I think that people need to be more open about failure. None of us are perfect - despite what our social media presence says - and all of us suffer rejection. But, by being open and honest about it, we make it easier for others to realise that they're not alone.

In that spirit - here, in no particular order, are the recent jobs which I failed to get. I've lightly edited most of the employer details.

Head of Open Source - Social Media Company

Bit of a long shot. Role was based in the USA and I'm not. But everyone is remote now, right? I thought I was an excellent match for the job spec, and I was genuinely eager to help them improve.

Perhaps I've been too snarky about them on Twitter, or perhaps my CV wasn't as enthusiastically American enough - but didn't even get to interview stage.

CTO - Large Government Department and Small Government Department

This is the sort of role that I think I want in the future. I didn't get an interview for either of these. But the process of applying was extremely instructive. I chatted with some of the team members and recruiting manager, found out more about what the job was likely to entail by speaking to people who did similar roles, and some friends sent me their own CVs to review.

Again, I didn't get interviews. But, I wasn't expecting to. Part of the application is letting recruiting teams know that's the track I'm on so - hopefully - they consider me when I'm closer to the goal.

Deputy Director - Small Government Department

An immediate rejection! But, crucially, with excellent feedback. They wanted someone with more financial / Treasury experience. Not much I can do about that, and good to know where I might be lacking.

More importantly, it came with an offer to discuss future opportunities. Some of the best people I've hired have applied for one job, but have then been asked to apply for another. Putting your CV in front of decision makers is always a good idea.

Deputy Head - Fairly New Government Department

If I'm honest, this was a bit of a dream job. It sounded like a lot of technical fun in an interesting growth area.

The interview panel asked me to prepare a 5 minute presentation on a specific subject. So, of course, I panicked and spent far too long on that and not enough time reading up about the department and their priorities.

I thought the interview went well. I've sat on the other side of the table enough times to know when a candidate is bombing.

Of course, afterwards I realised all the stupid mistakes I made. I misunderstood one of the questions and had to be course-corrected. I thought one of the panellists was someone else. I gave a crappy, rambling example when asked a simple question.

I waited patiently, then got this response.

You have reached the required standard, but we are unable to offer you a job immediately. We have placed you on a reserve list from which future appointments may be made.

Well! OK! I'm aiming at the right level but someone pipped me to the post. That's slightly annoying - but shows I'm on the right track.

Deputy Director for Technology - Internationally focussed Department

BZZZT nothing. I stressed my extensive international experience, and my work with startups and large corporates. With no feedback to go on, I'm not sure what I was missing. Oh well!

Deputy Director for Telecoms Policy - Take a Wild Guess!

I had mixed feelings about this one. I spent a decade working in the mobile industry on 3G and 4G deployment issues. Did I really want to go back to that world for 5G stuff? On the other hand, wouldn't it be good to have someone with practical experience in the role? Or is that too "poacher turned gamekeeper"?

I contacted the hiring manager beforehand to get a sense of what they were looking for. They tried to set up a call, but there was never a convenient time. Either I should have been a bit more proactive and persistent - or they already knew who they wanted to hire.

I thought my CV showed the right mix of telco and government experience. But, the panel didn't agree! Immediate rejection. I'd love to know what I should have done differently.

I appreciate they have hundreds of applicants, but it's hard to improve without feedback.

Deputy Director (Opportunities Across Government)

This was a "general call" to recruit Senior Civil Servants. I was expecting the competition to be fierce, and it sounds like they got a tonne of applicants. So they whittled them down with the dreaded online aptitude tests!

The verbal reasoning tests were so interesting. The tests are adaptive - changing their difficultly depending on how you do. By the end, I was being asked really tough questions. So I think I did OK - but I felt like I was answering "the data are ambiguous" too often. Maybe that's what they want?

The maths test were much more fun to do than the verbal tests. Lots of data manipulation. Again, I second-guessed myself for lots of the answers. I hate taking exams - and this reinforced that hatred.

A few weeks later, I got the "I regret to inform you" email. Interestingly, they gave me my test results back:

Numerical Reasoning test

Your score was 84%, meaning that you scored better than 84 percent of other SCS applicants who completed the test.

Verbal Reasoning test

Your score was 95%, meaning that you scored better than 95 percent of other SCS applicants who completed the test.

How about that! My self-assessment was back-to-front. I'm rather happy with those scores - although I obviously need to practice my maths more. I can't help wondering if they only wanted the top 1%, or whether it was something else in my application which turned them off.

Like The Murphys

Although it's slightly cathartic talking about this publicly, I'm not bitter about my experiences. In some cases, the role wasn't right for me. And, in others, I wasn't right for the role. I've recruited enough people to know that there's nothing a candidate can do if there are hundreds of CVs to review and theirs just doesn't hit the right keywords. And I've interviewed enough people to know that sometimes one candidate just shines.

Spending several weeks searching and applying for jobs is stressful. And I'm glad that I'm doing it from a position of employment.

Every person you admire, every person that you think is a success, is standing on a towering pile of rejection letters.

So, what have you failed at this week?

I concluded, by saying

You’re not too stupid to understand how to make effective use of QR codes. The “commandments” are mostly just common sense.

Use QR codes wherever they seem appropriate – but make sure that they’re scannable, work for everyone who scans them, and lead somewhere useful.

Y'see - I don't think people are too thick to use QR codes. Most of the time...

My Isle Of Wight

There's a new campaign to encourage people to visit the Isle of Wight. A laudable campaign to be sure. Take a look at this stunning poster. There's a QR code in the bottom left corner. Depressingly, the site isn't very mobile friendly. But that's not the worst of it. Not by a long shot.

Look Closer

Take a look at the actual code they've used. Try to scan it - I dare you.

Muppets.

When it goes wrong, you can come a cropper - take a look at this advert for the BlackBerry.  Somehow a character has crept in to the text which can't be rendered by the browser.

BlackBerry? Advert?

Immediately, one gets the sense of a poorly tested advert - one which probably goes to a dodgy site. Right? Wrong! Take a look at the page source - it clearly points to the official BlackBerry site.

HTML Source Code

Test, Test and Test Again

I've no idea what character is meant to be represented in that advert. But I know that the error should have been caught in testing.

• Test your advert to see if it works.
• Test your advert to see if it displays properly.
• Test your advert on multiple handsets.
• Test your advert in multiple browsers.
• Test your advert on devices which use a different language or character set.
• Test your advert before and after setting it live.
• Test your advert to make sure the ad-network isn't mangling it.

Like Bronzey or Silvery - But Made of Iron

The handset I used to test this was a BlackBerry.  Do you want to see what happens when you click on the link? Do you?

What A Mess

Yes, the site is the BlackBerry Pearl product page. The desktop version.  The version that the BlackBerry can't render properly.

Just in case it's not obvious, I'll spell it out for you.

• A mobile advert should point to a mobile-friendly site.
• If you're a huge, multi-national company who manufactures mobile phones, make sure your website has a mobile friendly version.
• Test your adverts on your product.

These mistakes aren't acceptable. For a company of RIM's size, it beggars beleif that this advert was approved without any apparent testing.

Twitter allows you to mark certain posts as favourites.  You may do this for a number of reasons - because you thought it was funny or interesting, because you want to reply to it later, or as a general bookmark feature

They're Private, Right?

Wrong. You can see any Twitter user's favourites - even if they've protected their tweets. You can't see the tweets of protected users.  Here are my favourites http://twitter.com/edent/favorites

You can also see who has marked your tweets as their favourites.

What Do Your Twitter Favourites Say About You?

Let's take a "random" example - The Royal Mail.  They only have one favourite.

🎧 phantomile poro 🎧

@CardCaptorKaren

It is written into the CWU constitution that Royal Mail must go on strike once every 4 months. Whiny fucks.

---

Nice.

If you're advising on social media policy - be sure to tell your clients that what they mark as a favourite are open for all to see.  What they bookmark may not create a favourable impression.

Now, there may be perfectly legitimate reasons for clicking "favourite" on an obnoxious or offensive tweet. You may want to mark it so you can show your lawyers, blog about nasty people on the Internet or even a simple mis-click with the mouse.  But in the highly fraught world of social media - it pays to think twice about how your actions may be perceived by others.

Here's how to make a successful downloads platform:

1. Make it easy for your customers to buy things.
2. ...er....
3. Nope. That's pretty much it.

So, here's the front page of the Ovi Store.

Count the errors

Here's every error I can find on the above the fold page...

1. Incomplete titles. "Star Trek Noki"? Surely "Nokia"? Looks sloppy and unprofessional.
2. Poor descriptions. "Ringtones In Cinemas Now!"? Ringtones aren't in cinemas. Is that one ringtone or several I'll be downloading? If you don't tell me what it is I'm getting, why would I download it?
3. Ratings. Why would you put unrated (or rated zero) content at the front of the store? You want your killer apps there.
4. Search. Why do I need to click through to search? There should be a text field and button there, not a link.
5. Colour differentiation. Using white and then light grey doesn't help customers easily scan across the page. A darker shade would help.
6. Menu bar. Is there an order to it? Is there a reason it splits haphazardly over three lines? The longer the menu - the less space for content. As it is, it's a pretty poor use of space.
7. No Nokia branding. I know they're trying to promote Ovi as a brand - but no one knows about it yet. The use of the Nokia logo would really help customers trust the store.

...and breathe...

Let's assume we're reckless enough to click on "Star Trek Noki". What do we find?

Oh dear...

Let's take this from the top. Don't forget, this is the Nokia Ovi Store's FIRST link. This is what they really want you to buy.

1. Where's the description? What exactly am I buying? It turns out, this is the product placement tune in the new Star Trek film. Some descriptive text would help. I thought it was going to be the film's theme tune!
2. The description - such as it is - appears half way down the page. Why do I have to scroll to see what I'm getting?
3. Photos? Why do I need photos of a ringtone? Why are there "more" photos when there's only the one?
4. The product photo is, essentially, black. A bit of colour to liven up the page wouldn't hurt.
5. The review - why isn't it in English?
6. Are the related links Games, Videos, Ringtones? Some context would help.

I clicked on download and got a blank page. Once I refreshed the page, the download started.

Huh?

Files should be named. It makes it easier for the user to find in their filesystem, it looks more professional when downloading.

So, I play the file and what do I get

Real professional lookin'

Add some fracking ID3 tags! It makes it easier for the user, it looks more professional and it costs the supplier nothing!

Gah! Fine. Ok. I'll go back to the store and grab something else. I click back and am presented with this monstrosity.

Where do we go from here?

Nothing. Not even a page telling me how to get back. How is this meant to encourage me to buy more? This page should thank me for downloading. It should encourage me to buy more. In this case, I'd expect to see more Star Trek merchandise that Nokia want to sell to me.

Contrast this with the N-Gage download from the N-Gage site.

Much better

Once my download is completed, I get sent back to a nice page which lets me continue enjoying the store.  Nokia have this technology for Ovi - but not in the Ovi Store. Bizarre.

Last, but not least - registration. I know that Nokia has to have a registration process - they don't have an MNO's advantage of seeing a customer's phone number. They also don't have an associated account which they can reuse - like Google or Apple.

Oh... No... Wait... They do. I've registered for a Nokia account, an Ovi account and a Mosh account. I don't seem to be able to use any of them with Ovi Store. NIH syndrome?

To be fair, the sign up process isn't too bad. Apple could learn a lot from it.

A pretty good sign up screen

The only criticisms I have are the "Mobile Number" field should be masked so the user can only enter numbers. I also think that a captcha is a bit of an overkill on a mobile site.

Good to see that the example number is from Ofcom's reserved range.

Overall, this is a step backwards for Nokia. Mosh and the original Ovi were quite good. This is just a mess.  By my count, there are at least 25 basic mistakes just from going to the front page and downloading a ringtone.

25 mistakes in 3 clicks.

[Disclaimer. In the interests of fairness, I work for Vodafone. Specifically looking after Vodafone live! a direct competitor to Ovi. The thoughts expressed in this post are my own and not those of my employer. I have nothing against Nokia; I kick up as much of a fuss about Apple and BlackBerry too!]

They've just announced a new app store - Ovi Store.  This is to replace the broken mess that is Mosh, N-Gage, Download and the current Ovi.  Why do I get the feeling that there are several fiefdoms within Nokia all working against one and other rather than working together?

So, let's take a look at the new service.

Nokia Ovi Store - Wow!

Wow... just wow. A blank page. Not even a "coming soon" message.  Lest you think I'm using some kind of shonky phone, I'm on a Nokia N95 8GB, firmware 20.0.016, in rather good HSDPA coverage.

You're supposed to be able to get to Ovi via the "Download!" application. I don't think I've used "Download!" since I first got the phone. On the surface it's a nice little App Store. If Nokia given it some love and attention, it would have got the recognition it deserved as the first integrated app store. As it is, it was left to die.

...please wait...

After 5 minutes of waiting for the "Download!" store to finish "Processing" I got bored. After 15 minutes nothing more had happened so I tried to cancel. Turns out you can't, so I rebooted the phone.

Never mind! I'll try going through the regular Ovi site.

Can you spot the store link?

No link to their brand new store. Hmmm.... odd.... Maybe I have to sign in to see it. Yes, that sounds plausible.

This isn't looking good...

Ok, a dodgy certificate isn't the worst error in the world. It's one of those things that says "We haven't tested our site and we really don't care if scary error messages put off our customers."

In any case, the sign in service doesn't work.

Ovi Error

Ah... Well, let's try again...

It just gets better and better

Right. So the site has no links and it doesn't work. Perhaps I imagined the Ovi Store launch? Let's check the Internet Oracle that is Google...

There's something there...

Google has found it! It must be there. Ok, so there's still a dodgy certificate - but I can't wait to start spending money with Nokia! Here we go!

Oh. Just another blank page.

So, there you have it, folks. The word "FAIL!" is overused, I feel. How about we agree to replace it with "NOKIA!"?