Unemployed

[berry]

I never post in the community section but I have some information that might be of value to those few of you who are - unemployed, between jobs, in transition - whatever the correct phrase is.

Here are a couple of search engines I've been using that may help.
Indeed.com
simplyhired. com

AARP recently did a seminar on resume writing I thought was pretty interesting. They focused on resumes for 'more seasoned' workers. They suggested two things I thought were pretty good.

Don't put in dates automatically. For example under education don't put the year you graduated, just that you graduated and the degree. Why give the HR bigot a chance to disqualify you based on graduating in 1972?

Second, they suggested not putting ALL your job history in your resume. I've worked full time since 1963, but my new resume history starts in 1981.

And don't say "I lost my job." A job isn't like your glasses or a pencil, you don't loss a job. Someone takes it away from you. It's an economic mugging.

Remember your resume is about the future, not the past. Best of luck to all of you who are trying to find employment!!!

[doug45601]

Thanks, Some very sound advise! Don't need it myself but lots of friends I have can use it.. They are struggling...

[wlhayesmfs]

I know what you mean on dates. Put I graduated in 66 and right then I was out of school before the person hiring me was born or probably before their parents met. LOL So I am still looking.

[cincinnati]

Thanks for the links.

I have been unemployed for a month now. Had my job for 24 years. Kinda hard getting over not having all the responsibility.

[robinson46176]

I used to interview job applicants regularly and one of the most common blunders was when they were unemployed and I asked them why they left their last job. The common answer was that they were not making enough money at it so they quit. My next question was then "How much are you making now that you don't have a job?" On the few occasions that I bothered to check I usually found that they had been fired for cause... The best answer for being out of work was "they did away with my job".
-
I was hiring data processing staff and many applicants were just sure that they knew it all because they had attended some alley school's programming class. I did usually give them marks for making the effort to learn but most of those schools were teaching stuff so far out of date that it was just silly. Some (not most) had been so hyped as to how great the school was that they walked in with quite an attitude. We found that we could hire a sharp raw recruit off of the street or just out of high school and train them for our needs much easier than we could "untrain" them from what those schools taught them and "retrain" them to suit our purpose. Again it tended to be an attitude problem. We had some of the top guys in the field and they didn't take well to being told by a new assistant that what they were doing on the cutting edge was wrong because their school instructor (who was still teaching plug-board programing in the late 1960's) "said so".
If you want to impress an interviewer tell them that you want to learn from the job... Not that you know it all.
Exude flexibility.
I used to razz the CEO that the reason he had trouble hiring computer operators was that he would hire anybody that could push the buttons to get the elevator up to our floor... I told him that he needed to learn to ID which ones cheated and used the stairs.

[mhn1957]

I'm job hunting now, as my job goes away at the end of July.
I'm shocked to find that nobody uses the IBM 019 keypunch anymore.
I'll have to fall back on my skills at Zeppellin driving and ice delivery.

I'll check out the sites. THX!

[Ed in Tampa]

I used to interview job applicants regularly and one of the most common blunders was when they were unemployed and I asked them why they left their last job. The common answer was that they were not making enough money at it so they quit. My next question was then "How much are you making now that you don't have a job?" On the few occasions that I bothered to check I usually found that they had been fired for cause... The best answer for being out of work was "they did away with my job".
-
I was hiring data processing staff and many applicants were just sure that they knew it all because they had attended some alley school's programming class. I did usually give them marks for making the effort to learn but most of those schools were teaching stuff so far out of date that it was just silly. Some (not most) had been so hyped as to how great the school was that they walked in with quite an attitude. We found that we could hire a sharp raw recruit off of the street or just out of high school and train them for our needs much easier than we could "untrain" them from what those schools taught them and "retrain" them to suit our purpose. Again it tended to be an attitude problem. We had some of the top guys in the field and they didn't take well to being told by a new assistant that what they were doing on the cutting edge was wrong because their school instructor (who was still teaching plug-board programing in the late 1960's) "said so".
If you want to impress an interviewer tell them that you want to learn from the job... Not that you know it all.
Exude flexibility.
I used to razz the CEO that the reason he had trouble hiring computer operators was that he would hire anybody that could push the buttons to get the elevator up to our floor... I told him that he needed to learn to ID which ones cheated and used the stairs.

Farmer
Your remarks are interesting but I think in today's economy most job applicants are going to be giving the answer you say was the best. My job went away.

I don't know how it is where you are but where I'm at we have sections of town that look like ghost towns. Strip centers that don't have one occupant. There are some makes of cars that simply aren't sold here any more. I know people in cutting edge technology jobs that know their jobs are being shifted to overseas operations.

We have housing developments with more then 50% of the houses empty. They don't even bother hanging for sales signs there are so many. I have a personal friend that at any one time in 07-08 had 40 houses in the half million and up price range under construction. Since about the middle of 2009 he hasn't built a house. He is keeping himself and a few high value employees busy doing remodels.
I know guys that reported $100,000 income doing concrete finishing in 2008 that only made $8,000 total last year.

Add to that this mess in Gulf of Mexico and I can understand why people are out of work. It ain't the same as it was only two years ago.

Let me add my heart goes out to you guys that found yourselves unemployed. All I can say in hang in there you are in my prayers.

[brick1]

Francis and Ed in tampa make some powerful statements. i was laid off after 30 years at kennedy Space Center. and so it is with "contractors". in the next ten months, i wrote and re-wrote my resumes. sometimes to target specific requirements and sometimes for general purposes. i've been luckier than most in that i was able to change career paths, in totally separate areas, and move on. Francis is right......taylor your resume to the requirements and never say you left for any reason other than....."my job went away".....
and one more thing i learned......look on monster.com and careerbuilder.com.....read the "buzz words" and place them in your resume. in 1986, after we lost the Shuttle Challenger, and NASA formed teams to review all the processes that make up a launch effort, i became a member of a team, worked my end of things and 25 years later, i find out i was a "project manager"!!!! It WORKED!!! i now have a new job, with health insurance and can retire and leave when i want! just keep at it!!!

take care, bill