Yes, there are jobs out there. But try to get a low-level or manual labor job when you don’t have experience in that area. They won’t hire you because you’re considered over-qualified, and they assume you’ll leave as soon as you get a ‘real’ job. They don’t want to hire someone, and spend time training that person when they know they’re just using it as filler till they find a better job.
I’m not perfectly OK with it. There are lots of reasons whey the unemployment rate is too high - and you’ve hit some of them. But expecting businesses to favor the unemployed doesn’t do anything for the unemployment rate - because the issue is that there are not enough jobs. Its musical chairs - if someone who has a chair gets that job, then another chair is empty. It also creates stagnation in business. People moving from job to job is good for our economy. The only thing that is going to really help is TIME and CHANGE. Forcing change just creates artificial demand.
This economy is horrible for someone like you. I work in your industry and 25 years ago did desktop tech work. When and if we interview, we don’t even need to talk to someone who doesn’t have ten years of experience - because people with experience are out looking - some unemployed, some looking to switch. And we’ve moved a lot of the sort of work we’d hire you for either overseas, or outsourced it. In 1999 we’d hire computer technicians who had some idea where the power button was and say “we’ll train you.”
And yes, I am doing fine. This economy has been actually pretty good for me. I had cash when the market dropped - then maximized my cash and invested it. And I’m not really worried about getting laid off. I figure I have a maximum of two years left in the job I have before it moves overseas. But I’ve been living my life under the assumption my job will eventually go away since 2001. And I’ve been living my life under the assumption that a cyclical economy will throw us into a deep recession at least once during my lifetime. So I got a degree in an unrelated field post 2001, set aside a large rainy day fund, and have several plans - including packing it in and doing a few years as a SAHM while the economy warms up - I’ve saved for it and can afford it.
And don’t move. Find a friend in Portland willing to loan you his address. But I’m willing to bet being stuck in Dallas is not helping your situation. It doesn’t sound like a hotbed of industry. If you can’t move, you may go down with the town. My guess is that Dallas will eventually be nothing but a bedroom community. I don’t know though, I don’t know anything other than what I’ve read on wiki. From your standpoint 1) You live an hour away from where the jobs are 2) You have no experience in your industry other than your education 3) you are currently unemployed. The economy is going to have to get a LOT hotter for you - or you are going to have to figure out some way to make that trifecta less unattractive to an employer.
And I’m going to tell you why I’m telling you to knock off the whining. Maybe you aren’t whining, but from where I sit, you sound like you want people like me to fix your issue. In 2003 my department had headcount open. It was still the post dot-com reality - a lot of people had gotten laid off in the wake of the dot com bust or 9/11. We got a resume from a guy I used to work with. I knew he was a good guy - but hadn’t worked with him in ten years - he’d been out of work for almost two. We interviewed him. We might have considered hiring him - there was someone with better skills, but this guy had an in - I knew him to be a decent guy. The economy had beat it out of him. Rather than saying “I got laid off, and I’ve used that time to do this and this and this while looking for work” - he came off as a whiner in the interview - everything had been unfair. Don’t. You have an awfully lot of minuses in your employability stack right now without going into any interview and letting anyone even suspect you feel the way you do. Figure out the corporate speak of why a company would want to give a guy like you a job - and play that to your advantage. And hint - the corporate speak has nothing to do with the greater good or the wider economy. WIIFM - What’s in it for ME…the hiring manager.
In an economy like this one, we aren’t going to fix it for everyone now…or next month, or in the next six months. Its every man for himself.
I do sincerely wish you the best.
Dangerosa, I think a lot of folks, perhaps you included, are mistaking people venting on the internet for being negative in interviews. Please NEED to vent. It’s an absolute mental necessity. And these days the internet is a place to do that, anonymously. If someone blows off steam on the Dope and that enables them to turn around tomorrow morning and going in to an interview all positive-chirpy-enthused so be it. But all too often I see folks getting the condescending talk (and yes, you ARE being just a trifle condescending to assume the average adult with experience doesn’t know everything you just pointed out) out here. Let’s be clear here - The Straight Dope is NOT a job interview! People shouldn’t be “graded” on their posting here, especially not when pointing out the realities of life.
I, too, did everything “right”. I lived entirely out of debt. I saved money. I was responsible. I walked out of my layoff with zero debt, six month’s pay in severance, and six months worth of cash in the bank. I immediately downsized my lifestyle and budget. I made looking for work my new profession. I got what work I could. I did all this AND took care of my parents during my mother’s final few months of life. Yet here I am, broke and underemployed. Pointing that this is not fair is NOT whining. Because, you know, it’s not fair. It really isn’t. And that needs to be acknowledged. It’s not fair… but here’s what you do anyway to climb back out of the hole. Saying the unemployed are in a Catch-22 when employers don’t even want to consider the unemployed is not whining, it’s reality, and no, it’s not fair… but you still have to keep trying.
That doesn’t excuse sitting around doing nothing, of course. But accusing someone of “whining” when they are speaking of the sucky realities of being unemployed right now isn’t helping. Not at all. People really do need to be able to say “It’s not fair, it sucks, and some days I despair” so it doesn’t remain bottled up and festering until they explode. Attempting them to force them to be positive in absolutely all interactions with other people is actually harmful. I don’t know anyone who can maintain such a facade 24/7 without cracking.
I know you did everything right. I have nothing but admiration for how you’ve handled the shitty situation you ended up with. I also think that attitude comes through EVEN WHEN YOU DON’T INTEND IT TO in an interview. Your venting is often of a “I’ve been handed a shitty hand and I need to vent.” I get that. That’s a different type of whine than “I think the world should work differently and the people doing the hiring are wrong” which is Nobody’s vent. Yours tend to be fairly productive vents. His sound like they are going to end up giving him an attitude that can be read in a job interview and is combined with “all the suggestions about things I could do I’m not going to do - someone else will fix it.”
Its important to separate “its not fair” (as everyone’s Mom said “life isn’t fair” - but sometimes you still need to vent “its not fair”) from “its wrong.” The behaviors Nobody is complaining about are perfectly logical behaviors for the employer and they are usually in the employers immediate best interests to pursue those behaviors. Does it suck if you are unemployed and on the back end of “we are looking for someone with a stable job history?” - YEP. But wishing it to change isn’t going to help you get a job. And not understanding the employers point of view isn’t going to help either.
You don’t have any ethical issues with asking people to work 65 hours a week? Is there some practical reason why that might be necessary, or are you just fucking people’s lives over for money, because you can? Work ethics go in both directions.
Yes, one can unintentionally give a negative impression. Which is why when someone is venting about the suck job situation I say something like “You’re right, it sucks - just don’t let it show during the interview. Give them an Oscar performance.” I also offer to coach people through interviews, because rehearsal is important. I rehearse answers to difficult questions myself before going in for an interview. Prep is important.
It could be Nobody has never been on the other side of the equation. I have some grasp of the employer’s viewpoint because I have been self-employed which can be a brutal education. Not everyone has that in their background.
And on that we agree totally.
Yep, seconded, and this is all I’ve been saying this whole thread.
Do you have any ethical issues with someone selling an apple for 55 cents (as opposed to, say, 45 cents)?
Interns in hospitals typically put in long hours too - and studies have shown that they do make mistakes. It is easy for people to convince themselves they are doing great, but the mistakes creep in.
And we’re not talking 22 year olds here, we are talking long term jobs. Almost anyone over 30 is going to be less able to work those kind of hours. Plus, it is a lot different working on your own stuff rather than someone elses - especially since grad students have an end date. I worked really long hours when I was finishing my dissertation, but it was a lot better project for not doing so when I was coming up with the idea and planning it.
The paper is called “The $200 hour” and was republished in an IEEE management journal. The last time I looked it was not available on-line. I wrote a column based on it, since my whole organization was working 12 hour days for no good reason other than to show we were tough. After the dinner they served people spent a lot of time goofing off. I got the hell out of there, and the project was a disaster, so the suffering the project went through was useless.
There is a huge surplus of jobs out there, an over supply of available jobs. That is why we need to bring in millions of foreign immigrants each and every year in order to fill those jobs.
If an uneducated, unskilled immigrant, who doesnt even know the language can find a job, if millions of them can, then there is no job problem in the United States.
Common sense will tell you that if it really was true that American citizens could not find a job then we would not need to bring in so many millions of foreign immigrant job seekers.
Yes, I know that. But who do you think an employer wants to hire for those bottom-of-the-barrel jobs, the IT professional with a college degree (who was laid off through no fault of his own) or the Mexican immigrant who is willing to work for minimum wage and no benefits, and has no understanding of labor laws or OSHA regulations?
Someone upthread said they’d take any job, no matter what it was, to keep from going on unemployment or receiving aid like food stamps. That sounds good in theory, but just try getting a job like that. I’m sure it happens sometimes, but your average professional is not going to get a job flipping burgers at McDonald’s.
This is your classic apples-and-oranges case, Rand Rover! Not the same!
Hold on a minute, sister! CITE! Citey-cite-cite-cite! CITE!
So, are you advocating that it is a good thing that millions of American’s living standards should drop to those of Latin American immigrants? I bet even the immigrants would like better lives.
It’s exactly the same. All a job is is a relationship where one person sells their labor to another. If someone agrees to work 68-hour weeks, who are you to come along and say that something “unethical” has occurred?
It doesn’t make a ton of sense financially, assuming the employer complies with Federal wage laws regarding overtime. Didn’t he say the employees were all hourly? That means every worker is making 28 hours overtime at time and a half per week? They could pay a second worker for 40 hours, for less money, and everyone could eat dinner with their families or go to night school or whatever they do when they only work 40 hours instead of 68. Just sayin’.
Assuming they are breaking no relevant laws, it’s not unethical at all to insist on these hours, assuming they are as upfront about the hour requirement as is claimed. Not only that – it’s probably a desireable work environment for some, what with all the overtime you can make. Who wouldn’t want to get paid for two jobs, while only doing one and a half?
I agree, it doesn’t make a lot of sense as described - why would you pay overtime and not just hire more people on a second shift? And I’m not surprised that you have a hard time getting people to stick if the requirement is a nearly 70 hour work week. But it isn’t unethical. Just not terribly cost effective unless there is more to the tale than has been told.
Well, if you hire more people, you also have to pay to train them, and you have to cover their benefits (I’m assuming the job Omerta describes offers some sort of benefits, though if a large percentage of hires are quitting after only a few months, or in some cases after only a few days, many workers are probably not sticking around long enough to start collecting any possible benefits).
If a company says “we don’t hire black people” I don’t want to work for them. The same is true if they have a blanket policy of not hiring people without jobs. To me it says the company is run by jerks.
(yes, I know it’s not legal to discriminate based on race)
It’s unethical in the sense that it’s unethical to take advantage of someone’s dire circumstances such that agreement to the working hours is not exactly freely given.
I mean, you’ve got those people (even in this thread) saying that if you don’t take a job, any job, then you’re not motivated enough/have a lousy work ethic/whatever. Who then turn around to say that the shitty job you agreed to take was something that you did agree to, so don’t complain. It’s this moral superiority catch-22 – damned if you take it, damned if you don’t.
Speaking as a mid-level hiring manager, I don’t really care whether someone is unemployed or employed. Sure, you may have the occassional HR imbecile discriminate against you because in their mind anyone who they would hire wouldn’t want to work there. But for the most part, companies seem to look at your ability to perform whatever job they are hiring for and how good of a fit you are.
But, here is the problem. If you are out of work for any length of time, you are going to lose important business skills - waking up before noon, writing on whiteboards with Expo markers, talking in retarded MBA speak, giving a shit about stuff other than playing Fallout New Vegas. Stuff like that.
Also, people who have been unemployed for a long time cans start to appear desperate. Or they can also start to appear unusually happy, tanned and well rested. Neither is good for finding a job. You don’t want to come across like a pathetic sad sack, but you don’t want to come across as a flake whose interrupting his surf tour to work a couple of months at the local office park.
I don’t know why Best Buy or Home Depot would give a shit about whoever they hire. I’d be like “look, I realize that this job is not the typical six-figure MBA job I am used to, however I still think I can be a valued asset for your team. So I work here for 3-9 months. That’s about the tenure you would expect from whatever half-wit high school kid you hire. And I like to think with me I’d be less likely to be high or drunk at work or sell HD tvs to my friends out the back of the loading dock. So just give me a blue shirt and lets go sell some extended warrantees!”
The real world doesn’t work like that. Often what drives work hours are completion milestones for mid to long term projects. Not cranking out widgets where you can double production by adding another widget maker. And for those sort of projects, you can’t really make a baby in a month by getting nine women pregnant.
It’s Susanann, she rarely, if ever, cites anything she says.