Thing is … I’m an urban planner, which is a very specialized profession. I can’t just open up the paper and see scores of jobs that are available. Since the majority of planning jobs are in the public sector, the standard bits of advice offered in the usual job-seeking guides, which are usually oriented towards those in business and sales, don’t apply.
On top of that, there’s some other challenges.
Few local governments in the Cleveland area have planning agencies, and there’s only a few private firms. That makes staying in the area a challenge.
The housing market in the Cleveland area is dead. I own my house, I’m upside-down in my mortgage, and live in an inner-ring suburb that was brutally hard by the foreclosure crisis; I’ve got three foreclosures at the end of my block. In other words, I can’t sell my house. If I can sell it, it would probably be a short sale.
My wonderful girlfriend is in grad school. She absolutely, positively, absitively cannot leave the area until she graduates next year. If I get move too far from Cleveland, my relationship will be doomed. She’s sticking with me through this, though, but if I move away any further than Chicago, Indianapolis or Toronto, our relationship may be doomed.
On a positive note: the job market for planners in Canada is good. There’s also the option of last resort: Dubai. Thing is. I would probably have to leave my dogs behind.
Today wasn’t real productive for me. Yesterday I went up and got my crap out of my office and said my goodbyes – that ended up taking most of the day. The friend who helped me get my stuff home and I talked about setting up some kind of online version of what I’ve been doing – that would be cool, but I don’t think it’s a realistic business model. He’s a business guy, though, so he was picking my brains on the content end and is going to research it on the business end.
No excuse for my not working on my resume, though – nor is the fact that I did laundry, got the plants and books [both in significant numbers] I brought home yesterday sorted out, and – with some tangential connection to what I’m supposed to be doing – read through the material from the unemployment office that came today. I can earn a tad over $200 a week without any reduction in my unemployment, so that’s good – gotta start looking for freelance gigs as well.
I just started looking this week. I’m still employed, but am not meshing well with our new management and figure it’s only a matter of time. I’m in a similar situation to elmwood’s in that I’m in a specialized field. I’ve got 22 years of public service ( I work for the state) and would prefer to stay in public service since I’d be eligible to retire in 5-8 years (5 with reduced benefits; 8 with full). I have a lot of transferrable skills, and would love to do something where I’m editing or writing as part of a team.
I’m starting by doing some financial planning (how little can I afford to make?), collecting contacts, making sure my resume information is updated, trying to make an exhaustive list of public employers in central Ohio. Of course, most of them aren’t hiring, but I’ve seen a few postings I might qualify for. I’m going to apply over the weekend and see if they take me anywhere.
I imagine I’ll mostly be lurking in this thread (barring sudden changes in my job status), but also wanted to wish everyone else good luck in their searches.
Hi all, I’m looking too. I moved here to the Bay Area to be with my lovely love, Maxthevool, about six weeks ago. I’ve had, um, ten interviews in that time. That kind of sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? (Then why don’t I have a job yet?!)
My field is informal education, my last job back home in Australia was managing a small science museum. I’ve worked in programs and education roles in museums too.
I’m currently waiting to hear back from a few places. You’re all right - the waiting is the worst bit.
I know I haven’t posted in this thread yet but I have been reading it daily and it has helped me quite a lot. I have been out of work since mid-February (company went out of business) and was getting depressed at the lack of interest in my resume. I was doing a lot of the don’ts in this thread; procrastinating about updating my resume, sleeping in late, staying in my PJ’s nearly all day, etc. Reading this thread helped by letting me know I wasn’t the only one going through this. Rejection after rejection just sucks the life and energy out of you.
Anyway, after finding this thread I got my act together and well, long story short, I got a kick ass job offer with a solid company at $7,000 more a year than my previous salary, once my probationary period is over. Plus travel to Tijuana, Mexico once every quarter on the company dime is part of the job. Score!!!
So thanks guys for sharing stories and tips. And for those still looking the jobs are out there, you just have to be persistent. The position I got had been vacant for three months before I came along. And I found it in the last place I would even think of looking, craigslist.com. I was using monster, careerbuilder, indeed and all the usual suspects and would have never thought of using craigslist if someone else hadn’t told me about it.
I got an offer yesterday, and put in my notice at my job. My commute had gotten to the point where it was worse than my commute in California used to be. I will be starting my new job in two weeks doing Unix system administration at a bank. I’m excited, but scared…
It is a lot. I don’t think I’ve ever had that many in that short a time when I’ve been job hunting.
On the other hand, the people who did get those jobs are internal, and while I don’t know who they are or what jobs they now occupy, it may be worth applying for them. So there’s that.
[sigh] I got out of the Army in early 2004 due to a service-related disability. I have had a couple part-time jobs since then and for about the past 2 years I have worked freelance for a local paper.
But that’s it. No part-time jobs appropriate to my skill set. No full-time opportunities at all.
I don’t have an expensive lifestyle but working freelance simply isn’t cutting it and I’m starting to get … debt.
Because of my disability I can’t work easy-to-get, simple jobs in retail or burger-flipping, and no matter how many resumes I send out for writing, editing or even data entry jobs I never hear a peep.
I just turned down an offer to go interview. I think I know the company. It’s selling supplemental life insurance to union members. I would have had to drive to Ventura. Three hours and like $20 in gas for a maybe. I went with my gut and declined. They turned me down for the insurance I didn’t really want. bastards.
This wasn’t anything I applied for, It was a call out of the blue from CareerBuilder.com.
I’m on the market as well, on the Q.T. (Which begs the question of why I’m posting this to a message board . . . . ) I’m not hating life at my current job, I’m just bored and pretty isolated. But I’m not sure if I want to continue with my current career (law) or take this opportunity to do something else (but what?). I know this is a piss-poor time to be out of work, and that thinking about ditching my job much less my career is six kinds of crazy but . . . I’m not happy. So I’m looking. And thinking.
If any of you are looking in IT, particularly Unix administration, feel free to contact me (my email’s in my profile). I’m getting contacted by recruiters and some of them ask if I know anybody who might be qualified. I’d certainly be willing to pass your name along to them, if you’d like.
OMG. I have a campus interview for a one-year position with the potential to turn tenure-track at Fabulous Liberal Arts College.
Of course, the campus interview stage tends to be precisely where I screw up (and I’m living proof that the inside candidate doesn’t always get the t-t job), so I’m not breaking out the champagne yet. But … wow. Fabulous Liberal Arts College. That would be pretty amazing. And they only invite one candidate to campus at a time, so it sounds like I’m the clear favorite after the round of phone interviews.
That means the job is pretty much mine to lose, right?
Fabulous Liberal Arts College. (I wish I could post the name of the place. Let it suffice to say that it is indeed Fabulous, and you’ve probably all heard of it.)
I’m beginning to feel pretty worthless right about now, lol. I’ve been out of work for nearly a month and I’ve had very few offers for interviews. No second call backs either… le sigh I’ve probably applied for just about every office job within a three hour drive of where I live (since I have my A.S. degree in Administrative Assistance). Also, I’ve applied at all of the local restaurants as well. I plan on going back to school in the fall, so pretty much anything that will work around the schedule there and allow me a half way decent pay will be a welcome gift right about now…
… And it now appears that I have to drive to Fabulous Liberal Arts College (5+ hours away, in between final exams and graduation at the school where I currently work). Did I mention that job interviews and driving long distances are two of my three greatest fears?
Maybe the campus will suffer a plague of centipedes, and I can go for the trifecta…
Eureka! According to an ad I saw on Yahoo’s games page, there is a site the (supposedly) gives away $250k daily to winners of “Scrabble Cubes”, whatever that it. worldwinner.com
Wow. I’m going to need to take a look through my folder of applications I’ve sent out – I just got a call asking me to come in for an interview for a job I don’t remember applying for. It’s set for Wednesday morning, so I’d better figure out what the job actually is by then!
I’m also still waiting to hear back about my biotech/academic research lab dilemma. As of Friday, the word from the biotech side of things was that they’d been too swamped last week to deal with hiring issues, but they were definitely going to be checking references early this week, and I am still “high on their list”. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much, but that’s sounding promising…
Sorry to hear you didn’t get it, but I like your plan. Good luck.