Back in February I wrote about an article that was written by Allison Linn on how the recession has left good workers working less and how they have been effected. Remember what I asked her to do?
But what I would also like to see is someone besides myself taking up the mantle for the Underutilized Workforce as a whole, not just bits of it. Ms. Linn if you are reading this then I say bravo. Bravo for writing about at least part of the problem that is gripping the nation right now. Now I invite you to write about the other parts of it.
Write about the people who are no longer collecting unemployment benefits because they ran out and they can’t get another extension.
Write about the people who have been looking for a job for an extended period of time without any luck. Not just a few months but a few years. There are some people out there who have been out of work for two, three years or more; or in my case – six years. Yeah, that’s right it’s not a typo – six years. 2,264 days since I was called into the office of the Director of Manufacturing to be told that I no longer had a yob. 2,264 days since I hit the ground running and sent out 1,000+ resumes trying to get work I was quallified for and only getting 51 interviews for my troubles. 2,264 days of having to listen to talking heads tell me that I wasn’t trying hard enough, or that I really didn’t want to work, or that I was lazy…
…2,264 days of having my manhood questioned because I didn’t have a job.
2,264 days being written off as an “Unperson”, of being thought of as worthless, of being thought of as unimportant.
Ms. Linn the story of I and others like me need to be told because we are important to our friends and families who love us dearly, we are worth something to someone in this world, but finally and most important of all we are not “Unpersons”…
…we are people. People looking for a chance.
Talk about us Ms. Linn.
Please.
Well, someone else actually decided to take me up on it…sort of.
Rachel Zupek over at CareerBuilder.com has written an article on how we can best keep our spirits up and stay positive during a job search that, in some cases, could take years. There are a couple of people quoted in the article, and what they have to say strikes as vindication for those of us who are underutilized. One of those quoted was Claudine Vainrub, a principal of EduPlan, which is a careers and educational consulting firm – so she knows whereof she speaks. In the article she’s quoted as saying that:
“Companies consider that as time passes, the job seeker gets more and more disconnected with his or her industry, duties and [they lose] valuable career growth time,” Vainrub says. “[They might] sense that if the seeker is ineffective in finding a job and marketing themselves, they might not be effective in other tasks. Questions arise as to why this candidate has not been recruited yet and if the company is missing out on some important data that could skew the hiring decision south.”
Another disadvantage to an extended job search is that, as time passes, Vainrub says the clock ticks for the job seeker and he or she becomes increasingly anxious or desperate to find a job.
“We can become demoralized from negative employer responses,” she says. “[An applicant's] self-esteem decreases from the negative feedback [and] rejection. This can prevent professionals from portraying themselves positively, as they would in a regular situation, when they have job security.”
Another person quoted in the article, Christine Wilson, backs that up.
Wilson, from Littleton, Colo., left her Fortune 500 employer in September 2007 to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a paid writer. She wrote and ghostwrote for various Web sites and, for a while, had great success. Eventually, she realized she needed a stable job and income, so she began job searching.
More than one year later, she remains unemployed.
“Being out of work as long as I have been makes me feel that an employer thinks I am desperate for any job,” Wilson says. “Of course, that’s not what I try to portray, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that being out of work for a long time puts people into a desperate ‘I-need-to-find-any-job-to-pay-my-bills’ category.”
“It’s hard to maintain a constant, positive, upbeat attitude. After several rejections, it’s really hard not to take it personally,” Wilson says. “Employers have the choose-the-cream-of-the-crop situation going for them right now. I repeatedly tell myself, if the employer just knew me — my qualifications, my personality, my work ethics — he or she would hire me immediately and never regret it.”
These are the problems that so many of us have encountered in our long, so far fruitless struggle to obtain gainful employment so that we may re-join the human race and forever leave the Scarlet Letter “U” that comes with being thought of as an “unperson” behind. While I sympithyse with Ms. Wilson on her own struggles it does feel somewhat vindicating to know that I and my readers are not the only ones that this is happening to. It is good to hear from a professional career counselor like Ms. Vainrub have an answer for all of those naysayers out there who keep telling us that we really do not want to work. To those critics I say “see, even a professional career counselor says that it’s people’s perceptions of us that is the problem. The reality is that we want to work and support our families but we’re being hamstrung by companies who think there is something wrong with us.”
And yeah, I can hear them working it now: “well there is something wrong with you, YOU DON’T HAVE A JOB YET YA BUM!!!!!!!” Some people will just never be happy.
But there is something in the article that does get under my skin though. It was when Ms. Vainrub was quoted as saying: “[They might] sense that if the seeker is ineffective in finding a job and marketing themselves, they might not be effective in other tasks. Questions arise as to why this candidate has not been recruited yet and if the company is missing out on some important data that could skew the hiring decision south.” In other words it’s that old erronious thinking of “well if he’s so good at what he does then why hasn’t he been hired by now, what’s wrong with him? Why should we hire damaged goods?” They never stop to consider that the person applying actually might be the perfect fit for the job, and that they are cutting off their noses to spite their own face.
This is probably the main reason why I haven’t been called to interview with a company since October 20, 2007, because they may figure that I am “damaged goods” or “not worth wasting time on.”
Wrong and wrong!
Look, I am very capable of performing as an Administrative Assistant or in an Office Manager capacity. I have kept up with my skills in MS Word, Excel, Outlook and Paint Shop Pro. I may be a little rusty when it comes to PowerPoint and Access but with a little practice I can get right back up to speed. I haven’t had my typing skills tested lately but I used to be able to type 40wpm, and it might have improved in the enseuing years. I know how to use a copy machine, a fax machine, a multi-line phone, and a shredder. I have used Paint Shop Pro at my last Admin Assist job to update the Marketing Materials for the company, and through creating, running and editing this blog I have become familiar with WordPress in a very short period of time. I am also familiar with Adobe Reader, Printmaster, Google Earth, Yahoo! Maps, HyperSnap, FrontPage and I know how to use both WinZip and WinRAR for compressing files. I am not familiar with QuickBooks, however like I said I learn quickly.
Now that last bit about QuickBooks usually gets me disqualified from consideration for even an interview, let alone a job offer. The thinking is “well we want someone who can hit the ground running right away, and if we have to take time to train you then you’re not running, you’re just hitting the ground, aren’t you? We can’t afford to waste time on someone who needs to be trained in a program that we need.”
Do yourselves a favor – waste a little time. You might get a great employee out of it and they may turn out to be the best hire you’ve ever made in your career.
In other words do what you are always telling your own employees to do….
….think outside the box!!!!!!
