Is it OK if I use your logo to promote your site, guys?
OK, let me get a few things out of the way. First I have to apologize for not writing more in the last couple of weeks. For one, Wifey and I were trying to make our latest attempt at a garage sale successful enough to be able to pay a few bills. Even though we tried over two consecutive Saturdays, we barely made enough to pay our car insurance and buy food. So Idaho Power, Intermountain Gas, QWest and Boise City Utility Billing are not going to be getting the money that we had hoped to get to them after the sales were over. Second, Wifey and I got sick. Wifey got the flu first and, try as I might, I came down with it eventually and have spent the last week sounding like one of my cats trying to hack up a furball.
On top of all of that, because the sales were not that successful and because I still have no income we are down to a grand total of $41.92 in the bank. Meanwhile we are in danger of having all communications with the outside world cut off as we could lose our Internet access, phone service, satellite TV service and our electricity because we are behind on all of those bills and have no means to pay them. Not to mention the fact that we are 9-months behind on our mortgage, are in the process of foreclosure, and are facing a dilemma on when we should just throw in the towel and try to sell the house before Wells Fargo takes it from us.
The dilemma is that we have been informed by Wifey’s family that if the worst happens we can go down to live with them in Northern California. The problem is that Wells Fargo has set a date for the auctioning off of our crib, and it is January 4, 2010. Ironic since we left SoCal to move up here on January 4, 2004. So if we were to try to move out to NoCal during that time we would be trying to haul our stuff up the mountain in 3-4 feet of snow! Not exactly the best time to be making that trek!
So with all of this going on I’m still trying to find jobs that I can apply to, still trying to market myself on Twitter, and still trying to keep a positive attitude as the sky falls down at my feet. Meanwhile Wifey is about out of her tumor medication and may get cut off by her drug programs at the end of the month since they go through the Doctor’s office that told us that we had to pay them a certain amount of caysh or they wouldn’t be treating us for anything anymore – which is why we are still fighting the aftereffects of the flu since neither one of us went to a Doctor. Well, we have no insurance, nor do we have any money, and there are no free clinics around here – so we just had to “tough it out” as it were.
So bearing that in mind you can understand how I have gotten a little behind with tending to this place. I had a few e-mails in my box that I had to sort through and I came across one that was from Nicole Amato of Mediashop Public Relations. In her e-mail she told me about a job site that I hadn’t heard of before. Now true I have tried out TweetMyJobs and I have signed up for newsletters from Job Angels, and I have been getting tips from Beyond.com that up until yesterday could filed under the heading of “tell me something that I don’t already know”. But I had never heard about United We Work until I was contacted by Nicole.
According to Nicole, United We Workis modeled after eHarmony, instead of being a dating site it is a place where job seekers like you and me can go to so that we can have the employers find us instead of the other way around. I went to United We Workto check it out and it looks pretty straightforward. I decided to kick the tires on this one and sign up for an account – which is free by the way. Clicking onto the “Join now” link takes you to QuietAgent, which is the job matching network that powers United We Work, and gives you lifetime free access if you desire. They are able to do this through an association with AllianceQ, which is “a growing collaboration of industry leading Fortune 500 companies whose members include Starbucks, Bank of America, Allstate, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts and many more.”
Since I have RoboForm on my Alienware rig it was easy for me to give them my e-mail address and a password for me to use in order to sign up. Next they would like to know a little bit about you so that they can better match you with “the one”, this means telling them where in the country you live, what education you have, what job level are you looking for, etc. While this is happening there is a Flash presentation on the right side of the screen that gives you an idea of the companies that use this service and that might be calling you for a date EEEEERRRRRRinterview. Companies like Best Buy, Office Depot, Wachovia, Hyatt, H&R Block and 7-11 are only some of the companies that use the service.
The next step is telling them about some of your most recent and relevant work experience. Since I really don’t want another sales gig I skipped over the failed experiment that was my tenure as a Rainbow Salesman almost three years ago, I went with the Administrative Assistant’s post I held seven years ago.
Now if any of these employers are reading this after having found me through QuietAgent or United We Work let me just say that even though I have not been in a working “relationship” for a long time, I still consider myself to be a decent catch and someone who could be of tremendous benefit to your organization. Now, where were we?
Next comes the part where you create your resume, and in my case I wanted to put as much on my resume as I could so as to have a better chance of someone finding me. I listed as much of my work history as I thought was relevant – all the way back to 1984!!! Hey, I’m not taking any chances – if there’s a skill in my past that someone thinks can be used today and wants to hire me for, then I’ll tell them all about my work as a House-painter’s Apprentice when I was a Junior in High School. Another part of your resume involves keywords you can use to have prospective employers find you. If you can’t come up with any that’s okay since there is an automatic tool they provide which will figure out keywords based on the work experience in your resume.
Then there’s the skills summary where you tell them what technologies and computer programs you have used that could be relevant to an employer. Next is describing your top 10 personal skills and to top it all off there is a sort of personality quiz to figure out what your strongest working activities might be. None of the bars went halfway after I took this quiz and I have no idea what that means to my chances, but I’m hoping that it’s not as bad as a credit score of 529!
One of the things you can do is define your Career Desires, that is – what do you want to do? I looked and looked for jobs or careers that I could do, but when I came across Journalism/Writers under the heading of Marketing/PR I immediately checked that box.
I have to face facts, at this point I may or may not be returning to the 9-5 world and with each passing day the odds keep getting steeper. However I believe that through this blog I have shown that I have a talent for writing, or at least for speaking my mind – and I think that I would be able to make a career out of it.
Now I don’t actually expect someone from MSNBC to call me up tomorrow to speak on The Rachel Maddow Show tomorrow night (although I would not be adverse to the prospect as I am something of a fan), I still would like to be considered for something in that field. And if anyone would like to see examples of my work I can point them to this site, and I’ve got a lot of past columns that I did over at PCFootball.net that they can take a look at.
Overall, the site seems to be exactly what they say it is. I’m going to wait a while to see what, if anything, happens before I pass final judgement on this and saying if it is worth pursuing for all of you or not.
At this point in the game, with a “jobless recovery” ahead for most, if not all of us who are Unemployed, Underemployed and Underutilized, we can use all of the help we can get.
Now Nicole offered to put me in touch with Phil Haynes, managing director of AllianceQ, who can then tell me more about the program. Now I would like to take her up on her offer, but I would like to add something to that. I’m trying to formulate some questions that would be relevant to the program and how it could benefit us, but I was thinking that if youhad some questions for Phil Haynes that you would like answered, then send them to me and I would be more than happy to pass them along. I will than be more than happy to post his responses here for all to see. I’ve done this kind of thing before – back when PCFootball.net was still around I would contact Jeremy Strauser, the producer of Madden NFL Football and pass onto him questions that our forum board members would have about that year’s game. So this would be familiar territory for me.
Go ahead and send your questions to me at info@bigdaddycool.info and I will do what I can to pass them onto Mr. Haynes. In the meantime, check out United We Work for yourself and give it a try. Who knows, perhaps you too can “move beyond ‘traditional’ online job seeking.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah – I know, it needs work.
First off hope you and the wife are better.
i have tried many internet jobs where I have applied and just received another this morning from a compnay in colorado. I am not surprised by the email. It clearly states that they do a credit check, even though the credit score is not a basis for hire. Mmm…
It really makes one weary of any of this. This is something I have a hard time dealing with since the one behind the computer, rep of a company that even though I may be familiar with, asking about credit reports, etc., could very well take my identity. a complete stranger who I have never met, nor probably won’t. I don’t know if this person is trustworthy or not. So many companies ask you to apply on line but we, as the people, do not know who looks at these reports, who could very well work for the companies (or not) and expect us to be giving.
The problem with on line applications is serious enough that many companies do not want to take the time to meet and greet with potential employees and talk one on one with them. We assume because the company is reputable, that there are honest and decent people employed by them. at least, that is what we want to think. I am willing to give anyone the benefit but am weary of giving vital information to someone who I have yet to personally talk to and get a feel for.
If a company is ligit, and honest, then a phone call would be appreciated, one would think. But this day and age, one is weary of employers who seek only those on line. and for good causes. …
If this company you speak of is ligit, and I pray it is, I wish you the best of luck. You need It! I have been telling you for months that your talent for writing is impressive and would be a good career choice. One that should be persued with passion. Your skills may be impressive to a company that needs new talent, ideas and strong opinions for the truth that so many of us feel, whether writing about subjects on the unemployed or career chasing life changes or whether it is just to ask questions… I truely wish and hope that they contact you and are sincere in their hiring of you, or the help they can offer. Good luck, and best wishes.
Yeah if you don’t feel comfortable giving them that type of information then don’t do it. I get those internet jobs in my e-mail box too, and I usually just hit the delete key unless they do something that grabs my attention first.
The credit score is not a basis for hire? Yeah right, tell us another one fellas! You are correct in being cautious about the risk of identity theft. A lot of us who are out of work are the new victims of this and many of us are being taken advantage of because we seem vulnerable (well, we are – but that’s not the point). If your instincts are screaming at you that this is wrong – then listen to your instincts.
Every once in a while I get an e-mail or phone call from a headhunter for job agencies who want to submit me for a job here in Boise. The job is always for HP and no matter what I do I never hear anything about it once I say “yeah sure, go ahead and put my name up.” I’ve gotten to the point where I expect nothing to happen there and that it is a complete waste of my time and theirs. I’ve applied to HP before and have been rejected by them several times so I don’t see someone who works out of an office in New Jersey changing that anytime soon.
Well I’ll just wait and see what happens. I figure that at this point I should try to explore as many avenues as I can to try to gain employment, and this might be another road to follow.
I am starting to get more rejection letters in the mail however. Before I wouldn’t hear anything from the places I would apply to, now in the last three weeks I’ve gotten two letters – one arrived today.
I don’t know if hearing from these places is a good thing or a bad thing since they both mean the same thing.
Oh well…
Maybe things will work out for you. the job market isn’t getting any better, and it is sky rocketing again. Recession, my foot. It is depression, in a new form, new generations are being hit and the situations are different but ask anyone out of work and they will clearly tell you that it is a depression. Both in reality, physically, mentally and emotionally. The war pulled us out of the last depression…what will pull us out of this one?
I have a minimum wage job, even though I am qualified in many fields but it is what I have and it has helped to pay the bills. But with the economy as bad as it is, other than the dollar stores and discount grocery stores, my money won’t be going for luxeries but for bills, and taxes.
Those with high paying jobs are lucky. I don’t envy them because what they have today could be gone tomorrow. I know. I have been there!
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I don’t know. I tried that web site almost a month ago, and not ONE matched job (even though in the last 24 hours they say they matched 5 million jobs or something). So apparently I’m not marketable AT ALL. I feel there is no hope in me getting a better job, even though I have a college degree and supervisory experience. My current job is terrible and I fear the company will go under before long.
Well I would say that you’re marketable – I mean you have a degree and supervisory experience so your skills are going to count for something somewhere. The problem isn’t with you – it’s with them. The unfortunate thing is that these days a lot of HR Managers and Directors look for any reason, fair or otherwise, to disqualify us from any possibility of getting a better job or any job at all. I swear they must go to the same seminars that HMO underwriters go to and use the same criteria for eliminating us from the job market as HMO’s use for denying people Health Insurance.
You are not alone in this, I have two college degrees, years of various experience, and yet it has been nearly 7 years since I last held what can be described as a “steady job”. Right now the job market sucks, and it will continue to suck for a long time. But as the old saying goes “what goes around, comes around” and all of the people who are getting screwed over will someday get back what we have lost. I have to keep believing that.
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