h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

After having worked at my current job for six year in total, with the past 4 years doing the same thing, I've been toying back and forth with the idea of maybe applying for a Team Leader (or as I'm a contractor, they'll call it a Senior Associate) position.
I've pretty much been doing the job of a Team Leader as it is for the past year or so, going through analysis files and the like because our current TLs for the Nordic team has of course been a Scotsman and a Spaniard. Makes sense, right?

I had a talk with my then manager a while back telling her that I'd be interested in pursuing a TL role within the company, and she agreed that it might be a good idea. She had even commented on it in my yearly review that I would do a good job of it.
When talking to HR about it, I told them that I hadn't applied for it when they sent information out for people to apply for their "Senior Associate Program" because in the information pack it said you needed to have gone through a management course, and I hadn't. HR didn't think that would be a big problem, and that I should apply anyways.

So I did. Sent in my CV with a pretty good cover letter (I even had a political speech writer in the US that I know go through it and give me some touch ups on it) and of course it was shot down because I didn't have any management course listed in my CV and basically "the infopack said that you needed to have that".

That was back during the summer, like June or something.

Fast forward to about a month ago.
The Spanish TL of our team decided that she would move on, and left the company, so all of a sudden there's a vacancy for her job.
Good opportunity to see if I could apply for it since they seemingly interviewed any bugger who applied for it.

One small hiccup in the vacancy form, however was that it stated that you needed to have successfully copleted a Team Leader or Senior Acssociate interview beforehand, but figuring they'd had people in for it that apparently had no knowledge of the job itself, I decided to apply for it. (I've been doing a TL job for the team for forever, remember?).

The only reply I got back was that even if I had stated that I had been with the company for 6 years, I needed to provide a hard copy of my CV that verified that I hd been with the company for more than a year (I thought the fact that the soft copy of my CV that I sent said that my start date was June 1999 should take care of that, but maybe not.). I also needed to produce my "Objectives and results" from the past 6 months (I didn't even know I had any specific objectives more than "Do your job!"). And finally, I would also need a Certificate in Management or Supervising or have applied for a management course, and if I didn't have these things, I couldn't apply for the job.

So, basically the same thing as I got as a reply when I applied to the SA program in the summer.
Now, since that application during the summer, they did send out information that they'd start up a Management Modern Apprenticeship thing, and I applied for that. Never heard back from them.

The thing is, it seems as if you don't really have to have the management certificate at all before you apply for the job. You just need to be on the course for it. So if I then apply for the course, use that in my application, then decide I don't want to go through with the course once I get the job I applied for, what are they going to do?

I dunno.. I'm just getting really tired of this. I need a new job.

You're right. You do need a new job

Like that all over unfortunately. I take it you are still working in Greenock for the same people I am? I am also looking to leave them for very similar bureaucratic reasons. I can't get a more advanced job because I do not have experience but I can not go on any training that would give me the experience because no one will pay for a course in something I am not currently doing. Its a laugh.