Job search woes

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

For those who didn’t read my thread from a couple weeks ago, I quit my job.

Now comes the extra fun part…getting a new job. Now, basically, in this day and age, there is pretty much one way to get a job that isn’t in your newspaper classifieds, and that’s the ol’ internet. I use monster.com and careerbuilder.com because they seem to be the two big ones and are reputable. I know ther are other job sites, but let’s face it, if I don’t know about them all that much, is a prospective employer? Especially in my field, which is fairly small when compared to things like marketing, teaching, or generic management.

First off, I looked for things like an advanced search option, but couldn’t find them. I want to only search for jobs that they list as needing 0-2 years experience, but it doesn’t seem like I can do that. OK, fine, I’ll just go through all the ones that aren’t listed as a “senior” or “manager” position. OK, but even lots of those want anywhere from five to ten years experience, so I am still wasting a lot of time sifting through jobs I am not qualified for.

Secondly, a LOT of the jobs I am looking at and am thinking about applying to don’t tell me the company I am applying to. Stupid staffing companies, like Kelly Resources and MRI Network post lots of jobs. In addition, lots of the jobs are listed as “General Employment” or “Company Confidential.” The Hell? Look, I want to be prepared to apply to this job. Sometimes it’s helpful to know ahead of time who I am applying to.

OK, so that covers some of the faults that aren’t on my end. Now for some of te faults that are on my end. For one, I also applied to grad school, and I don’t know when to expect a reply to them, so should I even be applying to jobs? What if i get an offer before I hear back from the school? Should I decide not to take the job in favor of school. But then, of course, I might not get accepted. I would rather go back to school and get my master’s than get a job, but obviously if grad school falls through, I want something else lined up. But at the same time, when is it too early to apply? I suppose I could just wait until I get a response back from grad school, but then I feel like I’m not being proactive enough in trying to get a job. In addition, I am moving come May (well, end of April.) So my address and what not is going to change and mess up all the contact info the companies will have, so maybe not do anything at all until after I move?

Man, this whole process is just plan horrible.

2

i guess the “optimal” sequence would have been:

  • stay on your job
  • apply 4 grad school
  • if no grad school bites, search 4 other job
  • quit first job … :slight_smile:
    I read somewhere that headhunters aint really interested in folks who are out of work, but specialize en getting folks who already have a job to switch

(I recon - my post wasnt too much of a help …)

cheers
alfred

3

Hey, I did the first two parts of that sequence. :stuck_out_tongue:

But in all honestly, I hate my job. A lot. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a job you hate with every fiber of your being, but if you have, you know the agony that can come from staying at it any longer than you want to, even if you might have to. As it is, my last day is March 3rd. I will have enough money to make it to the end of my lease at the end of April. If nothing comes up before then…well, I have a few options, none of which are great, all of which require getting some kind of job in the interim that isn’t in my field. Something I can work at for just a few months if I have to, like retail, construction, or something along those lines, to pay bills while I continue to find a job I want. But, having worked retail and construction before, I can safely say that I hate them less than I hate my current job.

4

Mr. brown was out of work for a long while, and I spent nearly every day for two years assisting his job search utilizing internet job boards, among other things. It took awhile, but you acquire a sense of what are bogus job ads designed just to bring in a batch of resumes so that someone can fatten their bank of prospects.

Here are some signs that scream “fake job” to me:

“Company Confidential”
Any ad that includes lots of exclamation points
Any ad that includes an absurdly broad slew of keywords, to maximize the number of search hits
Any ad posted by a list of certain contract/temp employers, the names of which I wish I post here
Any ad which requested a couple of skills, but was very vague as to what the job specifically entailed or the company’s line of business

I found the ad which gained him his present job through a local newspaper ad, albeit an online one.

5

You have to go into a job hunt full tilt. So ignore the fact you’ve applied to grad schools: until you have an offer in hand, it’s not relevant. I once had two strong job possibilities in the air – one I really wanted, and one that was a backup. I worked just as hard on getting the backup as I did on the one I wanted, until I got hired, whereupon I thanked the other person and told him I had received a better offer.

I also have found that local want ads are a perfectly good place to find jobs – I’ve gotten most of mine through them. I don’t think online job hunting sites are all that much better overall.

6

That works just fine and dandy if your local area has jobs in your field…my area does not. I live in a town of about 6,000, and it’s the largest town in all directions for forty miles. Go beyond those forty miles, and you get a real big city…40,000 people. :rolleyes: In addition, my field is not a large one, but rather specific.

I have searched a few large cities’ newspaper classifieds as well, just to see if they had anything, and there were a few hits, but still not many.

And if I’m hearing you right, I should just start applying to as many jobs as I can now (that look legit) and just pretend I didn’t apply to grad school? What if I get an offer from a job before I get a reply back from school? I don’t want to refuse the job, then find out I didn’t get in to grad school. By the same token, I don’t want to accept it, then a week before I’m set to move down there and start, tell them I can’t show up.

And for the msot part I have been avble to spot the fake ads. Ones that at the bottom list a bunch of key words, which include anything even remotely science or engineering related. I also avoid ones that are posted by Kelly Resources. From what I know of them, they are a hiring firm for science and ech companies, but it seems like most of their jobs are not full time positions, but short term 6-12 month ones, and thety don’t always come right out and say that in the ad. I also had one experience with tem when I graduated. I had an interview for a positon at a compnay in NJ, but it was through Kelyl Resources,so I had TWO interviews. One at Kelly, and oen at the actual company. The more interviews there are, the less my chanes of getting a job are (since I am pretty sure I suck at interviews…I also have a pretty crappy resume…I think I’m screwed.)