I smiled too soon

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Yup, exactly what the title says.

I recently (6 weeks ago) started a new job with the 3rd largest publisher in the UK. It was my first job in IT, and one that I was delighted to land (the interviewer said there'd be lots of interest in the position).

One of the attractions of the company was its reputation for investing in its staff; Indeed, on offering me the job, my supervisor had said that they'd pay for my degree course and any other certification exams that I'd also like to sit (this was great to hear as I'm currently studying the A+).

The company recently employed a new Chief Executive. This new chief executive who will remain anonymous, wasted little time in pressing forward with a programme of change. One of her first changes in the company was to employ a Chief Technology Officer (CTO). It didn't take long for the CTO to conclude that the technology that we were using was not up to standard and the management of the department was not as effective as it should be.

So, (and I'm sure some of you have guessed where I'm going with this) our new found friend began his programme of change instructing all staff to attend an urgent meeting first thing on Monday morning. This meeting was dubbed the first part of the "consultation process."

This Monday all IT staff attended the meeting - the first part of the consultation process. We were informed that there would be numerous changes: Changes to job titles, job roles, site location and more. The CTO explained why the changes were taking place and told us that further announcements would be made in a second meeting, a meeting which took place today.

In this second meeting today we were all told that we'd have until Tuesday to re-apply for our jobs . As you can imagine I'm in a state of shock and frankly feeling rather p***ed off. I've only just started with the company, I'm still in my probation period, and the funding of my IT training is in serious jeopardy!

I'm a resilient person and confident I'll retain my position, but this is not what you expect after 6 weeks of employment with a new company.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has experienced anything similar?

Alex

 

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Sorry to hear that mate. My gf has just been through the same process of having to apply for her existing job so I understand how demoralising it can be.

Unfortunately companies are well within their right to retsructure and it's just one of those crappy things you have to put up with.

I would try and stay positive and not let it get you down too much. You never know, the change may actually turn out to be a good thing.

 

I'm not against the proposed changes as they're changes for the better. I'm just annoyed that the company decided to recruit just before this change was due to take place. The CTO has been there for 5 months now he would have had an idea of what he was going to do long before I started.

 

In that case, you're likely safe, because you will most likely "fit" into the CTO's "master plan".

Restructuring, layoffs, mergers, closings, outsourcing... these things happen, and unfortunately, there's no way to really control them or avoid them, short of starting your own company and working for yourself. Best you can do is be the best you can be at whatever position you're in. After all, you don't have to outrun the lion... you just have to outrun your competition.

 

I've been at places where they've instituted sweeping changes once the "new order" came to power, but I've never been required to reapply for a job I already held.

 

Thank you for the words of encouragement guys. The self pity bit is over now, I'm going to get my CV up to scratch and prepare myself as best I can for another interview.

Bye for now.

Alex

 

Good luck Alex

 

Good luck Alex and dont worry, like BM said do the job to the best of your ability and you should be fine.

 

Good luck, mate.

 

Thanks all. I'll let you know how I get on.

Alex

 

Hi, I arranged a meeting with the head of HR today. During the meeting she pretty much guaranteed that my job is safe, (couldn't guarantee for legal reasons I guess) and surprisingly, urged me to apply for a more advanced position (f***ing brilliant!).

I'm not in the habit of taking fellow mans (forgive the sexist language ladies) word as Gospel, but I must say I'm now feeling rather confident.

I'd like to take this opportunity to again thank you for your words of encouragement, I'll keep you posted of events once everything becomes official.

 

It happens all the time in the UK now, when there is an organisational restructure or a bunch of redundancies you have to apply for your own job.

 

Of course that means after you apply, the company can choose not to hire you (again) and you're on the street. Great way to get rid of a lot of older employees who are near or at the top of their pay scale and replace them with newer folks who won't need to be paid nearly as much.

I understand that restructuring takes place and after all, profits are the bottom line, but for the sake of moral and just being a decent employer, you'd think they could figure out a better way to do it.

Micron is a world-wide producer of all kinds of memory and their main headquarters is right here in Boise. I worked as a contractor at one of their satellite offices last year for their software support team. They were trying to find a way to make me permanent when profits dipped and all the contractors were let go. Just a few weeks ago, they had a massive lay off locally, letting go of over 10% of their workers.

I know bad things happen, even in good companies.

 

Things often have a way of working out for the best. ;)

 

holy crap! i have never heard of reapplyin for a job I already had!? but I do like anonymous surveys that have people give their honest opinons about others at the company and then make management decsions off of that; God be with you man!
but freaking weird..........

 

Hear hear.

 

Certainly is. One of the cons of working for such a large firm I guess.

 

When you get the "bean counters" pulling the strings, which it ultimately comes down to in a restructure, then employee morale will be the last thing on their mind.

 

Seen this before it's a bit like clearing out the dead wood.
Poeple who have been in their jobs a long while get stuck in their ways. They like to stick to comfort zone. This means they tend to stick with older technologies they know & understand.

Sometimes this is fine for some organisations, but sometimes technologies over run them.

A fact of life in I.T.