Choices
- scotland career
I went to the Scottish Government a couple of days ago to meet with a policy adviser, the very friendly boyfriend of a friend of a super helpful friend, to get my overly romantic ideas of how policy is made shattered by reality and then get a decent and well-paid job in industry and stop dreaming about saving the world.
Well, it didn’t quite work out like that. In fact, the opposite was true. The policy adviser is involved with Marine Scotland and talked frankly about his job and working for the government, and I liked it so much that I want to work there even more and for less money than before. The only negative things he could come up with were that the upstairs bathrooms in the government building smell, and that the allowances for travel expenses got reduced. He said I could easily do the job, but being the government there is no way around the official hiring process, and the best I could do is either apply to jobs there directly or via a certain temp agency. Applying directly hasn’t worked out so far, and there aren’t that many job openings anyway. There are twenty spots for a paid general internship opening up though which I am applying for and he offered to read and possibly pimp my application. These positions are fixed for six months with the possibility of an extension to one year. But he also said that once you’re in it’s easy to stay, possibly in a different position though. If I register with the temp agency they will only be able to get me a temporary position as a policy officer at quite a low level, but again, once you’re in you’re in.
So I need to get my head around this. I don’t even have a choice to make yet, but should I get the official job offer at the engineering company soon, I’d have to stall to see if there is some chance to get a government position. And then I’d have to choose between a well-paid permanent position of which I have a good grasp what it is all about, and a poorly paid temporary job that I don’t know much about, but that I have been working towards for months now, and which might get me my dream job. And while this is all hypothetical still, it will make for some interesting next weeks.
Well, it didn’t quite work out like that. In fact, the opposite was true. The policy adviser is involved with Marine Scotland and talked frankly about his job and working for the government, and I liked it so much that I want to work there even more and for less money than before. The only negative things he could come up with were that the upstairs bathrooms in the government building smell, and that the allowances for travel expenses got reduced. He said I could easily do the job, but being the government there is no way around the official hiring process, and the best I could do is either apply to jobs there directly or via a certain temp agency. Applying directly hasn’t worked out so far, and there aren’t that many job openings anyway. There are twenty spots for a paid general internship opening up though which I am applying for and he offered to read and possibly pimp my application. These positions are fixed for six months with the possibility of an extension to one year. But he also said that once you’re in it’s easy to stay, possibly in a different position though. If I register with the temp agency they will only be able to get me a temporary position as a policy officer at quite a low level, but again, once you’re in you’re in.
So I need to get my head around this. I don’t even have a choice to make yet, but should I get the official job offer at the engineering company soon, I’d have to stall to see if there is some chance to get a government position. And then I’d have to choose between a well-paid permanent position of which I have a good grasp what it is all about, and a poorly paid temporary job that I don’t know much about, but that I have been working towards for months now, and which might get me my dream job. And while this is all hypothetical still, it will make for some interesting next weeks.
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