Job-Hunting Tricks

I've been looking for work since my daughter started school full-time, but in two years I've only had one interview.  My husband lost his job this past February, so now the search for employment has become urgent.

Younger people have said that job hunting these days is different from 30 years ago, but in some respects it's the same.  You almost need an "in" or you have to know someone within the industry/company just to be considered.  In a tough job market, companies tend to go with what they know, or they look for proven talent.  The rest of us are left chipping away at a large wall.

Most companies use software to screen applications and resumes, which means most applications are not even seen by a human.  In that environment, you need somehow to connect with humans directly, to make an impression and to sell yourself a little.  That's something I have never been comfortable doing, but nevertheless, employers will hire people they like, in whom they have confidence.  We need somehow to get on their "list".

The bulk of corporations in the public sector still screen manually.  However only those chosen get a response; they do not correspond with other applicants to tell them what happened.  From a potential employee perspective, it's a very unsatisfying process.  If you are chosen, then you might be sent for additional testing (language testing, personality profile, aptitude testing) before being put on a list to be interviewed.  The interview process itself is pass/fail, with successful interviewees being put on an eligibility list.  Who gets hired from that list is subject to additional considerations.  It's a long process without any guarantee.

What a lot of people do now is to create an online presence and market themselves that way, such as through Twitter or LinkedIn.  Through that you might get lucky to forge a connection that will lead you to opportunities.  But even that is not enough.  Your credentials often have to be stellar in order to be admissible, especially within a competitive field.  In the short term, if there's no paid work, one could always volunteer at something in order to get a bit of a work history, or to work for folks who at least appreciate your contributions, even if they are unpaid.

Looking ahead, the younger generation will have to be entrepreneurial; this means always marketing, constantly networking, and constantly looking for the next opportunity, just as if it were a business.  My nephews for example are smarter than me at this.  All worked summer jobs through school.  Their part time jobs helped them to get more substantial ones, now they have jobs waiting for them at graduation.  They networked, seized opportunities, and proved themselves.  Now they have good resumes and references and may actually be in demand.  The trick is to have a rep for something.

Now if only I could benefit from my own advice.

Write Bites

It's well known that preschoolers can have a short attention span, so most kinds of explanations that take more than a few words are likely to go over their heads. This is why the producers of shows like Sesame Street created so many memorable sketches: they needed to convey an idea in a short time.

Unfortunately that short attention span seems to be increasingly normal for young adults today, and the media has contributed to it. Services like Twitter only allow up to 140 characters. Phone text messaging has a similar limitation. The average YouTube video lasts four minutes. Even written blogs are slowly being replaced by "bloglets" or "micro-blogs" of 400 words or less. We are being reduced to gleaning information through sound bites or as I shall call it, "write bites".

Another blog site that I write on has rules that include: each post must be over 400 characters long, and a single user may post up to ten items each day. Because it's a money-per-view site, many users take full advantage of it by writing multiple short posts of fluff in order to cash in. I've seen posts about mundane subjects garnering hundreds of "likes".

I recently wrote an article wondering why my posts weren't getting very much traffic. The response was that because I tend to write longer posts about intelligent subjects (the actual words were "too cerebral") most readers will only look at the first few lines and then move on. They won't stick around for the whole post, meaning they won't "like" the post or comment on it.

This is a travesty. If people won't take the time to appreciate someone else's ideas, how will they learn? You can't learn any subject by just looking at the introduction to the book.

As for me, I have seriously considered switching blog sites again. In general I don't write fluffy stuff, and if that's what it would take to get noticed, I would prefer to stick to what I like to write about in relative obscurity.

Catching Up

Hello everyone, I know it has been a long time. A lot of things have been happening in my life lately, things which have limited my ability to keep up with all my online communities.

Depression, writer's block, family trouble, and half a dozen other reasons that I shan't go into on a public forum. Suffice it to say that I've had to pare down the number of web sites that I deal with. I'm not about to delete my profiles entirely, since I know that many people have enjoyed reading my work and it's not fair to deprive anyone of the stories that I have already told.

I can still be found on Facebook, and I'm currently contributing to another writing site called Bubblews. Here's the link for those who wish to read:

http://www.bubblews.com/account/143219-sailorchronos

I'll still pop on here from time to time to see how things are going.

Ja ne.

Remark the Cat

"The Rum Tum Tugger is a curious cat, and there isn't any need for me to spout it, for he will do as he do do, and there's no doing anything about it." -- T.S. Eliot

I did a very kind or very rash thing today, and I'm trying to decide which.

A bit of backstory: a local cat named Gizmo started hanging around our place about the end of July. I spoke to Gizmo's owner who told me that she had been an indoor cat but suddenly had a change in attitude toward the other cats in the home and ran away. She is not spayed, which seemed to me a plausible reason to not want to return home. Another reason for not staying inside is the large dog that the family now owns. They left food out for Gizmo in their yard, and I put a little shelter out on our back stoop to provide her with a safe place to hide since she was being picked on by other neighbourhood cats. The months went by and Gizmo continued to show up in our yard on a regular basis, and became quite friendly with us.

Then my family and I went on holiday for two weeks. When we returned I didn't see Gizmo for a few days, but it was obvious that she had been using the shelter so I left some food out. Later that day I noticed that the food was gone, but I also made the unpleasant discovery of a pool of either vomit or diarrhea on the patio, so evidently the food didn't settle well with her for some reason.

However this morning Gizmo appeared on the back stoop and I immediately noticed that something was wrong. She wasn't behaving as she normally did; instead she was sluggish and apparently in pain. I picked her up and went to knock on her owner's door, and said that I felt that she needed to see a vet. The owner seemed preoccupied, and said only that Gizmo was supposed to have her shots and get spayed but she couldn't be kept in the house long enough to make an appointment. I handed Gizmo over and turned to go home, but within a few minutes the cat was following me back.

Once at home I decided that I had to take charge. I wasn't about to let this poor kitty get any worse. I grabbed an old towel, wrapped her up and took her to the closest vet. Eventually the vet examined Gizmo and said that Gizmo was dehydrated and malnourished (and NOT pregnant, thank goodness) and he needed to keep her overnight to stabilize her and do some other tests. I explained that the cat wasn't mine and I would have to consult the owner as to what to do, but in order for the vet to proceed with the tests he needed a deposit. I paid without a second thought.

On the way home I knocked on the owner's door again and explained the situation. The owner said bluntly that she couldn't deal with it. Being a single mother working from home with two kids, three cats and a dog, and an unemployed boyfriend, she just couldn't handle any more. She knew that I had been looking out for Gizmo and had thought that Gizmo needed space and would be more comfortable at my place rather than at hers. I had to concede the point, and even though I'm on a tight budget myself I am not one to abandon an animal in need that has clearly chosen to "adopt" me.

As of right now Gizmo is still at the vet's, and will probably be staying there at least another day. My husband has mixed feelings about the situation but we'll discuss what to do once we get word of Gizmo's progress. It's wierd, worrying about a cat that wasn't ours to begin with.

Autumnal Reflections

"Still don't know what I was waiting for, and my time was running wild, a million dead-end streets and every time I thought I'd got it made, it seemed the taste was not so sweet." -- David Bowie

Autumn has arrived, and the leaves on the trees are not the only things that are changing.

My father, who will be turning 75 soon, seems to be losing his faculties.  He can't remember the names of many people whom he has known for years.  The last time he drove me back from his house, he would have gone through two intersections had I not called his attention to the stop signs.  His doctor claims there's nothing wrong with him, but I'm not so sure.

The management of the rowhouse complex where my family is living changed over last year. Since then, many people including myself have noticed a marked decline in the upkeep of the grounds.  Two of the long-time maintenance staff who were well-known by the residents as friendly and efficient were fired and replaced by people who barely speak English, and they don't do their jobs well.  Branches aren't being picked up, trash bins on the grounds aren't being emptied, the promise of new windows for many of the residents hasn't been kept.  Even the front office seems to be closed most of the time.  It's a shame because the previous administration had worked hard to keep up the buildings and attract residents with young families.  Now many people are moving out, and we will probably also move next summer.

Two acquaintances on Facebook have recently left their boyfriends, under similar circumstances:
"I spent the last two days listening to you bitch and moan about how bad you have it and how you NEVER feel like you come first in my life when I DO EVERYTHING FOR YOU!!! I Love you but I'm D-O-N-E DONE!!! I asked you to do one thing for me today: take me to the fair. You have been home all week doing NOTHING. But no, you can't put me first for once can you?  I don't need or deserve to be treated like this and I won't let you any more!"

"Once again I am the biggest ass in the world for believing in someone, supporting them through hard times and falling in love with them. Believing when they say they care and they love me too. Only to be shut out and ignored. We're finished."

Another woman I know is about to have a baby at age 45, despite all the advice she had against it.  She already has four other older children by three different men, and has never worked in a steady job as far as I know. When directly questioned about what's happening in her life, she avoids the question or doesn't respond at all.

As for me?  Still stuck in the same rut.  I can't seem to write much.  My hopes to find a part-time job while my daughter is in school grow dimmer, as nobody seems interested in the applications that I send - and I have sent dozens.  The majority of brick-and-mortar jobs around here appear to be in retail sales, an area in which I have no experience whatsoever.

Well, all I can do is keep my chin up and soldier on.