Summer hunting season

I am still in the midst of a job search right now.  Not a lot has happened since I last wrote about this.  I have altered some of my techniques though.  I only try to make in person contacts now.  No more of this calling around stuff.  Online applications are not something that I am doing right now.  I find them to be long and tedious.  They are demoralizing to me.  I carry a copy of my resume´ with me and a list of my references.  If a company is not taking applications, I ask will they accept a copy of my resume´.  Most of the time they will but what I want to talk about today is the interview and the parts of the resume´.

As of yet, I haven't had the first call back for an interview.  This is a first for me.  I have been in the workforce since I was 16 years old and it just feels so foreign to me to be out of work so long.  Now I haven't started worrying about this because in my heart of hearts I believe that something will turn up.  It may not be just what I was looking for but it will be something to pay the bills so to speak.  Now the resume´ writing has changed a little since I first learned to write one.  There is this part called the "objective" and that seems a little odd to me.  My objective is to get a job!  Now I can't put that on there can I?  It just doesn't sound professional.  So you have to come up with a sugar coated way to say the same thing.  This to me is stupid.  Now you know why I hate politics.  Things that should be so simple are made to be so complicated.  I think I will omit this.  The work history and education areas are OK I suppose.  I don't give more information than I have to there though because I want to explain more of this in an interview.  I just have where I worked and what I did and the hire dates.  I only go back 10 years unless the information from a past job is pertinent to the job I am applying for.  Employers generally only keep records 7 years or so on you.  Many times if you have been away for longer than that, they won't have a record of your employment.  This does vary from company to company and they may remember you anyway, but don't count on it.  Another part of my resume´ is references.  Work and personal references to be exact.  Now I will only furnish this on a separate sheet upon request.  I appreciate all of the people that said that I could use their personal information to help me to gain employment.  I don't hand that information out to just anyone and certainly not like giving away a free coupon or something.  I have a friend in a nearby city that is a manager of a company.  There is a special paper that you can buy just to print a resume´ on.  It usually is heavy milled and has a watermark on it if you hold it to the light.  My friend will hold the resume´ up to the light and if the watermark is upside down, he throws the thing in the trash!  He won't even look at the content.  I haven't told him, but I think it is stupid to let a potentially good employee slip through your fingers just because of a watermark.  I don't use this special paper anyhow. :)  Call me a maverick.  I may be an unemployed maverick, but a maverick, nonetheless. :)

If I can get to the interview, life will be good.  Interviews don't intimidate me because I can usually talk my way into a job.  The person interviewing is just a person like me and that is how I have always looked at it.  You have to have all of your ducks in a row when you go in there though.  Nothing really in my past that would hinder me so I am confident when I get to this part.  It is just getting to the interview that is driving me nuts right now.  Now I know some of you are going through the same thing and you all have a few different techniques that you use.  Perhaps we could compare notes and give each other a few pointers.  Anything to pass the time. :)  Hopefully, the next time I post about this will be about how I got the job!  I'll definitely post that when it happens! :)

The Job Hunt

I am going to share something personal today. At present, I have been unemployed just a little over two months now. This job hunting thing really stinks! I live in an area that has an 11.5% unemployment rate, and I am not the youngest or brightest person in the job market. I am, however, resourceful enough to know what strengths I possess. I have long since settled down and am not ever late for work or bad about being absent. Still, it is tough to go out there day after day and look for work and get rejection after rejection. A demoralizing process at best.

I used to work in the weave room of a textile mill. It was what my father did before me, and what my brother did as well. One out of every four people in South Carolina was directly employed or received their support from textiles in the early 1970's. I worked at this type of job from the time I was 16 years old until I was 40 years old. Not many textile mills around now folks. Most of those jobs have long since been exported. I did finally find a job after age 40 as an electroplater for a company in the packaging industry. Electroplating was neat work! I got to work with chemicals, perform analysis, and it sure was interesting to see steel turn to copper right before your eyes! It was great fun right up until the company I worked for closed. Still I am sure there is the "perfect job" out there for me. Not being facetious here, I really mean that! If I keep looking and hold fast to my faith, I really believe things will be all right. I think it is more of an issue of timing than anything else at the moment.

I hope this hasn't turned into a downer kind of post. It just happens to be on my mind at the moment. The work that I have done in the past is wonderful to remember, but it is a memory. Lots of work to yet be done! There is pavement to pound and contacts to be made. Never let it be said of me that I did not try. Whatever life throws at us can be overcome. I believe that with all of my heart. I just happen to wear that heart on my sleeve today. You would never have believed that I read Othello, would you? :)