Job Hunt: This is the room where we come to cry

[RoseGoesToYale]

For all my fellow AVENites engaged in the dehumanizing, dispiriting, absurd process that is looking for a job, here's a place for you to sob, complain, vent, make fun of, meme, or otherwise disparage the process.

 

(Please no vague/general advice or words of encouragement, we've heard all of it, we're sorry, but it only makes things worse. I leave that to other individual threads.)

 

[Quacks]

Is "looking for a job" a requirement for crying in this room?

[RavenQueen]

I am here to cry with you guys.

 

I remember that my colleagues told me at one of my previous job "be nice with the CEO," as flirting and be girlish. Oh! I hate them. 

[RoseGoesToYale]

10 minutes ago, Quacks said:

Is "looking for a job" a requirement for crying in this room?

I guess technically it doesn't have to be, but it helps, as currently looking for a job greatly increases chances of tears.

[RoseGoesToYale]

Ah, these are great: https://www.rd.com/funny-stuff/funny-classified-ads/

[Chocolatastic AroAce]

All Jobs: 2 year experience required

 

College/university grad: *no experience* So...how do I get a job?

 

I thank fully have a job now...but I remember the struggles all to well...I spend almost a decade scrubbing dishes even though I had a university and college degree.

[Lord Jade Cross]

Ad I saw, translated:

 

"Looking for female cashier only for 40 hrs a week"

 

"Equal opportunity employer"

 

...

.....

......

 

*Enter gameshark code. Chances sexes* We good?

[kenny.]

yup i’m here, i’ve been looking for a while now... the issue arises when jobs are so far away that i’d spend my entire paycheck on travel haha.

[Scooter]

I stopped looking for the moment. Trying to accept that I'm currently too disabled to do anything I actually have official training/experience to do.

 

I mean...  there's other stuff I can do that I'm good at, but not in any formal-enough way to bother applying anywhere for. Not that I'd be able to get a paying position for without expensive pieces of paper saying I know what I'm talking about, at least.

[AspieAlly613]

41 minutes ago, kenny. said:

the issue arises when jobs are so far away that i’d spend my entire paycheck on travel haha.

I *think* you're supposed to relocate for those jobs.  Are you applying for jobs that don't give a signing bonus that cover relocation costs?

[kenny.]

10 minutes ago, AspieAlly613 said:

I *think* you're supposed to relocate for those jobs.  Are you applying for jobs that don't give a signing bonus that cover relocation costs?

i don’t know... the thing is that i just turned 18 and i don’t have a college degree or much experience. so i am a little bit limited, any job that i would qualify for would probably be minimum wage with no signing bonus.

[RoseGoesToYale]

 

Actually, my ex-roommate was a work from home recruiter, so I got kind of a behind-the-scenes look at what they do. People think recruiters just skim the resumes and run through them like a slot machine... no, they actually do read them, because that's their job, and if they didn't, they'd be doing a disservice to the company be possibly eliminating good hires. When recruiters get a bunch of irrelevant resumes, it makes their job harder by having to sift through them. That's why I don't want to apply to jobs that say 1-2 years experience required, because they are not looking for someone like me. All that does is waste my time and their time. Sad truth.

 

I never blame the recruiters, they're just doing their work, they're not the ones coming up with the unreasonable requirements.

[AspieAlly613]

1 minute ago, kenny. said:

i don’t know... the thing is that i just turned 18 and i don’t have a college degree or much experience. so i am a little bit limited, any job that i would qualify for would probably be minimum wage with no signing bonus.

For reference, how far away are these jobs?  (5 miles away is very different from 50 miles away.)  At a minimum, you should only accept those jobs that would let you afford to rent one half of a two-room apartment.  This probably starts around $400/month ($800 total per month, $400 for your half) and goes up from there depending on how good the location is.  (The businesses will probably be in better locations, but possibly within a few miles of some lower-tier locations, depending on your city.)  Typically, if you're not earning at least 2.5 times the rent, property owners will refuse to rent to you without a guarantor.  The good news is this:  no one else would be willing to work for too little money to cover the rent, either.  My advice: only apply to places you can get to in an hour or less, make that annoying commute for a month, try to make arrangements to find someone tolerable to room with later, in the second month.  

[AspieAlly613]

Cover letters.  Everything about cover letters.

 

Over 95% of the time, the company needs to be given the "YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL" lecture.  Don't make me pretend that I'm applying to your company but not your otherwise-similar competitor.  Do you want to hire a bunch of deceptive tricksters who are good at making stuff up, hiding their true intentions, and verbal misdirection?  If so, look at a cover letter.  If you're hiring someone for a sales or advertising position, you probably do want such a trickster.  Otherwise, you're attracting the wrong crowd and your employees will complain on Glassdoor about their deceptive, manipulative coworkers.

[AspieAlly613]

2 hours ago, GhostGoesToWail said:

Please no advice or words of encouragement, we've heard all of it, we're sorry, but it only makes things worse.

I just saw this now.  I apologize for incompletely reading the original post and violating this rule.

[kenny.]

16 minutes ago, AspieAlly613 said:

For reference, how far away are these jobs?  (5 miles away is very different from 50 miles away.)  At a minimum, you should only accept those jobs that would let you afford to rent one half of a two-room apartment.  This probably starts around $400/month ($800 total per month, $400 for your half) and goes up from there depending on how good the location is.  (The businesses will probably be in better locations, but possibly within a few miles of some lower-tier locations, depending on your city.)  Typically, if you're not earning at least 2.5 times the rent, property owners will refuse to rent to you without a guarantor.  The good news is this:  no one else would be willing to work for too little money to cover the rent, either.  My advice: only apply to places you can get to in an hour or less, make that annoying commute for a month, try to make arrangements to find someone tolerable to room with later, in the second month.  

that is awesome advice, thank you so much! i haven’t really been able to ask anyone i know about this kind of stuff, and i don’t know much about it personally. a lot of the jobs would be about an hour away, maybe a bit more. that wouldn’t be a problem necessarily, but the apartments in my area are fairly pricy so i’m thinking that it might be good to move to a different town nearby that isn’t as much of a “growing area” where i am. i’m not quite sure what my plan is yet, but thank you for the really helpful explanations and advice!!  

 

(i just saw the no advice rule, sorry!!)

[RoseGoesToYale]

1 minute ago, AspieAlly613 said:

I just saw this now.  I apologize for incompletely reading the original post and violating this rule.

Nah, you're fine, I might make an amendment to the OP. I mostly meant along the lines of when people say things like "Just keep sending in dozens of applications! It'll happen eventually!" or "You don't have experience, well go get some!" Because they only make the dark tunnel seem longer. The second one especially I hear all the time, but they never elaborate where to go and get this nebulous experience, and what's more, the requirements for certain jobs seem to change almost weekly. I might go volunteer and get experience in a job that's about to be outmoded, or the experience isn't job-specific. E.g. when an employer asks for 2 years of managerial experience, they don't want to hear about all the times I oversaw school projects in college. They want someone who has worked in a managerial-type position for two years.

[WinterWanderer]

The worst thing about being unemployed is the stigma. My family and friends either: a) didn't think I was trying hard enough and should be trying harder, or b) thought I was trying too hard, stressing myself out over nothing, and needed to get out and live a little.

 

Some relateable stuffs:

 

 

 

 

[Anthracite_Impreza]

I have a job, it just doesn't pay. Somehow, I still get people looking down on me for this.

 

(NO ONE should be getting looked down on for not having a job, it just makes me laugh when you do have one but are still getting seen as a "scrounger" because you're still on benefits. Newsflash: I need money to survive!!)

[AspieAlly613]

30 minutes ago, Fioryn said:

The worst thing about being unemployed is the stigma.

I've noticed that one way people do this is to use tricky words to moralize hireability.  For example, they may say "You need to show effort" rather than "You need to show initiative." 

 

What's the difference between effort and initiative?  When you know exactly which actions you need to take and which steps you need to perform, effort is the difference between doing it and not.  In contrast, initiative is when you repeatedly try stuff, only guessing as to whether it will work or not.  Initiative is a lot harder, as it could all just be a big waste of time, you have to constantly reevaluate whether it's working or not, and you need to come up with a guess in the first place.  

 

But what do failure to put in effort and failure to take initiative indicate?  If you fail to put in effort, that means you knew that it would be beneficial to do something specific and chose not to do it, typically at least partially because you were lazy.  In contrast, failure to take initiative is often the result of not wanting to risk wasting time on a fruitless endeavor, or guessing wrong on what to do and have nothing to show for your initiative, or just not recognizing that there was anything you could do to achieve an idea outcome.  

 

True, initiative or lack thereof can be a deciding factor in choosing which candidate to hire.  Don't refer to it as "lack of effort," though.

[Guest]

12 hours ago, Fioryn said:

The worst thing about being unemployed is the stigma.

To me this was the most stressful part. I remember getting laid off while in a relationship, and that sinking feeling of having to go home to your partner to tell her this was worse than the loss of income. 

 

It literally took me a 3 hour walk to just digest the information and dreading the judgement.

 

Luckily she was supportive, but the social pressure of not having a job was one where I literally sent tons of resumes and pounded the pavement before even going home. 

 

Worst part for me is being overqualified for entry level positions when you're desperate for work. 

 

I will sweep poop from floors if I don't have a job. 

 

Or you matching a job perfectly but being honest of your one year of experience when they are seeking 3. 

 

Main reason I hire based on character and knowledge. 

 

Anything else is teachable to the right person. 

[RoseGoesToYale]

What a surprise, my mother made up fake statistics about the number of jobs in my area and made fake claims about employers not being able to get applicants.

 

Decided to ask her to cite it. WWIII could begin here real soon, folks!

[ColeHW34]

Got turned down or ignored about 5 times now and they haven't even bothered contacting me after a month and a half.

Guess volunteering for 4 years in sleet, heavy rain, 30 to 90 degree weather and huge crowds isn't good enough.

[RoseGoesToYale]

18 minutes ago, Member114264 said:

Guess volunteering for 4 years in sleet, heavy rain, 30 to 90 degree weather and huge crowds isn't good enough.

I've been volunteering week to week at a local food charity, sorting incoming donations/produce, checking expirations, moving boxes, but it's starting to feel all for naught. Older AVENites can confirm, and it might be just me, but is volunteer work different today than it was 30+ years ago?

 

Liability and legal tape has something to do with it. Waaay back in the day you could walk down the street and volunteer to sweep up all the hair in the barbershop or help the grocer unload boxes, and they'd be thrilled... here's someone who wants to work for free! And they might just hire you if they like your work ethic. Now even for the simple stuff I do at the charity, you have to have waivers filled out, and there are only certain things they can ask you to do, because they don't want to get sued if you throw your back out or get run over by a forklift something.

 

Most volunteer work today is simple tasks or unskilled labor, like answering telephones, asking for signatures in the street, packing boxes, performing QC in an assembly line... things that aren't transferrable to today's tech-driven entry level jobs. A simple file clerk or secretary job requires you to be proficient in 3-4 different types of computer software, perform customer service, use digital database/organizational tools, which my gen can do easily, but funny thing... employers want a bunch of certificates and diplomas to prove you can do it instead of e.g. back when my mother got a secretarial job when during your interview they'd have you sit down at a computer and demonstrate your skills (and get this... she lied on her resume about being proficient in WordPerfect, had her then boyfriend's mother or somesuch sign her up for a one day WordPerfect intro course, completed that, got the interview, her only previous experience was typing class, did the typing test, recruiter sat her down at a computer to see her WordPerfect skills, did everything asked, boom, got the job. It's such a damn crock!)

[ColeHW34]

@GhostGoesToWail I just asked if they needed help and they said yes.

 So I've been stocking (fruits, plants, and veggies), watching over shops while the owners were gone, carrying boxes around, making sure the doggie bowls were all filled and keeping them updated on weather and traffic.

 

I got paid in free rootbeer, honey and got around 25 to 50 dollars almost everytime. 

 

Then the cops were cautious of me just because I'm not like "normal kids" but they were stunned that I just volunteered out of pure boredom and not for money.

[AspieAlly613]

6 hours ago, Member114264 said:

Got turned down or ignored about 5 times now and they haven't even bothered contacting me after a month and a half.

Guess volunteering for 4 years in sleet, heavy rain, 30 to 90 degree weather and huge crowds isn't good enough.

In some professions, the job funnel is as tough as 200 candidates per position.  Not sure that number is particularly helpful, but it can provide some perspective for the 0-for-5 statistic.

[ColeHW34]

4 minutes ago, AspieAlly613 said:

In some professions, the job funnel is as tough as 200 candidates per position.  Not sure that number is particularly helpful, but it can provide some perspective for the 0-for-5 statistic.

Yeah

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Member114264 said:

Then the cops were cautious of me just because I'm not like "normal kids"

What do you mean?

[AspieAlly613]

6 hours ago, GhostGoesToWail said:

What a surprise, my mother made up fake statistics about the number of jobs in my area and made fake claims about employers not being able to get applicants.

 

Decided to ask her to cite it. WWIII could begin here real soon, folks!

In contrast, here are some very real statistics:

 

Roughly 40% of American young adults have bachelor's degrees.

 

The 60th percentile of salaries for 23-year-old in the United States is roughly $25,000/year (and some of those salaries are going to people who went to trade school and have 2-3 years of experience.)

 

 

[ColeHW34]

33 minutes ago, Moony Lovegood said:

What do you mean?

I don't know. A cop came to me asking what I was doing and what for.

They thought I was a bit too young to be "working" too.