Been a while...

So, even though the market is improving and I am seeing more jobs out there, I am still unemployed almost 6 months after term date. That really isn't surprising given the economy, but very frustrating. Seeing lots of jobs for Masters' Degrees and JD's...prolly means I should go back to school, huh? If I could and could still support my family, I would in a heartbeat. Will have to look at what options are out there and what I want to do.

Outta sync...

Realized that it's been a week since I've posted...not great for writing, but since my readership is maybe 3, I'm not that concerned (for you three, however, I'm SOOOOOOOO Sorry!).

I think the reason for the lack of writing is that I may have found my next step: Insurance.

With that in mind, I have been shifting my brain to more of a soon to be employed mindset instead of unemployed. That limits my searching, and focuses more on selection of when's, where's and who's. I'm looking at two companies, both looking for agents in my fairly rural area and I am looking at what is being offered and what the potentials are. Hopefully I can make my choice this week and start moving on it.

Reinventing yourself

Given the world economy, I think this topic bears a bit of talking about. One of the most difficult things I am finding is breaking out of my rut. I know what I am capable of doing, but without concrete "skills" to show for it, it becomes a very hard thing to prove to a potential employer. This has become especially true when specialized skills are the norm and the age of the jack-of-all-trades has all but disappeared.

So, this brings me to the concept of redefinition. I have almost 20 years of experience in sales and support. So, naturally given the state of employment I have currently, which is to say none, I look for jobs that tap that skill set. Herein lies two problems for my particular skill set:

1. Those jobs start at low end of pay
2. They are always the first group cut and are usually not being hired for.

That forces me out of the comfort zone of what I know and how I have come to view myself as a worker. Not a fun prospect, let me tell you. I took stock of two things...what I am good at and what I want/don't want from a job...I guess that's technically three things, but no matter. Here's what I came up with:

Good at: Working with people, active listener, proactive, pattern recognizer
Wants: Control/Decision making, time flexibility, close to home, higher pay, risk/reward balance
Don't wants: Mindless work or unnecessary product/service, low pay, schedule-locked, heavy travel

So, armed with that knowledge, I started looking for new options. I'm good with computers, but not specifically trained in IT/Helpdesk work....hmmm. I have management experience but within support and sales only, not in IT, ENG, or other areas that ARE currently hiring management...Hmmmmmmmm. Time to go back to the list...

The brain seeks patterns and tries to continue them WHENEVER POSSIBLE...even to your detriment. I have been in Customer Service and Support for so long that my brain has actually been telling me that that is the only kind of job I am capable of doing. WTF?!?!?!

Enter a weird email from a representative from an insurance company looking for people who may be interested in being an agent. For some reason, I send in my resume and hear nothing back for a month. Two weeks ago, I get a call from them saying "Hey are you still interested, can I send you some more information?" Now, I say yes and start thinking bout what that could mean for me. Let's look at the list: Working with people, useful product, good pay, own boss... Man, this is starting to sound too good to be true. So I set up an interview and had a great time with that to the point of seriously considering a career in insurance sales. Nothing definite yet, mind you, but seems like a potentially good way to go.

Suffice to say this: If you are unemployed right now and have some time out in the workforce, do not be afraid to put all of that aside and look at something totally off the wall where your previous skills may be a value add instead of the main selling point. All of my skills fit in nicely with the concept of selling insurance and almost all of my wants are there too. As much as people say to look outside the box, it really is true. You have to see yourself in a different light in order to package yourself well for hire.

A Day at the Fair...

...the Job Fair that is.

Now, I'm going to walk you through the day because, as always, there are things to be learned here. Pay attention, there will be a short quiz afterward...

After getting the teens to their bus and grabbing mornnig chai, I got home to get ready. I had decided to have OfficeMax print up my contact cards (table tent cards with all vital info and contact data for me) on the way to the ferry. I got dressed and realized that I really need a new business wardrobe if I'm going to be a shirt and tie kind of person again (heaven forbid!). I finished up the cards and got out the door only about 15 minutes later than expected...not too shabby.

I get to Office Max and after about 15-20 minutes of haranguing, I find out that they cant print up my cards because the stock on them is too thinck for their machines and it will jam 90% of the time. I'm thinking "Holy crap, are you serious?" followed by "So I have wasted how much time here?"
I make a beeline for the boat and get there in plenty of time to wait all the while trying to breathe and get my frustration level down. More than being late, I hate when I make a plan and have to alter it due to my own bad planning or someone else's ineptitude. Today was more of the former. I get on the boat with my 50 resumes and proceed to calm down...ferry rides are very calming for me...not sure why, but who am I to argue. Pulling into Seattle, I looked at one of the last buildings I worked on when I did Sheet Metal and smiled, remembering how many times I almost did a glider run with a 20' siding panel off the top of that thing.

Now the Job Fair is touted at being at Safeco Field...for those not familiar, this is a baseball stadium...fairly large. It also says dress to impress and bring 20-30 copies of your resume. I'm thinking this is going to be a good day for hunting...possibly get some prelim interviews. Nothing could be further from the truth.

First off, the walk to Safeco from the ferry is about a mile...not bad, but I realize that the shoes I am wearing, while nice looking, are bad for walking. I get there and the event is upstairs in a box seat lounge area...not terribly big. My heart begins to sink a bit. There is a line to get in (cost was free) but its moving steadily. I check the time: 10:35am. The event has been going on for 35 minutes...good haven't missed much and should be able to get things going here. Then I realize why the line is movng. They are only letting in people as people leave and people are leaving at a decent clip.

Hold up! It's 35 minutes old and people are bailing already???? Oh, this is not good. when I get in, I get a bag to hold all my information that I will collect and turn the corner to see 15-16 hirers present. This isn't a job fair, it's a job meet or a job tent. A fair denotes having lots of activity, many sights to see, maybe even rides and exhibits. This had none of that unless the truck driving school was the ride. I grabbed some information from a couple of employers and left by 11:00am.

Now I'm not trying to bag on the people who put it on. My expectations were higher though which gets us toward the lessons learned section of today's blog. While I didn't get inetrview time or even much time at all from folks there, I did get some things that are worth sharing.

• Do Your Research - Look at which employers are attending and get a sense of them before going. Look at the venue and get clarification from the event host on the exact location. You may get an idea of size.
• Be Prepared - While I'm glad I had my resumes ready, no one was collecting them. I wished I'd had my Contact cards done, though, as I think those might have been better used with other folks in the room. Also, check your wardrobe ahead of time so you are not surprised when you can't button the top button on your shirt anymore. The 7 P's will keep you on track.
• Act/Dress to Impress - OK, funny part of this morning...my comic relief. Two different groups of young men, all wearing polo shirts or trendy urban wear down to the sagging pants. One group was ogling women as they left the fair and making comments. I was behind them in line and had to stifle my laughter because if I were an employer. there is no way I would hire ANY of them. Wrong attitudes, not ready for serious corporate type work. That said, dress like you want to be treated like you are the shiznit...it helps.

Some other more personal things I got
Exercise (along with shin splints in one leg from the bad shoes)
Some new places to hunt online
Taste of a Job Fair (leaves a slight sour/bitter aftertaste)
Good lunch (World Wrapps' Thai Chicken Wrap gets a MAJOR A+++ from me)

That's the day in a nutshell...kind of a wasted morning for what I looked for, but still got a morning with no kids and a chance to see what is out there. Oh, what are the 7P's you ask?

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance
Truer words never spoken...

A bit behind...and OK with it

Life interrupts again...
Lots to juggle when you're unemployed, and while you think you should have enough time to do it all, it doesn't work that way. Tonight's topic: The Stigma of unemployment.

I remember the first time I heard Everlast's song, "What it's like" and understood the depth of the social commentary. People without jobs are considered to be lazy or unmotivated or even unskilled. Even in this economy where MBA's are finding it difficult to find work in some venues, this mentality still applies. I find it galling when I have a degree, have been gainfully employed for almost 20 years non stop and I would be put into that bracket. Now, employers aren't thinking that way at least not with the folks looking for work. They may have a similar mentality with people in their employ, but that's a separate topic for another time.

When I went down to my local WorkSource office, it was depressing...the stigma is less placed on people by others now and more by ourselves. I've been feeling it creep into my days lately too and I've only been unpaid for like two weeks. It is a sinister thing that finds its way into the background thinking and preventing you from looking outside the box of scheduled work and at other soul-healthier things that can make money. I'll give you an example.

Right now, a publishing company is about to do an anthology and is looking for submissions. It is a company whose books I read often and enjoy and is on a subject and genre in which I am well-versed. Synopsis and sample are due by end of July, so I've been working on it. As far as plotline and what I want to have happen, I'm doing well. But the moment I start to actually "write" my editor in chief starts in and it s far nastier than it used to be. I started listening to it and what it was really saying last night and it was tapping into the "you got let go, you have no skills...look no one is calling you" motif. Once I heard that I was thinking that I now knew why I wasn't really writing. Writing is fun for me, and if I could do that for a living, I think it would be awesome! Not sure if I'm ready to do that which is why I'm starting with the short story to test the waters. It's also why I have been blogging a lot (though not the last few days).

At any rate, end result for those on the hunt for new work. Do not listen to the voice in your head telling you what you are worth. That voice knows only that it cannot do anything itself and wants to take your talents, your dreams, and your goals and flush them. Dabble in those dreams while looking for work and you might start seeing ways to work and be happy doing it. No one else right now thinks badly of you if you've been laid off. Most folks know someone personally who has been affected by the economic downturn. So buck up, and get ready for a new day.

Days 6-8 - Dead ends

So, one of the problems with job hunting is hitting obstacles...lots of them. The biggest one is not getting responses from the people you apply to. Government jobs, with the security clearances and bureaucracy involved, seem to take longer than most. It is here I find myself at this point. Now, while I started the blog a week ago or so, I have been searching for work for about a month. I filed several resumes to the government (USN predominantly) and am now about to start reapplying for positions.

This is the frustrating part of being unemployed...not getting the callbacks. And I know more of why it happens to more people theses days. It goes a little something like this:

• You submit a resume electronically
• Their computer scans it for specific keywords and then rates it according to those keywords.
• If you don't have many, you disappear

So the trick now is to tool your resume to have the keywords that each individual job wants. How whacked out is that? You could have the credentials to do the job perfectly and the experience to excel at it but if your resume isn't playing the same game as their scanning, you're hosed! I find this both exciting and irritating. Both? Yes, on the one hand we have the technology to do an optical scan and pick out words exceptionally well but on the other it weeds out potentially good applicants from even getting face to face with a person. Ahhhh well...one more thing to learn while I am collecting unemployment I suppose ...

Day 5 - Life gets in the way sometimes

So, today was a bust...
And I mean that in the most visceral sense of the word.
Life prevented me from hunting today (of course, I'm blogging now when I could be hunting, but that is NOT the point!).
Quick recap of last night to present:
Bed at 1:45
Family situations including a very awake 4 yr old monkey boy lasting until 4am
6:30 wakeup call to get teens to bus
9:00 little kids to bus
9:30-10:15 errands
10:15 Sit down to hunt (get major hunt spots rechecked and beginning new ones when...)
11:45 pick up boy from bus and begin kid care time...

You get the idea...

So, right now I have two choices...beat myself up for not getting things done today or look at it as a day that was re-planned from stage 1. I think the lesson for today was that when you try to force things to happen in a specific way, Life (with a capital "L") will conspire to mess you up. It honestly never fails. I am choosing the second as this is nobody's fault and will shift things over to tomorrow...no big deal.

Ooooooooohhhhhhhhmmmmmm
Ooooooooohhhhhhhhmmmmmm