God, this sucks (unemployment)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

My GOD, everyone. I applied for an account here just so I could jump in on this awesome beatdown.

I feel like getting in a few licks, too. Currently employed, but buddy, I was THERE, cholly, and I could give a few pieces of insight.

“I disagree that I am out of touch. While I agree if you’re are in a very small town you might be limited in jobs, but I live in Chicago. I can 100% guarantee you, if you’re not looking 6-8 hours a day, you’re not trying.”

So what you’re saying is, the people that say they exhausted all their options are just like that because they don’t live in one of America’s biggest cities. PROTIP: Craigslist sucks. My favorites were Careerbuilder, Monster, Indeed, and the one set up by my state’s labor relations office…but I got the job I now have not because of any of them, but because I had worked with them before, hiring them as subcontractors. This option isn’t really open to people not in construction. Also, jobsearching takes resources! Computer, paper and ink to print resumes, transportation, clothes upkeep, personal hygiene upkeep…none of which you’re getting paid for. Where is all this supposed to come from?

“My own company is multinational and I see first hand that in the Chicago division we are over 50% part time. Our turn over is massive, but it works for us. At least for now. I was an H/R manager in the 90s, how people forget. We couldn’t fill jobs. I would have people laugh and walk out on me half way through the interview.”

So, what company did you work for again? Just asking, so I can be sure NEVER TO APPLY. So in good times, applicants would take one look at you and laugh themselves out of the room. In bad times, they grit their teeth and take the offer…but not for long, hence “high turnover”. Think the problem might be YOU?

“You look at things from the point of the job seeker. That isn’t going to help you. In order to get a job you need to think from the point of a job hirer. Since 2008 the rules have change a lot. You can’t do what you did before then and expect to get hired.”

All right sparky. What ARE the new rules? Oh yeah, be totally immune to despair, exhaustion, need for a paycheck, or a feeling of personal reward?

“I am not unemployed but I currently work over 70 hours. I’s 2am and I’m still working. Why? Because I’m setting up an office that hopefully will be staffed by mid January. I’m not getting paid anymore, but I do it, because I don’t want to be unemployed. It’s better to work 70+ hours and be tired than unemployed. This is also something I stress to people. If you have a job, I can guarantee your company has a long list of people who want to fill it for less money. So it’s not even enough to do a good job, you have to be on the mark all the time.”

Ah, yup, just as I suspected, according to you the new rules is “be willing to surrender your entire life to the company, period, and never ever ever ever screw up or your ass is out the door.”

*I have two employees ful time, fighting over a parking space. It ludicrous. The GM is going to axe them both if they don’t come to an agreement, because no one has time for such petty crap. I’ve tried to impress this on them, but they are both going out of their way to make it an issue. *

Is it a choice parking space, or the LAST parking space?

People who are working don’t realize how hard it is to get a job, since they haven’t looked in awhile. While people out of work are more than willing to undercut anyone to get any job.

That’s what we’re trying to tell YOU!

Is it bad out there, yes. Do I know it, yes. I’m hiring people part time for 8 or 16 hours, who leave my job to take, not a full tiime job, but a part time job that gives them 24 to 32 hours.

Can’t say I blame them. Simple math, baby.

My 17 year old son and his friends all have jobs, part time jobs, that pay minimum and they are all working with people over 40. Those older people can’t like it, but they do it.

Also scary. “They do it.” Yeah. Know what it tells the 17 year olds? “23 years from now, you might still be here!”

*And this is why I try to impress on people, you gotta keep looking constantly, you got to take any job. It’s always going to look better if you’re working even a crummy job a few hours a week.

Why? Because right now it’s not going to come down to skills. You’re not going to be one of two or three, you’ll be one out of five or more. *

Chicago. Five applicants for a job you post. I’d say the word got out, “never apply here!” Otherwise, you forgot the word “hundred”–THAT is the ratio of jobs/applicants prevalent in other major cities.

*My saying it doesn’t help you. You still have to find a way to get past that. Saying there are no jobs isn’t right. Saying there are only jobs with no benefits and 8 or 16 hours and they pay minimum wage IS correct. *

And you consider this acceptable? You’re part of the problem, not the solution.

42

One very popular option that might work for some is teaching English in Asia. Depending on the country, cost of living may be quite low, native-English speakers very much in demand as teachers, and the experience may be fun and enriching. With Google, you’ll quickly learn more about the opportunities than I know, but I can comment briefly on opportunities in Thailand.

Teachers at private schools in Bangkok can make $60,000 U.S. or more (though would probably need good credentials). Salaries are much lower at typical rural schools, but jobs are much easier to get. Just a few years ago, such jobs were available with no credentials at all (other than passport from English-speaking country), but today Thai requirements for credential (TEFL) and work permit might mean some other country (Cambodia?) is a better fit than Thailand … though plenty of foreigners work “under the table” in Thailand teaching or tutoring English.

Obviously, this option will make no sense for most people, but for some it might be like a fun paid vacation, and a rewarding life-changing experience.

43

I am not an HR person. I am spending about 50% of my time trying to hire people. I’m in Silicon Valley, which is about the best job market in the country right now, any my positions are highly technical, but I’m seeing lots of resumes.

As for number of applicants, both sides are right. It appears there are four times as many job seekers as jobs - but since every job seeker sends out hundreds of resumes these days, each position will get hundreds of applicants. The trick is to not look at the numbers but try to stand out.
The number one thing to do, and I can’t emphasize this enough, is to network and short circuit the application process. Hiring takes a lot of time and effort and is risky. If you know someone in the company who can vouch for you, and if he or she will bring your resume to a hiring manager, you will jump to the top of the line. Of course you need to be competent and have a decent resume, but I assume everyone here has that. They may not have something right now, but things are getting a bit better and if you can get them to think of your first when a position opens you can win.

Second, when you interview make it about them not about you - by which I mean keep the conversation focused on what you could do to make the hiring manager’s job easier, and do not have an objective about personal growth. I’ll worry about your professional growth after I hire you. Ask what they are looking for, what their problems are, and focus your description of your experience around what you can do for them. Example - being a whiz at Excel may or may not help you. If you find that the manager is drowning in record keeping, tell her that you know how to automate the books and make it so that she doesn’t have to do a lot of calculations using a calculator.

You might have heard the story about the two campers who wake up to find a hungry bear advancing on their campsite. One starts to put on his shows.
“What are you doing that for,” asks the other, “you can’t outrun the bear even with shoes.”
“I don’t have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you.”

Outrun the other applicants, and you’ll have a job a lot sooner that submitting tons of resumes to everyone with an opening.

44

I have to agree with Voyager.

It’s like this. HR people don’t give a shit. Their job is to weed out resumes and screen candidates and that’s what they care about. “Does this guy have the right buzzwords on his resume?” “Does he have the right attitude for our culture?” They don’t REALLY know what to look for because that’s simply not their background. They look for what they imagine the hiring managers want.

Hiring managers like Voyager and myself are looking to fill some specific business need or roll on a project. And we don’t want to spend months comparing 50 candidates. If you call me up and say “I have skills x y and z and I can start tomorrow”, I’d be perfectly happy to hire you provided you can back up what you say and aren’t too weird.

45

Implied here, and I should have mentioned it, is that you should research the company before calling, so you know the skills they want.
The nice thing about the tech world is that HR for the most part doesn’t even pretend to know the kinds of skills we are looking for. For the most part they have been helpful in arranging interview trips and in running the keyword search back when things were booming -but I defined the search. When I’ve interviewed HR explains benefit plans to you at the end and maybe helps you fill out the official application form.

And don’t be afraid of calling up. I’m pretty visible in my field, but no one does this. The worst that can happen is they say they don’t have anything or don’t want to talk to you. How come people who brag about their initiative and people skills on their resume don’t show any in job hunting?

46

I’ve had a lot of experience both looking for jobs and hiring people. Other than submitting resumes to Ladders, Monster, and Careerbuilder for the passive part of my job search, I almost never apply online. I’ll list like 50 - 100 companies that do what I do and then scour LinkedIn to figure out who is the hiring manager in the department I would be working for.

In the company I work for now, we received like 200 resumes on Monster within 24 hours for a standard office admin position. I’m not looking at all 200 resumes. I’ll skim through to narrow down to about 20. Then I’ll phone screen them down to about 5 I want to bring in for an actual interview. But an applicant can easily get around that process by calling me directly and impressing me within 20 seconds.

47

There is some good advice in this thread. It’s hard to give someone unemployed good advice without sounding condescending, so my hat’s off to mssmith and Voyager.

I’m getting job interviews. I had one today and it went well. Now that the phone calls are coming in I have renewed hope. My thoughts are with everyone out there really struggling… this process can be so emotionally exhausting.

48

Where I work, I refer to HR as Inhuman Resources.

I’ve hired a number of people over the years. While I’m obviously looking for a certain level of technical competency, the main question I ask myself when interviewing someone is, “Can I work with this person?”

If I sense any sort of negativity or “bad attitude” with the interviewee, I won’t hire them regardless of their technical prowess and accomplishments. I also won’t hire them if I sense they have any kind of mental problem or quirk (depression, antisocial tendencies, eccentric, etc.).

I’m looking for people who will do their jobs and not cause me problems.

49

You know, Crafter_Man, I do have to wonder if my place of work would hire you.

While I think we have some attitudes in common, my current profession almost requires one to have an eccentric streak. Well, maybe that’s why I’m working there and you’re working somewhere else.

The real shame right now is that there are millions of people who would be reliable, hard-working, dependable, and productive if they could just get hired. In all too many areas there are just too few jobs for the number of people looking for work and there’s damn little the job-hunters can do about that.

50

On the flip side of the coin, there are unemployed people who say they want a job, but don’t *really *want a job.

I have three acquaintances who are on unemployment. Each has the same sob story… “there are no jobs… there are no jobs… there are no jobs.” None of them seem to be looking for a job, though. :dubious: As far as I can tell, they sit at home all day watching movies and posting on FB.

I needed some painting done on my house over the summer, so I called each of them. I told them I would pay them $10/hour cash. The first acquaintance said, “Hmm, I’ll think about it.” The second said, “Well, uh, I would, but my knees have been bothering me lately.” The third guy said he was “too busy.” (He watches movies all day.)

I ended up doing all the work myself. While also holding down a full-time job.

I suspect many unemployed people are like my acquaintances. They claim to want a job. But when offered a job, they come up with all kinds of excuses why they can’t work. I guess I can’t blame them. Why work when you don’t have to? And if you’re on unemployment, why work when someone is paying you *not *to work?

51

This is something I hear (well, read) frequently from conservatives. I don’t want to hijack the thread and turn it into a political one, but it makes me wonder if ‘Why work if you don’t have to?’ is a trait of the Right since they seem to bring it up so often. Probably not, since I’ve known liberal slackers who don’t seem to want to work, as well as registered Republicans who won’t work unless they have to. It’s just that my oldest friend, who is a Teabagger… Well, that’s a story for another time and place. I apologise for the hijack, but I had to get it out.

To answer the question: I’ve been on unemployment a couple of times. It’s not exactly a paid vacation. From a practical standpoint, people need money to live. Even if you are collecting the benefit that you’ve been paying for all along, you know it’s not going to last long. When I’m flush I do my part in stimulating the economy; but I’m more the Ant than the Grasshopper. Even if I don’t have to work because I’m collecting UI, I ‘have to’ look for work because I think long-term. Having a job, I work as hard as I can at it. I had a job as an estimator, and when there wasn’t enough of that I swept floors or went out with a crew and swung a pick and shovel. If I’m getting paid, I must give something in exchange. If I’m on UI, then I must hold up my end and find a job. It’s my nature.

At my current job, my boss has to ‘chase me out’ at the end of the day more often than not. I don’t like leaving things unfinished. I’ve worked during downtime on vacations. I’m the only one in the office that knows how to do what I do. (Despite my offers, neither my boss nor coworker are interested in learning.) If I didn’t finish my work, I’d feel I was letting people down. I take pride in my work. If I’m unemployed, my pride takes a hit. My ego is much too large to accept that. (And psychologically, having been unemployed makes me want to work that much harder.)

The SO is unemployed. She’s finishing her BS in Nursing, but she sends out résumés and applications almost every day. She does not receive UI. She has student loans/FAFSA or something. It irks her to no end that she’s ‘mooching’ off of me. I tell her she’s not. I enjoy her company, and she provides a benefit just being here. It’s nice to not come home to an empty house. She’s been a paralegal and she flew Black Hawks. She’s been a phlebotomist. When she couldn’t get another job, when she was living in a depressed area, she laid fiberglass for boats and sewed uniforms at a factory. She’s another person who, because of how she’s wired, has to work. Though she’s unemployed now, she has a plan and she’s working toward fulfilling it. Working is fulfilling.

I’ve read anecdotes here and elsewhere, where people have been offered work and turned it down. I’ve seen my Teabagger friend who plays the Grasshopper, and other people who always come up with excuses not to work. But this attitude is alien to me. We all want to win the lottery and not have to work. But you know what? I’d work anyway. I’d keep my job until a replacement could be found, and I’d make sure he or she was trained before I left. Then I’d get some training and start a business. I can’t be idle.

‘Why work if you don’t have to?’ Because working provides fulfillment beyond money.

52

But who will they hire?
Let me guess, the job description will say “Must have 5-10 years in this field doing exactly this and with a particular degree”. If you’re truly unfortunate, you’ll discover that your HR manager is a clone of Bea: she wants people that are custom made for her needs, no matter how absurd.

I read somewhere recently that we’re facing a shortage of workers nationwide.

Oh wait I dropped a word, we’re facing a shortage of SKILLED workers nationwide. By “skilled”, they mean “have experience and education in a particular set of fields, even if those fields did not exist a few years ago, and therefore you could not possibly have been preparing for them, but employers nonetheless complain that their demands for specialists cannot be met for what they’re willing to pay.”

53

And Og forbid these people hire people with basic skills and train them. I read an interview with a CIO who moaned and groaned that he couldn’t hire people with specific knowledge of a certain application, but that was because he wanted someone else to train workers for him. I’m happy to say that we will train people in our sub-specialty.

54

I suppose you didn’t bother to read what msmith537 and I wrote. That there are n jobs and m * n people looking for them does not mean that every person has a 1 / m chance of getting a job. If someone thinks it is a lottery, and that sending out resumes is equivalent to buying more tickets, he is going to have less than an 1 / m chance.
There are too few jobs out there. I’d like to see enough so that you don’t have to be artful to get one. But that does not excuse considering landing a job an act of fate.

55

ISTR that Ford has a car that gets 70 mpg. (That might be Imperial gallons.) It isn’t sold in the U.S. Part of their reasoning is that the engines are built in England and it would be too expensive to import them. Why not set up a factory here? Americans can build British engines, as was demonstrated in WWII. Consumers would have the option of buying a fuel-efficient car, Ford would have a car that helps them meet the new mileage standards, and American workers would have some more jobs.

56

Wow, I Googled for that and came up with an article about it written in 1999: the Ford Prodigy. Also, I found articles with VW and Honda claiming to have hit the same target.

57

That too. Because after all, the “training” time is downtime…paying an employee who isn’t producing, as well as paying for their schooling! Can’t afford that!

58

This is the one I remember reading about: Ford ECOnetic Fiesta.

59

It has been a few years since I read something about this, so I’m quoting from memory. I remember an article that this is just hyperbole so that when they offshore the jobs to cheaper labor, they can excuse it because of the “lack of skilled workers in America”. This way corporations won’t get as much negative press for their practices. The skilled labor is here but they’re not getting hired.

60

that’s because the factories have been relocated to China and India, and manufacturing jobs are gone forever.

There is an amazing hole in our employment opportunities here in the US now. The manufacturing sector continues to bleed jobs just as soon as companies can relocate them. If not to Mexico, then overseas where labor is cheap. No one complained when you were buying lamps at Wal-mart for 19 cents, but now reality is starting to sink in.

Even educated folks are seeing their work shipped overseas. Software engineering is where I’ve seen this a lot. Software engineers in the US can be expensive, because they want benefits and high wages. There are programmers in India, Malaysia, and elsewhere that US programmers can’t compete with on an hour cost basis. So, that 4 year degree can get flushed down the tubes pretty quickly in some skill sets.

I think the jobs that you should set your sights on are jobs that cannot be farmed out to an overseas manufacturer. My friend does roofing and gutters, and even though he’s seen a slowdown since the boom years of the early 2000’s, he still has plenty of work. So do mechanics. Can’t farm your brake job and oil change to Singapore, right?

I don’t know what I’d do if I were just entering college now. There are a lot of things to take into consideration.