ZOIS Blog

Every week I find an interesting job. I’m posting the result on the @JCPM_Feedback Twitter account, and it appears here too.

Martin’s interesting job of the week: Be both a web-developer and car-park attendant in Belfast — details at Jobcentre Online Northern Ireland

Build and develop websites, manage social networking sites, plan and develop marketing strategy, maintain eBay shop, search word optimisation, design leaflets and posters when required. Experience required in the completing of contracts. Night security and running of a multi-story car park office

This is from the Department of Employment and Learning, Northern Ireland (DELNI). I used to scrape the DELNI site, but no longer. Their Terms and Conditions forbid it, and just to be certain, they employ Capchas as you’ll observe if you try to view the vacancy details. It makes navigation of the site just a bit harder and was an unintended consequence of mine, and possibly others, scraping efforts.

Martin’s Interesting Job of the Week will become a good deal more sporadic in future. Trying to find these things with the ‘legitimate’ web-sites is hard, and there’s not enough feedback from regular users.

Every week I find an interesting job. I’m posting the result on the @JCPM_Feedback Twitter account, and it appears here too.

As you know, if you’ve been following things here, the new Jobsearch Direct web-site (also known as Universal Jobmatch) is forbidden to my scraping endeavours. I’m therefore don’t have the feedstock that my fancy little search tools used to use to dig-up interesting jobs. These tools worked by searching within various classifications for amusing keywords, presenting a list of candidates for my perusal.

I’ve had a stab at doing this manually using the Jobsearch Direct site, and like many of you found this quite hard. Although their search system isn’t really designed to do this, I lost the will to live after a couple of minutes. It mustn’t be that much fun actually using it in anger, looking for real jobs. I was therefore going to give up, and make this a valedictory post.

However, in possibly one last hurrah, we’ve got this: Be a Government Assassin in London — https://jobsearch.direct.gov.uk/GetJob.aspx?JobID=270089

From time to time the UK government has a need to remove people whose continued existence poses a risk to the effective conduct of public order. So we require particularly skilled professionals who are prepared to work on a non-attributable basis to deal with those problems.

As I write this, however, the posting has been removed, and I don’t have a private copy. We should therefore be grateful to one Richard Conroy, who’s got a screen grab.

This is clearly a spoof, and a demonstration that screening on the EDON replacement, Jobvacancies Businesslink, isn’t all it should be.

Update

This has got the Twitterverse all a tweet. It has also gone national with the mainstream media, with the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail all reporting this. Even sites like Business Insider, a somewhat breathless American business Blog, has gotten in on the act.

What seems to have been missed in all of this pointing and laughing, is that we’re supposed to trust the web-site that hosted this posting with our CVs. And if they keep doing this, you can see why they don’t want people scraping their site.

Every week I find an interesting job. I’m posting the result on the @JCPM_Feedback Twitter account, and it appears here too.

Martin’s interesting job of the week — Be the Relief in a Loughborough Sex Shop http://zois.com/LGB/33880.

Applicants must be aged 18 or over. THIS IS A ROLE WORKING IN A LICENSED SEX SHOP. Requirements: GCSE or O Level, NVQ 4 in customer service or equivalent. Skills Required: Must have experience of working within a similar role within retail.

The position is styled Relief Store Manager and the original reference may be available. The use of the interesting term ‘Relief’ is theirs. It got my attention.

Elsewhere, this week, we see no less that 35 Santa Claus postings, several Fathers Christmas and one Santa Clause.

There’s usually in excess of 40,000 new postings on Jobseekers Direct in a single working week. They find their way to the Mirror and some of them are quite interesting.

Enjoy exploring the more obscure parts of Jobcentre Plus Mirror, and if you come across other interesting things, let me know.

Every week I find an interesting job. I’m posting the result on the @JCPM_Feedback Twitter account, and it appears here too.

I’m an amateur projectionist, so this posting struck me right away. I found it interesting, and I thought I’d indulge myself. As I write this 35mm film is dying. It’s all rather sad really and digital systems are becoming more and more prevalent. I’m not the only one lamenting this and it’s been on the cards for some time.

I have to say that there’s nothing quite like projecting a ‘real’ Movie. But I’m sure that some old-timers would point and laugh at me, for I don’t have to deal with multiple projectors, nitrate stock, nor carbon-arc lamps. There is, nonetheless, a certain frisson when you open the shutter on a 35mm projector and quickly have to adjust the framing and focus. And when you see the cue-marks, marking a reel change; the splice going through the gate. It keeps you engaged, even if the Movie you’re showing is boredom itself. Sometimes, and The Guard springs to mind, the Editor will deliberately cause a worrying break, or focus effect at a new reels beginning. Yes, lads, very good. I am awake.

So far, I’ve not succumbed to a Fight Club moment. As we all go digital, there’s less opportunity too, as well.

Martin’s interesting job of the week — Project Movies in Mildenhall: http://zois.com/MIO/20554.

Under direct supervision of the projectionist, learn all techniques involved in the operation and maintenance of 35 mm motion picture projection and sound equipment. Works with gradually decreasing degrees of supervision with the aim of acquiring the skills necessary to work independently as a 35mm Projectionist. Under the guidance of the Projectionist. Learn to perform the following tasks by first observing, then assisting the Projectionist, and finally working independently; Operate, cleans and performs routine maintenance of 35mm motion picture projection and sound equipment. Project films in the order indicated on the film inspection report, and prepare pertinent sections of the report. If required, splice damaged film.

The position is styled Projectionist and the original reference may be available. The original posting is almost entirely in SHOUTY Uppercase. I’ve folded this down, and corrected some grammar, which may have suffered in a presumed cut’n'paste exercise.

There’s usually in excess of 40,000 new postings on Jobseekers Direct in a single working week. They find their way to the Mirror and some of them are quite interesting.

Enjoy exploring the more obscure parts of Jobcentre Plus Mirror, and if you come across other interesting things, let me know.

Every week I find an interesting job. I’m posting the result on the @JCPM_Feedback Twitter account, and it appears here too.

Martin’s interesting job of the week — Carve Carrots into Flowers in Plymouth: http://zois.com/PTY/41304.

A upmarket buffet restaurant require a skilful and experienced fruit and vegetable carving and displaying artist. Whom have a creative mind and strong sense colours

The position is styled Vegetable and Fruit Carving Artist and the original reference may be available.

Elsewhere there’s been postings for a new Richard Dawkins, a Model Booker and a Shoe and Handbag designer.

There’s usually in excess of 40,000 new postings on Jobseekers Direct in a single working week. They find their way to the Mirror and some of them are quite interesting.

Enjoy exploring the more obscure parts of Jobcentre Plus Mirror, and if you come across other interesting things, let me know.

Every week I find an interesting job. I’m posting the result on the @JCPM_Feedback Twitter account, and it appears here too.

As something of an erstwhile biologist I’ve always found insects interesting. I briefly, and a bit off-topic, studied their nervous system as an Undergraduate. It’s very simple, obviously, in comparison with higher vertebrates with a pair of ganglia, a blob of cells, per body segment. Each leg pair gets a pair of ganglia and two parallel nerve trunks running along the length of the body. The whole thing is sort-of upside-down too, with the insects’ nervous systems being physically lower than their digestive tracts.

It can lead to the pointless pedantry, of which I’m famous. What goes through an insect’s mind when it hits a car windscreen? Its pre-Oesophageal Ganglia. Boom boom.

Butterflies are some of the most pretty insects. They have large wings with a variety of adornments that we admire, but which evolution has given them with some competitive advantage. Amongst them the nicest and most interesting are actually farmed and presented in zoological-like gardens. Yes, a Butterfly Zoo, and I’m sure you’re familiar with them too. These farm/zoos require labour, and so:

Martin’s interesting job of the week — Wrangle Butterflies in Lancaster http://zois.com/LAC/54187.

Lancaster City Council requires 2 Zoo Keepers to be responsible for the day to day running of the Butterfly and Mini Beast House at Williamson Park. This includes feeding, watering, cleaning and maintaining the welfare of the collection comprising of some of the worlds most exotic butterflies and reptiles, insects, invertebrates and small mammals.

The position is styled Zoo Keeper and the original reference may be available.

Not just Lepidoptera, but ‘mini-beasts’, whatever they are. And it gives me an excuse for a Movie Poster too.

There’s usually in excess of 40,000 new postings on Jobseekers Direct in a single working week. They find their way to the Mirror and some of them are quite interesting.

Enjoy exploring the more obscure parts of Jobcentre Plus Mirror, and if you come across other interesting things, let me know.

Every week I find an interesting job. I’m posting the result on the @JCPM_Feedback Twitter account, and it appears here too.

That automated process I wrote about last week does indeed throw a number of ‘interesting’ jobs up. Some of them don’t really merit further investigation, and once I’ve pulled them up in my web-browser they are quite quickly discounted. One of the categories that’s frequently seen is Web Designers and, I curl my lip at this, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) experts. Lots of mid-sized companies feel the need to run Blogs and have a Flash and Javascript riddled brochure web-site. I normally depreciate these opportunities, but then this came along:

Martin’s interesting job of the week — Fiddle with the iTunes Store in Westminster: http://zois.com/IWM/90472.

Coordinating various programming and design elements in building the iTunes Store, including but not limited to: store pages, newsletters, and coordinating with team members across all media types. QA and maintenance of the iTunes Store: removing and replacing featured content from the store, filing bug reports as needed.

The position is styled iTunes Featured Content Producer EMEIA and the original reference may be available.

There’s a whole raft of Managerial Nice To Haves but the bottom line is you’ll need JIT, HTML, and CMS experience. The ‘JIT’ is a fancy name for Winging It, rather than some aspect of computer language Interpreter design and I doubt they’re running IBM’s veteran Mainframe operating system.

One good thing, though. This is for Apple, so you don’t need to be a Flash expert.

Other, arguably equally interesting, postings I’ve seen are a Comedian in Glasgow and a Fichley based Book Editor. The latter needs “coherence skills” and no possessive apostrophes, so a bit like Jobseekers Direct themselves.

There’s usually in excess of 40,000 new postings on Jobseekers Direct in a single working week. They find their way to the Mirror and some of them are quite interesting.

Enjoy exploring the more obscure parts of Jobcentre Plus Mirror, and if you come across other interesting things, let me know.

Every week I find an interesting job. I’m posting the result on the @JCPM_Feedback Twitter account, and it appears here too.

It can be quite hard choosing the Job of the Week. I’ve now, to a certain extend, automated this task by writing a small program which produces a series of candidates based on key-words and the like. This returns around 250 jobs, these days. It is hardly surprising for the database gets in excess of 8,000 postings on a typical working day.

So what to chose this week? After last week’s Lingerie Promoter, I thought I could introduce a tarts-n-vicars vibe, but then thought better of it, with this:

Martin’s interesting job of the week — A Priest in Strangeways: http://zois.com/FTS/162043.

This is a chaplaincy job in an establishment which provides pastoral and faith specific care to prisoners and staff Summary HMP Manchester formerly known as Strangeways is a prison in the High Security Estate, housing up to 1200 prisoners remand, convicted, Category A, SIU and VP.

The position is styled Roman Catholic Chaplain and the original reference may be available.

Other, arguably equally interesting, postings I’ve seen are a Circus Instructor, a Magician and a Apprentice Footballer. The later is rather poorly paid, and it’s not clear what you do after the ‘apprenticeship’, but at least you can boast that you were paid to play football, which is more than most of us can.

There’s usually in excess of 40,000 new postings on Jobseekers Direct in a single working week. They find their way to the Mirror and some of them are quite interesting.

Enjoy exploring the more obscure parts of Jobcentre Plus Mirror, and if you come across other interesting things, let me know.

Every week I find an interesting job. I’m posting the result on the @JCPM_Feedback Twitter account, and it appears here too.

I grow tired with looking at Christmas Jobs, I though something a little more exotic.

It was at the very beginning of my career, after I graduated and I was on the cusp between being a Biochemist and a Computer Programmer, read Boring and Even More Boring. I worked in Industrial Research, which wasn’t as interesting as it sounds, when some kind soul decided that I and some others of my relatively newly graduated colleagues should go to Llandudno and learn about the wider world. This chiefly consisted of Marketing; it was capitalised like that.

The Marketing Guy was interesting in that he was some kind of Brand Manager for Shield/Protect, a marbled toilet soap bar with deodorant properties. You may remember the TV adverts for it, I certainly do. The Marketing Guy marvelled at our low salaries and we marvelled at his inclusion in the process that selected young ladies for the adverts. These involved languid shower scenes where the young ladies appreciated the delights of showering with the soap. So the young ladies had to have the appropriate pulchritudinous qualities. My early-twenties self was quite in awe of the Marketing Guy, and working on computer models of organic chemistry for The Concern was never quite the same again. Oh, and Branding was very important too.

On that note we’ve this:

Martin’s interesting job of the week — A Lingerie Promoter in Guildford: http://zois.com/GUF/47684.

Play a crucial role in promoting our gorgeous products in store and at key marketing events. Supporting new product launches, promotions and other marketing events, you will meet and greet customers, talk confidently to them about their needs and subtly match these to our product range. Will offer and provide a bra fitting service, provide excellent customer service and support the sales team. You will be female, professional, immaculately presented, highly personable. You are friendly, approachable and will be passionate about our products. Your uniform reflects the glamorous feminine nature of the brand.

The position is styled Boux Belle and the original reference may be available.

The Boux Belles brand belongs to Boux Avenue which could be described as a sort of British version of Victoria’s Secret and a second outing in the lingerie business for Theo Paphitis, he of Ryman and Dragons’ Den fame.

There’s usually in excess of 40,000 new postings on Jobseekers Direct in a single working week. They find their way to the Mirror and some of them are quite interesting.

Enjoy exploring the more obscure parts of Jobcentre Plus Mirror, and if you come across other interesting things, let me know.

Every week I find an interesting job. I’m posting the result on the @JCPM_Feedback Twitter account, and it appears here too.

Martin’s interesting job of the week — Draw Cartoons in Windsor: http://zois.com/SLU/46932.

Hand-drawing CARICATURES, a.k.a cartoon portraits, of guests at LEGOLAND Windsor Resort. Full and Part-time work available – incl weekends.

The position is styled Caricature Artist and the original reference may be available.

This opportunity seems to be for a company called Artistic Licence UK; their web-site is ‘under construction’, so I won’t bother you with a link. They do appear to hold some kind of contract with Windsor LEGOLAND to provide these services. Get your pencils out.

There’s usually in excess of 40,000 new postings on Jobseekers Direct in a single working week. They find their way to the Mirror and some of them are quite interesting.

Enjoy exploring the more obscure parts of Jobcentre Plus Mirror, and if you come across other interesting things, let me know.