rarely happens now. This wasn't necessary for the position, but once you would would have expected such capacity and experience  with the roles that these people had carried out. Management used to be considered important. We have redefined this from existence.

Water boiled, I carried my cup across to to the computer and started to explore the internet. There was some interesting stuff, but this will have to wait until later.