The Hazards of Job Hunting

So far, there has been little luck on the job front. I know it's early in one sense, but in another it's late. True, I only began looking in earnest for work a few weeks ago. Yet this was really just a renewal of a hunt that started when I was laid off in October. The difference is that now I spend more time going over listings and I have cast my net wider to catch any work that I might be suited for. Plus I was in a different market looking for whatever was available in Montclair New Jersey, which it turns out was not much.   

I keep running into the same problems, namely a lack of supply and a lack of previous long-term employment. There are just not that many jobs someone right out of college can do here. So much of what the government offers requires advanced degrees and everything in the private sector demands years of work experience. Many of the listings I come across want 3 to 5 years experience at a minimum and I only graduated college in 2008.  It seems like it's been longer, but that's a product of the free time unemployment grants, one benefit that doesn't run out.  


The jobs I read through every day are just not encouraging. The trend seems to be positions I have no chance of getting unless everyone else decides to stop looking for work. My only other hope it seems  is to come across a listing that is an outlier from the other jobs, a position with unique requirements that I meet. The trouble is anything I'm qualified for in the least is going to attract the attention of dozens of more candidates who have been out in the workforce before I learned to read and write, or even before I was born. It's hard to see a way through it all. The world of the unemployed truly is a dark tunnel with a dim light at the end that flashes on and off.

This is not to say that if someone offers me a job in the DC area that I will snub it or think there is something wrong with them for wanting to hire a person like me. If an employer wants to hire me because they think I have the fine mind they are looking for, I am more than amenable to the proposition. My only real sticking points are health insurance and public transportation, both of which I need to work at all. Without health insurance I can't pay for the drugs that keep my Crohn's in check and without public transportation I can't get to the job in question. It's a fairly sensible deal. If I could forgo either, I would. Indeed, if it wasn't for the Crohn's I would already be abroad, trying to teach in some country where they need people who can provide total English immersion because they don't speak any other language fluently enough to interrupt the flow of Anglo-Saxon.  

The only thing that helps is to know I'm not alone. Millions of people are in my position, not only unemployed, but missing out on the most important part of their career, when they gain the experiences that help them get their foot in the door for better jobs. Falling by the wayside, we are not only competing with older workers who trounce us in the experience category, but against recent graduates who are exactly in the same boat as we are. Do they have any advantages over us? I suppose they have more energy and whatever contacts they have are freshly minted and can be tapped for leads. In time though, all of us younger members of the lumpenintelligentsia  and lumpenproletariat will fall into the same position, left behind.

In the 1920s, Gertrude Stein coined the phrase "the Lost Generation" to describe those who came of age during World War I and whose careers were truncated by the experience, making it difficult for them to adjust back into civilian life. The term could just as well apply to us unemployed members of the Millennial Generation. If the recovery ever comes I wonder how many of us will be able to take advantage of it after having been either unemployed or underemployed for so long. To make matters worse, we are inheriting a country that is in decline, whose political structure cares little for us, and who will force to pay an ever growing share of whatever income we can manage to earn in order to support a generation of Baby Boomers who generally refuse to either die or take proper care of themselves. At least previous generations did not have to deal with such deep infrastructural problems on the horizon. And that is assuming we don't run out of natural resources, something no one in power is prepared to deal with.

Yes, we are Generation Esau, being cheated out of our inheritance one way or another. Those is power will starve us until we agree to the austerity which will make us hunger even more.

What can one do? Try to amuse oneself in the meantime I suppose.. One has to keep their spirits up. I handle rejection on a daily basis as a writer. Just today I got a rejection from a journal of short poetry. No matter. I send my poems back out. Their loss, I tell myself. The same can go for jobs, though editors at least get back to you eventually. They also mean business when they say they are interested in your work. This has not been the case with my job applications. Like anyone applying for work these days, I come across my fair share of job scams. So I try to have fun with them.

Recently I received this response for a entry-level receptionist position:

Our recruitment team viewed your resume published on  (Craigslist) and we are pleased with your qualifications. Your  details as been forward to the senior supervisor (Ms Stephanie Brown ) She would like to conduct an online interview with you  to discuss your duties and pay scale with our company .If you  are interested in this position,set up a screen name with the  yahoo instant messenger(www.messenger.yahoo.com) and add up  this screen name (hiredesk200@yahoo.com) Report online at9:00am (6/25/2011) for an interview.

 Contact Ms Brown via the email  below to let her know if the time frame works for you  hiredesk200@yahoo.com If you got any problems feel free to email   back.

H CLERK.

To which I responded (after doing my research!):

Sure I'm interested, if you can explain this story: http://cyanidefish.livejournal.com/214035.html

A Mr. Jon Williams (not the composer) sent this to me:

Your resume was received and it has been reviewed, I did appreciate it. it's reasonable and acceptable. So I will give this a go.

I'm looking for someone that can be trusted and reliable, someone with good understanding and working skills.

I am Jon Williams , 49 yrs of age, I'm Self employed..I am an importer  by profession and I have been pretty successful in a handful of ventures I get involved in; from the Angel of importing fabrics  to various welfare and community service programs. I most very often get my hands occupied, so it is imperative for me to have a worthy assistant who can monitor and keep me up to date with my activities.This position is home-based and flexible, working with me is basically about instructions and following them. My only fear is that I may come at you impromptu sometimes, so i need someone who can be able to meet up with my irregular timings.

And I responded right back (after doing my research!):

Damn it, stop scamming people on Craigslist. Go do it on Monster.com!


I'm not sure if anyone reads such responses. Anyway there was also this moneymaking opportunity from the United Arab Emirates (I guess they've run out of Nigerian princes to use for scams):


From Mr. James Gamal

Dear God's elect,

This message may come to you as a surprise due to the fact that we have not yet met. I have to say that I have no intentions of causing you any pains so I decided to contact you through this medium.

My name is James Gamal, a 72 years old merchant in Dubai, in the U.A.E. suffering from Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis I am a secret gay supporter because of the part of the world where I come open is a ticket to death if it is displaced open but I have not stop to support gay and lesbian right movement because I lost my only son who was gay and because at that time I was not properly informed that being gay is not the person’s making. I have only about a few months to live according to medical experts.

Though I am very rich, I was never generous, I was always hostile to people and only focus on my business as that was the only thing I cared for. But now I regret all this. I have willed my wealth to various charity in the UAE and abroad. I decided to give alms to charity organizations, as I want this to be one of the last good deeds I do on earth. Now that my health has deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this myself any more. The last of my money which is the huge cash that I deposit in a top security company.

I want you to help me collect this deposit and dispatched it to charity organizations especially for the promotion of gay and lesbian right movement if you have the time and means you can start one such charity organization with this fund if you cannot just distribute to charity.

I am writing this from my laptop computer in my hospital bed where I am receiving palliative care waiting for my time to come. If you are interested to help me I will give you more information about this like the amount that I deposited in the bank and Contact of the bank so you can contact them.

Note that you will take 20% out of the funds and give 80% to the charity organizations. I pray that God uses you to support and assist me with good heart God be with you.

If you can help please respond back to me

Regards.
James Gamal


My reply was simple:


Ewwwww gay! Gayz is bad. Reed yur Bible. 


Well, there's a jobs "boot camp" on Tuesday being hosted by my congressman, Jim Moran. I'm going to go to it. We'll see how it goes.