This Is Starting To Look Real Familiar

Happy Tuesday, Dear Readers.

I remember with visceral clarity what the job market was like between 2008-2012, which was both time for me to go to grad school and trying to acquire a job. It was hectic and messy, frustrating and rewarding.

I remember the fallout of the mass layoffs in 2008 that happened; companies realized they could get people with decades of experience on the cheap, compared to the salaries they'd been paying just a few months prior. Suddenly all the jobs that we as grad students had been eyeing to apply to when we were closer to graduating were out of our reach, as companies were less interested in our shiny new degrees and more interested in snatching up all the people with 10-20 years' of industry experience.

Only in the past five years or so, have I noticed the ludicrous requirements for jobs have slowly relaxed a bit, to something a bit more sensible for employers to look for and expect from applicants. However, with the mass layoffs of March and April 2020, I have seen a return of higher requirements, including more years of experience in general, more years of experience regarding certain job tasks, more certifications, etc. However, I do not think it will work as well for employers this time.

It worked 12 years ago was because the eldest of the Baby Boomer generation were setting out to retire, and with the layoffs happening in 2008, it mangled their retirement plans to a point that they had to get rehired and keep working. Now though, most people in that age range have either already retired or were at a good place to retire when the 2020 layoffs happened, and I think a lot of them will choose their health over the rigmarole of trying to get rehired during a pandemic.

I sincerely hope that when businesses open up again that people will be offered their old jobs back, and that they are hired back at a non-reduced rate of pay. I sincerely hope that people are able to find a job that they love to go to by the end of all this. I sincerely hope that, when all is said and done, we can learn from what we have experienced and be better people and a better society.

Have a good week, Dear Readers. Take care of yourselves.

-A.M.W.

Being A Responsible Job Seeker

Happy Tuesday, Dear Readers.

As we near the end of February, I have to take a look back on this journey of the past six months. I wasn't entirely unemployed during that time, having picked up a part-time work contract that lasted about two-and-a-half months during the autumnal season, but full-time work has proven more elusive than I thought it would be at this point in my life.

I have had an amazing support network, which I am thankful for down to my marrow. For every resume and cover letter that has been proofed at the workforce center, for all the calls from friends and family that let me vent, for all the emails and messages sent to cheer me up, for the outings to take a break and regroup with friends, I appreciate every moment of that time.

It is true that I have had some very good phone interviews as of late, but the rub is that it is this late in the game. Money makes the world go 'round, and while I am okay with money right now, I cannot wait forever. It is time to ask for more professional help, in the form of signing up for a staffing service and taking temp jobs. It is not the ideal solution, as I would have loved to get a job in my preferred field, but for now there are future bills to consider, because there are always future bills.

I am still going to look for a job in my preferred field. I am still going to take more classes on grant writing (I need to take the final exam on the instructor-led course I am taking now, and then I will be done with that one and ready to sign up for more). I am still going to interview to the best of my ability, and I will find the job that is right for me. 

I am not giving up, but I need to mitigate what I want with what I need, because what I need is to be a responsible job seeker and take care of myself so that I may be successful in the future. Part of being a responsible job seeker, and in fact a responsible adult, is knowing when to ask for help in accomplishing a goal. It took me a long time to learn that lesson.

I picked up a list of staffing agencies in my town last week when I was at the workforce center. Each one has a list of what type of employment they provide and what job tracks they cover. I have already highlighted a handful to research, as they seem more in keeping with the type of jobs I want and will help pad my resume.

I hope, Dear Readers, that your week ahead is a good one; but I also hope that if it is not, you have people you can lean on and ask for help. 

-A.M.W.

The Importance Of Career Consultants

Following up from my last blog about keywords, I went to the Larimer County Economic and Workforce Development Center in Fort Collins. I had been able to contact a Career Consultant there, whom I had sat down with before, and had the good fortune that somebody had cancelled an appointment with her that I was more than happy to take on. 

My Consultant has been and continues to be friendly, helpful, patient and an example of what more people need when looking for a job. She was able to go over recent job listings I had applied to and helped me better identify keywords. She then went through the couple different resumes I have when I submit to a lot of different places for the same job title, and suggested style upgrades and where to place keywords. She even read through a cover letter that I had sent and showed me what was fine and what needed work. She did this all in one hour, and she was explaining the why and how of this the entire time so I fully understood why it mattered.

So now I have a better understanding of where I need to work on my resumes and cover letters, and I've been working on the upgrades. I have a better grasp of how to identify keywords (because it turned out I wasn't as good at that as I thought), and how to better integrate them into my resumes and cover letters, which I am also working on.

Would I have been able to look all this up online and figure it out myself? Maybe. Would I have been able to look all this up online and figure it out myself in one hour? Absolutely not.

Career Consultants are working with people every day from every walk of life to do one thing: help those people get better chance at getting employed where they want to be employed. They know the trends of resumes for certain career types, and know about resources that are at their fingertips but would take you an entire day of careful googling to find. They also can make suggestions that, in your stressed state of trying to find work, would not readily come to you.

If you have gone to Career Consultants before at you county office, make sure to thank them for all their hard work. If you haven't gone there, and you are looking for a career change, or just need some help with your resume, or your cover letter, or your interview tactics, I encourage you to make an appointment. They are there to help.

The Anxiety of Radio Silence and The Keyword Game

Being in the job market is stressful. There are companies to research, job listings to comb through, applications to fill out, people to contact for follow-ups or more information about the company, emails to set up interviews, phone interviews, in-person interviews, and thank you notes to fill out. Along with that, there are resumes for various positions in the career track of interest to tweak, cover letters to write, and practice for interviews which may or may not ever happen.

The worst is, after all that work, all that effort, to be met with radio silence. Apply with your best foot forward, with what you think is your strongest resume and cover letter, send the follow-up inquiry a couple days later, and yet...nothing. No response. The anxiety of what wasn’t good enough swiftly follows if you can’t shake it off and go to the next job.

I keep thinking of search engine optimization in relation to job application systems, fueled by keywords, which HR departments use to “help” them whittle down which resumes they actually look through to determine who gets an interview. As far as I understand it, have all the specific keywords HR has programmed in for that particular job, and the resume is sent to the department for consideration. Don’t have enough keywords, and your resume could be categorized as unfit for the position and HR doesn’t even see it.

I have filled out hundreds of job applications so far, and I’ve had over a dozen interviews, either in person or via phone. Some of these interviews went well (though not well enough to be hired), some interviews did not, but I was happy for the experience they gave me all the same. The anxiety I can’t shake, the thing that makes me wonder, late at night as I research yet another company, is this: if it wasn’t for the keyword system that HR departments have adopted, how many more interviews would I have been offered? Followed immediately by: if it wasn’t for this system, would I have gotten a job already?

Then the last, most pressing question: if that is the game HR managers are playing via keyword system, what is the best way to game that system to my advantage? After all, if I’m going to have to play by these rules, then I should figure out a way to consistently win and acquire an interview. The ultimate win state is to acquire an interview that lands me full-time employment.

Let the games begin.

-A.M.W.

Learning As A Hobby

I enjoy having hobbies. I love reading fiction and crocheting, just as much as I love reading non-fiction, learning how to code, and speak German. But when it comes to learning and also trying to find full-time work, how can I know that what I'm studying on my own time is worth it?

The answer for me is surprisingly simple: Just as much as job searching and applying to jobs is stressful for me, learning things I'm interested in helps me unwind from all that stress. This is because I use the act of learning the same way I use the act of crocheting as a hobby. It is a calm time, a time where I can shut off the stressed side of my brain and dive head-first into things that interest me and I want to know more about for a couple hours.

I started learning German via Duolingo starting in January, as part of my resolution for growth. Progress has been nominal, and I am nowhere near close to start having conversations yet, but I'm having fun learning words and small phrases. I know that a large part of my family tree has roots in Germany, so I thought it would be an interesting language to learn, and I was right. Learning German has given me a greater appreciation for compound words, and it has also proven to me that English is just seven different languages stacked on top of each other and wrapped in a trench coat.

More recently, I started up basic coding lessons via Codecademy. I have always been a nerd, and taught myself a lot of HTML when the internet became available in my town when I was 12 years old. I've learned more over the years, to the point that I was using HTML every day at work, and I would like to delve deeper in coding. What I've learned so far about the basics has been interesting, and I look forward to learning more.

So what is next for what I want to learn? Nothing so long-term as languages, but there are some very nice, short, learn-at-your-own-pace classes I can take about grant writing. Taking a few of those would look good on a resume and my LinkedIn profile, as well as be a nice challenge for me to stretch my writing skills again.

I hope that whatever your hobby is, it's something that keeps you happy and helps you unwind.

-A.M.W.