Finding a Job!

ComradeDavo

ComradeDavo

Formerly God
Joined
Jul 1, 2001
Messages
12,243
Location
Europa
It is seriously hard to find work at the moment.

I left my crappy minimum wage shop job back in August so I could go explore Europe and Morocco for a month, and I had a great time, very much worth doing.

Now I'm back I figure hey, time to move on from minimum wage retail and get myself a half decent job so I can at leats move out from living with my mum/brother (27 now...it's about time...and no girlfriend to stay round hers all the time anymore).

But it's so damn hard to find jobs to apply for! Let alone actually get an interview!

I'm mostly lookign at admin, custoemr service and hospital type jobs. Ok so my experiance is retail based, but customer service is still customer service all the same and I did pleanty of 'admin' type work in these retail jobs anyway, more than just a till monkey. Which I of course emphasise on my CV and in covering letters. But still, there's just hardly any jobs round these parts to apply for! It's very frustrating. The temptation to move city rsies every day, but then that involves alot more than just finding ajob and do liek my social life here. Though new cities mean new women....:mischief:

So my fellow civ fanatics, how is the job market round your ways? Are you or a loved one also struggling with job finding woes? Ever moved city to find a job? Working a crap job yourself with dreams to move up one day? Any helpful tips? And jobs offers for me?
 
I'm planning on going back to school to get a graduate degree. In the interim I'll be looking for most likely clerical work, having worked in a similar capacity for a few years. I could do retail, but the pay tends to be lower so I'm looking at office jobs first and have been considering part-time retail for some extra money.
 
amadeus said:
I'm planning on going back to school to get a graduate degree. In the interim I'll be looking for most likely clerical work, having worked in a similar capacity for a few years. I could do retail, but the pay tends to be lower so I'm looking at office jobs first and have been considering part-time retail for some extra money.
Click to expand...
I find with retail pay that as a single guy wanting to move into my own place it's just plain not enough. Hence the leaving it to go travel for a month. I think I was making about £860 after tax with my last job. A 1 bedroom apartment in Bath would cost about £390 a month on rent alone before including council tax, bills etc. Hardly any money left for food let alone anything else. I've got no wish to go libe in a shared hosue of 4 or 5 people like alot of my friends do, so gotta keep looking for better paid jobs. Even then i'll rpobs have to share, but a 2 person is better than a 4 in my book. Retail pay is just far too low!:(
 
It is hard, and it's been hard for months. My wife lost her job two weeks ago, and we've sent off several dozen applications already, to only a few nibbles. What is more disheartening is that it looks like no matter what, she'll be making less money than before, although she will probably have more responsibility.

My day job is still in the staffing industry (so I interview people for jobs, recruit, etc), although it is looking like I will be making a career change this Spring at the *latest*. I'm applying for basically every newspaper and broadcasting job in the country, even though this is probably the worst time to jump into traditional media (hello high school sports in South Dakota! woooooo).

For Americans (not sure what the labor market is like elsewhere), here are my recruiter job hunter tips:

1) Make sure that your resume is easily searchable on the internet. Indeed, Careerbuilder and Monster allow you to post your resume for free. You should do this, and tweak it every other week or so to keep it fresh.
2) Apply for a lot of jobs, and make it a routine. Set aside a specific time of the day to job hunt, and *make that your job*. You can't make it all day, but you can get a lot done in 3-4 hours.
3) Network. In person networking is key (you're substantially more likely to get a job this way as opposed to a posting), but LinkedIn has a ton of industry-specific groups that will allow you to network and find postings that aren't on boards. Make sure you're doing everything you can to build your own professional network.

I do not recommend posting a resume to Craigslist.

If you're looking to support yourself at the retail level of gig, it may be worth taking an extra job.
 
Employment prospects in Ireland are pretty poor - people are leaving.

A lot were employed in the construction bubble which burst. Many had no transferrable skills having left school early to go directly into construction.

Retail is shrinking along with the economy.

Certain areas are doing well - IT particularily.

Edit: I expect to be made redundant next year (I have been saying this for the past three or four years but it does seem to be getting closer)

I should probably start working on my CV, skills gaps, networking etc. I expect to be unemployed for a while and to go be on contracts for a while when I do start working.
 
If you're not a graduate then under most circumstances it's hard to find a truly well paying job. I'd suggest that if you can have a go at selling stuff then 1. You are usually not competing with other graduates for a position 2. Your competition generally sucks (good salespeople in my experience are rare)....and usually for banal reasons such as a good work ethic or an unwillingness to learn or follow instructions 3. Its much easier to get a start. 4, 5 and 6. You can make serious bank.
 
It is a very highly pressured job where one days good success has no bearing on the next day.

I've had selling jobs and it was glorious when I was driving big sales and making bank. As my soul withered and those who lied/cheated drove sales higher and expectations higher I simply didn't have the heart to do it any more. There are few honest salesmen sadly.
 
I've lost two close to minimum wage jobs over the last few months and haven't had luck since. I'll hopefully be getting a job at my university as a math tutor next semester and in the meantime I might try to get some quick part-time money from all the Black Friday craze working for Amazon or something, but I'm not too hopeful.
 
Unemployment is 8.5% where I live and has been slowly improving (i.e. going down), but the problem is that more and more people are entering the labour force.

So it's not exactly easy to find a job here, but it depends. Video game companies are doing well here because they get big-time tax breaks - Unreal Tournament was made here as well as a bunch of other games. There's a bunch of game studios here, including a lot of smaller/indie ones, ranging from companies that make FPS games to facebook/flash games. So if you're looking for a job like that - you could very well find a job.. but the thing is that there's tons of competition, so it's not really *that* easy.

If I lost my job I'd probably have to leave town, as Toronto just has wayyy more jobs in terms of the type of stuff that I do. I could stick around, but I'd just find something a lot quicker in Toronto.
 
downtown said:
It is hard, and it's been hard for months. My wife lost her job two weeks ago, and we've sent off several dozen applications already, to only a few nibbles. What is more disheartening is that it looks like no matter what, she'll be making less money than before, although she will probably have more responsibility.

My day job is still in the staffing industry (so I interview people for jobs, recruit, etc), although it is looking like I will be making a career change this Spring at the *latest*. I'm applying for basically every newspaper and broadcasting job in the country, even though this is probably the worst time to jump into traditional media (hello high school sports in South Dakota! woooooo).

For Americans (not sure what the labor market is like elsewhere), here are my recruiter job hunter tips:

1) Make sure that your resume is easily searchable on the internet. Indeed, Careerbuilder and Monster allow you to post your resume for free. You should do this, and tweak it every other week or so to keep it fresh.
2) Apply for a lot of jobs, and make it a routine. Set aside a specific time of the day to job hunt, and *make that your job*. You can't make it all day, but you can get a lot done in 3-4 hours.
3) Network. In person networking is key (you're substantially more likely to get a job this way as opposed to a posting), but LinkedIn has a ton of industry-specific groups that will allow you to network and find postings that aren't on boards. Make sure you're doing everything you can to build your own professional network.

I do not recommend posting a resume to Craigslist.

If you're looking to support yourself at the retail level of gig, it may be worth taking an extra job.
Click to expand...

How do you network if you live in a rural location with no contacts and no professional experience in anything?

Anyways, I've been spending the past three months trying to find freelance gig work to no avail, and I've refocused my efforts on increasing likelihood of finding an entry-level job whenever I move in January. I'm not entirely sure when I should start applying for jobs (I reckon 2 weeks before moving date?) and I'm also not sure just how likely it is for me to be hired anywhere. I'd say that my job situation is "unstable".

If you really feel you need to leave to actually move forward, Davo, it's worth it. Just make sure you don't give up right after you move, because that gets you either in a lot of debt, jail, or moving right back to your mom's house.
 
Synsensa said:
How do you network if you live in a rural location with no contacts and no professional experience in anything?
.
Click to expand...

You get on LinkedIn, you find groups for industries you're interested in, and you ask questions.

If you have no professional experience in anything though, you better be in the business of acquiring some skills or education though.
 
Deaths Advocate said:
As my soul withered and those who lied/cheated drove sales higher and expectations higher I simply didn't have the heart to do it any more. There are few honest salesmen sadly.
Click to expand...

I'm not convinced though that those that lie and cheat do actually drive sales higher, or at least highest. There is a hard limit on how far that can get you and it ain't particularly high. There are no lies or cheating techniques that can come close to competing with a methodology centered around clearly communicating the concept that buyer and seller can both invest in a process that results in a win for both parties.

Maybe the reason you feel there are few honest salespeople is actually do to with the fact that honesty is a pre-requisitefor reaching the lofty heights that only the best attain?
 
The reason I feel it is that I have both been screwed over many times as an individual, and in the aforementioned job, seen an outright cheat top the leader board week after week.

Admittedly in that case, when the summer job was over, a lot of his sales fell through as customers saw through the lies and cancelled. He still skipped away having earth thousands in bonus'
 
Deaths Advocate said:
Fair enough. I'd love to go travelling, but it only put the problem off for a while. (I am a similar age to you)
Click to expand...
My logic was i'll probably never get the chance to go travelling once i've moved out, so decided to take the chance whilst I had it:) If you have the chance, go for it, see some great places and meet some great people:)
 
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