Now I, like most of you, have spent a lot of time looking for jobs in the traditional and non-traditional ways - all in the hope of finding a job that will enable Wifey and I to keep our home and work our way out of debt like so many “hard-asses” say is the “responsible thing to do.” And, like many of you, I have been met with either a negative response, or a deafening silence.
Everybody seems to have what they think is the best advice on how to get a job these days:
“Hit the bricks, that’s how we did it in my day. If it was good enough for me, than by God its good enough for you!”
“Ask around to find good opportunities – network yourself. Don’t just stick to the papers or online.”
“Volunteering is a good way to make inroads towards future employment. If you are busy doing something it will be looked upon favorably by hiring managers.”
“Make sure you keep an eye on your credit rating. A bad credit report can disqualify you from certain jobs.”
Now we have all heard this advice and a lot of us have taken it to heart. We may not have done exclusivly one thing, but most of us have integrated different methods into our job search. I not only look in the paper and online, but I also ask around about hiring possibilities at the food banks we go to or the stores we might shop at. I send my resume out on Twitter and I follow the Tweets of local companies and job boards to see if there are opportunities for me. I also ask our creditors if they are hiring or if they know someone who might be – which they usually take as a sign that you are trying everything you can to get work and pay your bills. I have even begun looking for job possibilities in other states and, yes – even in Canada. We really don’t want to move but I figured that it’s better to have an idea of what’s available elsewhere.
But I have to take issue with a recent article that came out from MSN encarta entitled “Why College Grads Still Can’t Get A Job” that, in my opinion, gave some really horrible advice to not only recent grads, but to job seekers everywhere.
The article starts out with the author Don Asher, who has written ten books on careers and higher education, telling about his experience on a recent talk radio show in Los Angeles. According to Mr Asher:
…one college student after another called in to say that they had followed all the rules and still couldn’t find a job. They had good grades and logical career plans, they had gotten the two internships (or at least one), and they were just flummoxed by this job market.
Their pain was palpable. They were trying desperately to make their educations pay off with a job, and they were getting absolutely nowhere. And worst of all, they were now dumped into the job market as recent college grads, competing directly with people with years of experience in every targeted field.
He then goes on to ask what else they could do to improve their chances. That’s when he began to go off the rails a little bit because the next thing he said was that college grads biggest mistake is that they spend all of their time and energy looking online for a job. He then goes on to say that “applying for jobs online, from the safety of a mom’s basement, night after night, is unlikely to result in a hire. It’s comfortable, and insulates the jobseeker from personal rejection, but it’s simply not that effective.”
First of all I think that Mr. Asher betrays a bias that he might have against young, college-age job seekers with that statement. Look at the image that he presents us with that sentence: a young person, living in their parent’s basement, with one overhead light, a bed (or cot) and a computer with an Internet connection. The image that he is projecting upon our young people is that of a loser who has been rejected by polite society, and has sentenced him or her to a lifetime of isolation and failure.
But wait, there’s more.
Mr. Asher quotes other so-called “experts” to back up his hypothesis:
Having good grades and doing an internship is not enough,” says Justin McCummings, associate director of undergraduate career services at Boston University’s school of management. “Online can be a great starting point, but that face-to-face communication has to take place. Someone has to know about you, and know your story. I like to say it’s not who you know, but who knows you.
I ran into this a lot when I graduated and tried to break into mainstream acting – it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
But wait, there’s more…
The most infuriating part of the article for me was when Mr. Asher quoted research done by CareerXroads. According to Mr. Asher, CareerXroads is “an international recruiting strategy consultancy based in New Jersey. Their research is designed to help corporate HR departments be more effective at staffing, but it has implications for jobseekers.”And what might those implications be you ask? Well, according to CareerXroads they sourced 309,600 hires at American and Canadian companies to see how sucessful new hires engaged employers, and these were their results:
Employee Referrals 27%Corporate Web Site 20%Job Boards 12%Direct Sourcing 8%College Recruiting 4%Print Advertising 3%Search Engine Marketing 3%Career Fairs / Open Houses 3%Temp-to-Perm 3%Employment Agencies 3%Rehires 2%Walk Ins 1%All Others 10%
Now judging by their results you could devine the following – “hitting the bricks” as they call it is not an effective method of job-hunting in the present economy as the 1% of successful walk-ins can attest. Getting re-hired after a lay off is not likely to happen either, so if your boss says that they will bring you back in a few months – don’t count on it, move on. Employment Agencies are not high on the list either, which reflects what I’ve been hearing from some of you about how you have been turned away by some of them. That goes along with the Temp-to-Perm route and the ineffective Career Fairs that try to get us to sell Bio-Degradable Feminine Napkins door-to-door.
I’m just never going to be able to get that image out of my head…
The top 3 methods that they have found however seemed to be Employee referrals, Corporate Web Sites and Job Boards – probably sites like CareerBuilder, Monster, HotJobs and Craigslist. All told, 59% of successful applicants had used one or more of those methods – but that is not the infuriating part of the article for me. This is:
Never ever apply without having an employee refer you,” says Gerry Crispin, a global staffing guru and one of the principals at CareerXroads. “It is profoundly important to know that most organizations, for any specific opening, do not get that many referrals. Think about it as a lottery. Which lottery do you invest in? The one with a 1-in-10 chance of winning? Or one with a 1-in-50 or 1-in-500 chance? The reward is the same either way. It’s a job.
What?!?
Excuse me?!?!?
Come again?!?!?!?!?
Let me just repeat that key phrase down below for those of you who may have missed it…
Never ever apply without having an employee refer you.
Somehow I do not believe that not only has Mr. Crispin not had to look for a job for an extended period of time, but that he has his head stuck so far up his ass that he has lost all touch with current economic realities.
Gerry, do you have any idea just how damaging that little piece of advice is that you just gave? Do you have any notion of how many potential job seekers could be derailed by you if they were to take you seriously? “Never ever apply without having an employee refer you” has to be, without a doubt the dumbest piece of advice I have ever heard given to someone who is trying to start out in the world or who is trying to support their family. Gerry, there are so many of us out here who do not have the inside access to get an employee referral that you are talking about that in essence you have just told millions of job seekers that they should just give up on their job search and start pitching tents out in the wilderness because the banks are coming to take away their homes!!!! I do not call that someone giving responsible advice Gerry, do you?!?!?!?
If the answer is yes then Gerry, I am sad to say (not!) that it is time for a career change because you have obviously lost all touch with reality!!! The reality is that, unfortunately, many of us have had to re-locate in an attempt to follow the jobs in the hope that we might be able to actually secure one. In such a case, many of us are in a strange town where we don’t know anyone, and can’t depend on those magical employee referrals that you are touting. Some of us are on our own, and we do not need someone like you, who has probably been with a company and in an industry that is not subject to the economic forces that many other industries are, giving us bad advice on how best to secure the means to keep our children fed and warm!!!
If it sounds like I am being to harsh on Gerry, think about it! If we were all to take his advice and just not apply to a job unless we had someone who worked there vouching for us, think of the effect that would have on all of our spirits. Think of how many positions would go unfilled when they most needed to be. Think of the damage that would do to the economy in the long run as more and more people lose their Unemployment benefits after they’ve either run out or were stopped because we were not “actively” looking for work. Then think about the long-term implications of millions of people being out of work for an extended period of time. Think about what that would do to the housing market, the banking industry, health care, education. Think about what that would mean for the millions of families that were now homeless because of extended unemployment – it would mean that we would, despite the President’s best efforts, be ensnared in the grip of the 2nd Great Depression. All because millions of job seekers stop looking for work because they didn’t have someone to vouch for them.
Ya see why this is bad advice Gerry?!? Ya see where this could end up?!?
Now I don’t seriously think for one moment that anyone is actually going to take this fool at his word and just give up their job search. On the contrary, I would think that it would make most of us, myself included, go out there with a renewed vigor and double our efforts to gain employment. If anything we should be doing it just to prove this jack-ass wrong and that we really can get a job without having someone put in a good word for us first. I have no doubt that a referral would help, but it should not be a pre-requisite for sending in your resume and cover letter just as our FICO scores should not be used against us to discriminate against us for falling on hard times.
Personally I would love to have someone put in a good word for me someplace so that I could have a leg up on everybody else. The problem is that we know very few people here and the chances of that happening for me, and for many others in our situation, are remote at best.
So Memo to Gerry: Why don’t you come down off of your pedestal and come mingle with the wayward and unwashed and see what our daily lives are like? See what it is like to have to try to figure out how to keep the lights on and keep food on the table and a roof over your head when you have no income to speak of. See what it’s like to put yourself out there only to be turned away everywhere you go and you can’t figure out why. See how it is to live with that kind of stress when someone you love is sick and you have no possibility of getting them health care of any kind that doesn’t constitute a home remedy.
Then tell me that I shouldn’t be applying for jobs that I qualify for because I don’t have an “in” first!
Put on my size 12′s, walk a mile, then pop off!!!
I went on an interview this week and I can tell you that I sat among many College age kids. Some were fresh out of College and hoping to land a job- any job. Many were finding it hard. Some were saying that they were having to compete with people my age-48 or older. It is sad for someone who already has a job, to assume that finding work anywhere in this economy is easy. Times are tough all over and if you haven’t been in the market of the unemployed, all I can say it isn’t a piece of cake. Not only are wehaving to compete and fill out applications on line but also hitting the pavement is becoming more difficult. If one lives in rural areas, the jobs are even more scarce and hard to follow. We spend most days searching and we wait for some sort of reply. If one is lucky to go for an interview, we wait for others to get through with the same interviewer and then we all must try and outdo the previous person with impressing, playing up our experiences, our skills and afterwards, we debate if we could have said more or done more or we think that I could have answered that question better had I had more than a few seconds to think about it more. Then we wait for some reply or sign of hope that we did well enough to get the job.
Mr. Asher’s advice is underqualified. He has no sense of what it is like in the real world and what it is like for many of us at any age, to search for a job we are qualified for or need or want. He has no idea what it takes to keep your sanity and try to find work anywhere. He may be knowledgable in writing his books but he hasn’t a clue as to the hardships and the frustrations of what a normal, average person has to go through. Whether one has the experience or not, fresh out of grad school or otherwise. He should do more research and try it himself, if he thinks his opinion of the job market is on target. From what I can see, it isn’t!
Congrats on the interview first of all, good to see that one of us is getting some movement.
I agree about Mr. Asher’s advice. It sounds as if he’s spent most of his time in a classroom rather than having any real world experience. I don’t get how someone who is not currently out here, trying to get work like we are can just sit back and say what we are doing right or wrong. I guess some people will always think that they know better than anyone else what it takes to make it in this world. But when they put their foot in it like Mr. Asher did, they only make themselves look idiotic.
His ignorance of our situation is no excuse for his advice. He is giving people the wrong impression and the lack of knowledge he has in this area, shows his weakness for what we, the unemployed, are doing. Or trying to. Economically, this country is in dire straits and jobs are not as plentiful for anyone. More people are unemployed everyday, and the numbers, although the news will have you think it is improving by polls that don’t show the ones still out of work whose benefits ran out long ago, are still decending on the slide. Mr. Asher should research and experience what the rest of us are going through. Doesn’t matter the age, the schooling, the credentials, and experience. The jobs, especially in rurals areas are not there! Period! He shouldn’t make assumptions about the unemployed. Even jobs on line, like Monster, Retail.com, and such cannot promise you a job. He is being an idiot if he thinks that hitting the pavement will also get you a job. Been there, done that and still looking!
And that’s the thing about “hitting the pavement” that a lot of people still don’t get – it doesn’t work in today’s world to just walk into a business and ask if they are hiring. More often then not people are going to be turned away because either there is nothing open, or they see you as a potential threat and you get tazered by Security.
I mean look at those stats up top again where it says “Walk-ins”, that 1% means that the odds are not in your favor. That and not applying for anything unless we have a refferal in place first I mean come on, how dumb is that. Like you were saying – in rural areas there might not be that much opportunity to get that kind of recommendation, especially if there is no work to be found.
Personally I think the best way is to combine all of the methods and use them all in one way or another. Network on Facebook and Twitter, Check the online boards like CareerBuilder and Monster, look at the corporate websites, check the fishwrap, and just talk to people to see if they’ve heard anything.
But then what do I know, I still haven’t had any luck…
Well, I have tried all methods, gone on interviews and still haven’t found anything. It is sad that those who run their mouths that say you should just walk into this place or that one and ask, don’t know the hardship it is to do just that and then don’t get the job, anyway. I have tried monster, climbers, retailsjobs, etc., and nothing. Thousands apply for the same job. Times have changed and it just isn’t as easy as it use to be. My husbnad and I were talking about that the other day. It is going to take some time before the job market opens up. I have tried every buisness I am qualified for, every buisness I ever worked for, and still nothing. It gets depressing and makes one doubt or question one’s abilities. The more time passes, the more it rubs on your mind. It isn’t easy to find any job, now. And the more it passes, the more depressed one gets. I just want a job that I can do to the best of my ability, to pay the bills, and try and save what I can for emergencies. Let those who run their mouths about hitting the pavement, try it for a month. I am sure after rejection hits them time and time again, they will see what we unemployed go through on a daily basis. Of course, some I know who tell me this won’t admit how hard it will or actually be for them. But then again, they have jobs or are already retired.
Exactly, it seems like the ones who are giving the most advice are not out there in the trenches. So a lot of their advice is either outdated or just plain wrong to begin with.
Someone at another site the other day was commenting about employers using credit scores, and he likened it to a kind of “debtors prison”. If you think about it, he’s right. Back in the day if you got deep in debt and you could pay it off you were sent to debtors prison where you would remain until you had paid your debts. We kind of have the modern equivalent by not giving people with bad credit jobs, thus keeping them imprisoned in a way.
If things keep going like that then the economy is going to take even longer to recover then they think. If people don’t have jobs they don’t have money to spend. If they’re not buying stuff the economy doesn’t get stimulated. If goods are not selling then people have to get laid off. And if people don’t have jobs they don’t have money to spend.
Nice huh?
That is true. While we are no longer sent to Debtor’s Prisons, we are enslaved by the reminates of credit reports. We need work but many of us will be in financial ruin, if not already do the decline of the employment situation. those who run their mouths the most, do not the situatations, the circumstances, and not likely to care since they either have a job, are in a position where they have been able to retire, and those that just don’t think things through to find compassion for those of us looking.
This economy is distroying families, “credits”, and one’s self-esteem. We need to feel good about ourselves, and how better than to be a part of society, and feeling we have at least accomplished something in our lives. Without work, many of us are the forgotten, the abused, the overlooked. We need to work, to feel productive. If we haven’t the funds to make ends meet, it isn’t possible that we have funds to put back into the economy, thus making this country what it was. It will soon become a shallow world for us all, if we don’t have someone doing something soon, to pick it up. The rich get richer, the middleclass has now become the poor and the poor are now destitute….