Maybe the employers were just waiting out the first quarter and seeing where things would fall. I’m thinking that this is the case because for the first two months there was NOTHING going on. Then, suddenly, things started to break free. It’s kind of like the ice breaking up in a river or stream. First the ice cracks due to warming of the atmosphere, then the pressure from upstream keeps the cracking going until the pressure overcomes the inertia of staying in the same position and the ice starts moving downstream. Finally the snow melts and adds water volume to the stream and the speed of the ice and water increases and I get a job!

 I have an in-person interview next week with a company that is not in my local geographic area. This is also a new development. I think this is more of a trend in jobseeking today, that you are no longer tied to the area you grew up in. Especially if you live in the industrial Northeast US. These areas are having to remake themselves because the manufacturing base that sustained them from the end of World War II is no longer the thing that is going to propel them further into the 21st Century.

Things will still need to be manufactured, but not in our country. There are several reasons for this. One, it is expensive to set up a new manufacturing line in this country. Two, the personal skillset needed to do this kind of work is diminishing rapidly. Working on a manufacturing line is dull, boring, necessary, and it can be argued that for the generations coming up it is NOT the work that they want to do. Their parents and grandparents have worked hard on these lines to make sure that they don’t have to do this kind of work. Three, it is more cost effective to have items manufactured overseas. This is a simple fact of life now.  

It should be obvious that the newer US economy is rooted in several areas. Retail, Services, Medical, Information Technology, etc. These are the areas that will spur economic growth in the near term.  

Jim

Which brings me to another thing that really ticks me off; the term “Overqualified.” DO NOT tell me I’m over qualified for any position I am applying for. This should be taken as a sign of desperation on the part of the applicant. Not being able to secure a position that is in line wiht my skills and abilities, it is now time to apply for ANY JOB that pays more than unemployment compensation. The reason someone would apply for these jobs is that they NEED the income no matter what the level is. Telling the applicant that they are “Overqualified” is basically the same as shooting them in the heart. They are looking for any type of validation of their life to that point and in serious need of a pat on the back and not a kick in the backside.

For you others out there with the business plan that is designed to suck in resumes with no real jobs to talk about and just send out e-mail that warms over (and not that well at that) 20 to 25 year old advise. Cease and desist immediately! This is the last thing we as unemployed people need packing our inboxes with useless drivel. It may have been standard practice to fire off hundreds of resumes years ago in the hope that less than 1% of them would reach the right person and result in an interview or a hiring. I myself have been accused of this early in my career. I don’t believe that this is a good practice anymore. You should be more targeted to the companies that hire your particular specialty and in the region of the world where you would like to work.

They make the case that not all unemployed workers are counted in the unemployment percentage number reported last week. They also state that the number should be almost double what is reported. (Reported – 8.6%; Actual – 15.6%). They also state that there are four people competing for EVERY job that is posted.

This means that if you or I apply for a job posted on any of the web boards, newspapers, or what-have-you, THREE other people are applying as well. But, this includes all the low wage, non benefit, positions that traditionally have HUNDREDS of applicants. I’m thinking that positions that you or I might apply for maybe only have 50 or 75 applicants vying for the job. Still that’s quite a number of people who think they can do as good a job of it as you do, maybe better!

I’m reminded of a job fair held recently in my fair city. It was due to start at 8:00 am. By 6:30 am there were hundreds of people waiting to get in. I believe that the final attendance count was in the 10,000 range of people who went to this jobfair. And this is NOT unusual in this day and age. With this kind of response, how can you expect to outshine everybody? How can you expect the recruiter to remember you 5 minutes after they meet you… for 2 minutes? You probably need a terrific personality AND a resume that dances around on the desk! Oh yeah, and the proper qualifications like experience, and college degree (if necessary), and all the other things on the recruiters short list.   

Jim

Whom do we believe? The board that says we should tailor our resume or cover letter to the needs of the job listing so that our experience matches as near to 100% as possible, or the other board that says, be patient, be flexible, or if you’re really adventurous, start your own business, become a consultant, or start an Internet business.

Personally, I am not entreprenurial enough to start my own business. I prefer the safety and security of a paycheck every two weeks. It’s not that I don’t want to work hard, I have done the 16+hour days fairly regularly, and on more than one occasion 24 hours or more at a time.

I guess I understand that part of the internet job boards reason for existance is to impart hope to the legions of unemployed or underemployed souls. And believe me, they appreciate it. Hope is what keeps us going and looking at the boards, and the papers, and the books, and everything else we need to read to get some sort of encouragement.   

What are your feeling about this type of thing? You people who have looked at this blog must have some sort of opinion about what  is being presented! And I want to hear it!

Let me know!

The other day I received a call from a recruiter who has a potential position with a company in Philadelphia. Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with Philly, but I didn’t think that there was where I’d end up.

Hey, I’ll listen to all interested parties, I’m not ruling anything out at this point. If I need to go to Philadelphia to do what I want the way I want for the right salary, then OK bring on the Phillies.

At least someone is showing a bit of interest.

The author (Kevin Wheeler) states that we need a “Candidates Bill of Rights” in the Recruiter/ Candidate relationship.

He may be on to something here, although I don’t think it needs to be as formal as Kevin suggests. I think that what is perceived as disrespect is just a lack of communication. Heaven knows that we jobseekers need all the communication we can get. And not just in the form of  Help Wanted ads. When we sign up with a recruiter we ask that we be treated with dignity, respect and civility. We are in a tough position and need all the compassion you in the recruiting chair can muster.

I understand that communicating with every one of the candidates in your “active file” can be quite a daunting task. I don’t know what the answer is but I do know that it gets quite frustrating to have your resume out to a number of recruiters and NONE of them are calling you, or e-mailing you, or texting you, or getting in contact with you in any of the myriad ways that are available right now.

I know what happens. The jobseeker sees a posting or ad on a job board, internet site, or whatever and responds with his resume and a cover letter. If it is a company then you have to wait until their Human Resources people read the responses and if yours does not match 100% with the specs, then your resume is placed in a file and never looked at again despite the line in the rejection letter that “your resume will be matched up to possible openings for a period of six months”, (or a year, or three months, or whatever). 

If this scenario is with a recruiter, it changes somewhat. The resume is matched to the job requirements and maybe sent to the employer. After a period of time, the recruiter calls the company and inquires about the status of the resumes that they have sent. The Human Resources person then tries to talk to the hiring manager who (because they are short staffed) is in three different meetings trying to keep his projects going. It may take a week or more to get this information. If the resume does not match what the employer wants, it is placed in an appropriate file and maybe looked at when the next job order comes in.  

Meanwhile the jobseeker is getting more desperate. They haven’t heard if the company likes their qualifications, doesn’t like their qualifications, has told the recruiter to buzz off, or gone out of business, or were swallowed up in a multi-billion dollar merger. The jobseeker just wants to know that somebody out there gives a half a darn about the fact that they need to put food on the table and pay the mortgage.  

Thanks for listening, I appreciate it. If you have any comments or follow-up, Just let me know.

Blogging also seemed like a way to dissipate the anger and frustration that builds up during a job search. The frustration from sending out many many resumes and not getting responses from the people you sent them to. Granted most these days are sent to e-mail collection boxes that some poor shlump has to go through (eventually) and you have to hope that yours is one that catches their eye. Let’s face it each job posting is going to generate hundreds of responses.  Click, Click, Send, Done.  And of these only a small percentage of resumes actually have the background that the employer is looking for. 

It is easy to think that you are the only one responding with the proper qualifications, and the beautiful resume (of not more than two pages), and the sparkling personality that comes across in your brilliantly worded cover letter. Well, you’re not! And therein lies the frustration. “Can’t these people see that I am perfect for that job?” Apparently, they can’t because they aren’t calling or e-mailing you.   

I can’t really tell if there are any of you out in cyber-world reading this. If there are, please drop me a comment and let me know what you would like to read about and what you think so far. I’m not egotistical enough to think that I know what everyone needs to know, or expects from this exercise but hopefully it can grow into a useful and interesting member of the blogging community.

Jim

It was also interesting that although I hadn’t talked with this particular recruiter, I had talked with someone at his firm. Through the course of our talk I told him I had talked with his firm and where he could obtain a copy of my credentials. At last a tidbit of good new to go  along with the standard trials and tribulations.

Tribulation for the day: I applied for a position that was slightly out of dead center for my background. It was about an 80% fit. I hadn’t really worked in this particular industry before, but all the other qualifications were there. Anyway, It only took them 2 hours to reject my application. More fuel for the fire. Even though the “experts” have told you to apply for jobs that may not be 100% matches for your background, in this economy with more people out of work than there has been in a good long while, I think the experts are wrong this time. to find that new position, you’re going to have to be just about a perfect match.

But as I said, try not to lose all hope, your network IS working, and it may take a while but I have to believe eventually things will get better.

In my case, getting laid off was preceeded by a rather strange period. Nothing was happening. Absolutely nothing. Projects that I had been a part of stopped moving forward. I started NOT getting any phone calls or e-mails about things I thought I was supposed to work on. This went on for about two months. Then, after the holidays, the axe fell. At least 6 engineers and probably dozens of other people were suddenly out of work. This being a small company, we didn’t get the severance packages and the outplacement help other companies provide their employees. We were just hacked off the payroll. “Thanks, see ya!” We were given a slight ray of hope that if things picked up in the future we would be called back to work because we were valuable employees and had done good work.

One of my axed colleagues said as we were packing up our belongings, “We should have seen this coming.” True, but we  were also one accepted proposal from having lots of work to do. And there were many proposals out there. The companies we were dealing with just pulled the plug on things that they were going to do. No mystery here, they did what everyone else was doing in the current economy, not making any committments they didn’t absolutely have to make, conserving capital, etc.

Becoming umemployed (through no fault of your own) makes you angry, it makes you doubt your skills and abilities, it makes you reevaluate everything about yourself. It makes you feel as if this may be the last time you have gainful employment. Basically, if you don’t have the constitution of a bull elephant, it wipes you out.

There are very few (if any) that tell about this experience from the job-seeker’s point of view (hence the title of this blog), and even less that delve into the psychological side of this experience.  I hope to change that.

First, a little background. I’m Jim, an unemployed mechanical engineer. I was laid off back in January from a position I had held for over three years. The company experienced a precipitous drop in orders over the prior year and decided to reduce staff. That company is involved in the manufacture of heavy industrial equipment and it was my job to go to the site and supervise the installation of the equipment and subsequent startup of the manufacturing line. If you’re not building the equipment, you don’t need someone to install it.

Anyway, I am somewhat luckier than others who are in a similar position. I am married to a wonderful woman who has a good job and no prospects of being let go.   So, we don’t have to live on just my unemployment. If that were the case, you wouldn’t be hearing from me.

 I don’t harbor any expectations that this blog will be read by millions of people and I will suddenly become an “expert” on the plight of the unemployed worker. Nope, don’t want that and that’s not the purpose of these posts. What I DO want is for people to read and understand that this is written by someone who is “in the trenches”.

I’ve sent out resumes by the handful, followed up with phone calls to prospective employers, talked with recruiters, employment agencies (even had one threaten me when my name was presented to a prospective employer from other than HIS agency), and “Professional Resume Writers” who for $79.95 to $795 will rewrite my resume (which was rewritten by professionals a few years back) to give me a better shot at being seen by employers by using the latest “buzzwords” that are most likely to be picked out by search engines.  

Oh and here’s the latest. I sent my resume to someone who had advertised for an engineering position. After a few days I sent an e-mail to enquire about the position and see if there was a chance for a personal interview. The response I got was “oh, I didnt see your resume, please resend it. ” I did, with the date and time of the original submission. I got a response today that reads in part, “Your resume does not stand out. Your skills are buried in too much verbage… so, I must have overlooked it. But for $59.95, I can rewrite it for you.” If this sounds cynical, well, it probably is. I think a little cynicism is a good thing and will keep you from making mistakes that may cost you dearly.   

Well that’s it for now. Gotta get back to the grind. I’ll write more later. In the mean time, please comment on this post and let me know if anyone’s reading it and if it says anything to you.

Jim