|
Aerofallosov posted:The thing is, at the moment with sequestration and horrible economy, the military is getting the pick of the liter and some folks are having to wait a year or more to get in. I'd say go for it if he thinks it'd work for him, but to be mindful that it may be tough to get in these days. Yeah, this. Maybe it's because I live in an army town, but I would never ever suggest the military as a silver bullet to resolving an employment problem. The armed forces have been turning people away for years now, and it takes a long time to go through the officer process. Plus the OP has already said that the military is out of the question.
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 01:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 03:16 |
|
|
My dream is to get published. Teaching was an option for me and my emphasis was in teaching. But after a session with the department, I immediately changed it to literature emphasis because, according to the department chair, to get my credentials I would have to maintain at least a B in all of my classes. I barely managed a C in my Spanish classes and I made D's in both Biology and Economics. My immediate focus is to get published. I maintain a blog where I write articles on pop culture. I'm also writing a couple of projects in which I'm devoting myself to at least an hour per day. One of which is a fiction project that I've been working on for four years now. I've passed it to a few friends who said it has potential, and I have a good friend who's well-read and my editor. He wants five chapters before we can talk. Working politics doesn't really interest me, but at this point a job is a a job. I'll call Jon, my former campaign director, and ask him if he's heard of any leads. I'm also expecting a letter of recommendation from him. I'm gonna go back to my resume and add a It's not so much that I'm comfortable in my situation, it's that I'm very aware of my situation and the resources I have. I'm trying to make the best I can with what I have. I have no reliable transportation. I rely on the public transportation here in Southern California. I have six places that I've applied to that are not only hiring but are local. I have an interview tomorrow. I plan to follow up on all leads starting Monday. Morby posted:Yeah, this. Maybe it's because I live in an army town, but I would never ever suggest the military as a silver bullet to resolving an employment problem. The armed forces have been turning people away for years now, and it takes a long time to go through the officer process. Plus the OP has already said that the military is out of the question. Benny the Snake fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Mar 25, 2013 |
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 01:06
|
|
|
Benny the Snake posted:I've passed it to a few friends who said it has potential, and I have a good friend who's well-read and my editor. He wants five chapters before we can talk. Oh sweet goon. You're a pretty naive dude. Consider getting opinions from those who are not your friends.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 01:18
|
|
|
You kind of just glazed over the teaching overseas, but why not? You don't have kids, you're young, you aren't tied down...do it! You can go just about anywhere you want! See new places, learn new things! Even learning the language isn't something you -have- to do. Would it help? Definitely! A guy I work with was telling me about his brother who taught in Japan for 5 years and even now has a tenuous grasp on speaking and reading the language. Isn't there somewhere you've always wanted to travel? May as well get paid to do it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 01:24
|
|
|
Toriori posted:You kind of just glazed over the teaching overseas, but why not? You don't have kids, you're young, you aren't tied down...do it! You can go just about anywhere you want! See new places, learn new things! Even learning the language isn't something you -have- to do. Would it help? Definitely! A guy I work with was telling me about his brother who taught in Japan for 5 years and even now has a tenuous grasp on speaking and reading the language. Isn't there somewhere you've always wanted to travel? May as well get paid to do it. If you haven't figured it out yet, OP does not want to leave his parents' home under any circumstances.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 01:26
|
|
|
Benny the Snake posted:I'm also writing a couple of projects in which I'm devoting myself to at least an hour per day. . A whole hour a day, huh? Slow down, killer, you might strain yourself.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 01:29
|
|
|
cda posted:A whole hour a day, huh? Slow down, killer, you might strain yourself. I was going to say an hour ain't bad, but he's unemployed and only barely looking, so ... yeah.  C'mon, OP. Write something. Finish it. loving self-publish if your agent buddy or whatever doesn't dig it, there's no shame in that these days; you can pay someone else to edit and you'll get a higher cut. Don't linger over your writing, just go all-in. Maybe check out some of the advice for NaNoWriMo and borrow from that - push forward, write tons, just FINISH SOMETHING. If writing is your dream, there's no time like the present. Just go for it, bro.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 01:35
|
|
|
If you care about making money, self-publishing on Amazon is a better bet than begging a publisher to take your lovely project that even you don't like. And of course you don't like it. If you liked it, you'd have finished it in way fewer than four years.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 01:41
|
|
|
Toriori posted:You kind of just glazed over the teaching overseas, but why not? You don't have kids, you're young, you aren't tied down...do it! You can go just about anywhere you want! See new places, learn new things! Even learning the language isn't something you -have- to do. Would it help? Definitely! A guy I work with was telling me about his brother who taught in Japan for 5 years and even now has a tenuous grasp on speaking and reading the language. Isn't there somewhere you've always wanted to travel? May as well get paid to do it. He chalked AmeriCorps, Peace Corps and the military up as "emergency options", so teaching overseas is probably going to get lumped in with those. Also, OP, if you've been working on a writing project for 4 years and have less than 5 chapters done, you're doing it wrong. Writing is one of those things where volume can have value, in that you get used to writing more, and writing better work, as you go along. Either write more, or drop it, as you need to either throw yourself into working toward getting published, or use your time on more productive things.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 01:42
|
|
|
Toriori posted:You kind of just glazed over the teaching overseas, but why not? You don't have kids, you're young, you aren't tied down...do it! You can go just about anywhere you want! See new places, learn new things! Even learning the language isn't something you -have- to do. Would it help? Definitely! A guy I work with was telling me about his brother who taught in Japan for 5 years and even now has a tenuous grasp on speaking and reading the language. Isn't there somewhere you've always wanted to travel? May as well get paid to do it. The language is definitely something you just kind of roll with. I hit Japan with a pretty short list of simple phrases. 2 years later I'm still not that great and I can barely read it, but I got around fine. Language ability should be the last thing to worry about.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 04:04
|
|
|
Benny the Snake posted:One of which is a fiction project that I've been working on for four years now.  To get pieces that aren't poo poo, you have to write until your hands are bloody claws. You should have had at least 20 versions' worth of 5 chapters by now.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 04:19
|
|
|
Well now that my writing is under scrutiny.... Searching for a job is my full-time job, hence I can't devote all drat day to writing. And during the past four years, I've mostly been in school. So yeah, there hasn't been enough time or focus to complete it into a story because I had projects. Now that I don't have classes or volunteer work, I'm not going to devote myself fully into writing this story as I need time to find part-time employment. Besides, an hour a day is a good writing regimen. My editor is a trusted friend and I've burned once before so I know now what it's like to be cheated. I'll look into teaching abroad. My language concerns are moot because like swimming, there's no better way to learn another language than to dive right in. Can't remember the name of the program, but I know it's a snappy acronym.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 05:10
|
|
|
docbeard posted:Yeah, if you're with a reputable, established company, it probably wouldn't at all be the shady hell you're imagining. And if it's too much for you, you can always quit. Also, if you're really lucky, you can hook up with Barbara Stanwyck and murder her husband for the insurance money. Edward G. Robinson probably won't catch on. I bet if you don't take out a double-indemnity policy then you will probably fly under the radar. CountingCrows posted:So goons, is the job market in good o'l America really this dismal? Or does OP give off vibes of "Hahahah, yeah right" whenever someone considers him for even the most menial low skilled job?
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 06:03
|
|
|
Toriori posted:You kind of just glazed over the teaching overseas, but why not? You don't have kids, you're young, you aren't tied down...do it! You can go just about anywhere you want! See new places, learn new things! Even learning the language isn't something you -have- to do. Would it help? Definitely! A guy I work with was telling me about his brother who taught in Japan for 5 years and even now has a tenuous grasp on speaking and reading the language. Isn't there somewhere you've always wanted to travel? May as well get paid to do it. If he can't do it at home where mom wipes his rear end and makes him dinner, he's not going to do it. Benny the Snake posted:Well now that my writing is under scrutiny.... Hahahahaahahahaha. "I've had too many other things to keep me from writing, but I'm sure I'll be able to do it immediately. I don't need to move out of mom's house because I'll just become a famous writer and then it will all be taken care of" The absolute best thing you can do for yourself and your writing, right now, is to move the gently caress out of mom's house and get some actual life experience. Along the way you will realize that you have full command of your life and your decisions and will either realize you never wanted to write, just to magically become a famous writer, or you will realize that you've been making excuses for not writing. You have had 4 years to write and you haven't written 5 loving chapters yet, because you are terrible. My brother got his english BA and had written multiple novels during that time while working part time jobs. Dude writes every day, and it turns out after doing that long enough, he became a professional writer. You have about 8 years of actual writing to work through before you will have a job writing, so you should probably stop making excuses for why you can't write, and start writing. You could write a lot on those long commutes to that job you don't want to apply for because it would mean leaving mom's house.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 06:06
|
|
|
Honestly, it's probably best not to even talk about your creative writing projects until you have something finished. Everybody thinks they've got a book in them, it's one of the great cliches of people without much ambition: "I'm totally going to write a book one day." Keep quietly working on that book, prove you've got some stickability by finishing it, and then you can think about joining the writers' club. Also, don't blame writing less than five chapters in four years on being busy. Everyone is busy. T.S. Eliot made it happen while working full-time at Lloyd's Bank of London. Chekhov and William Carlos Williams were both doctors for most of their writing lives. You can sort something out if you really want to.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 06:10
|
|
|
Blackbird Betty posted:Honestly, it's probably best not to even talk about your creative writing projects until you have something finished. Everybody thinks they've got a book in them, it's one of the great cliches of people without much ambition: "I'm totally going to write a book one day."  Thanks for the support, man. Interview's tomorrow. Once I find some kind of employment, one of the first things I'm getting is one of those neato Resume to Interview packages I keep seeing on the banner ads on this fine site.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 06:21
|
|
|
Dude, if you put your resume up here, 10 goons will whip up 10 awesome edits of it for free. Yeah, you won't have a McDonald's Fry Cook entry, but just do it. Just do it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 06:37
|
|
|
Benny the Snake posted:Working politics doesn't really interest me, but at this point a job is a a job. Okay. Time to put your money where your mouth is. Write yourself a list of EVERY business within thirty minutes of you. This includes bookstores, takeout places, ANYWHERE. Walk right in and ask for a job. There are plenty of jobs, contrary to what people might want to think. In Australia, I hear about how "hard" it is to get into mining jobs. Exact same problem. Wanna know what it is? It's people thinking a job is beneath them. And you're still doing it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 07:11
|
|
|
Benny the Snake posted:I have got to learn how to keep my mouth shut You have got to understand that it is time for you to leave your mom's house and embrace the scary reality of the future.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 08:00
|
|
|
Benny the Snake posted:Well now that my writing is under scrutiny.... If writing and getting published is your dream, then you can definitely be working towards that while looking for work. But before thinking about getting a novel/short stories published, maybe explore ways to get published at all. Every writer I know has done a shitton of random writing jobs before they get to where they want to be, whether that be journalism, screenwriting or writing books. It's an incremental process and sometimes you never get to be famous or write the novel of your dreams, but you can make a career out of it whether you do that or not. Here are two examples I know of successful writers and their career path: my friend that is a travel writer started out as a grant writer, as I said before, and then moved on to writing freelance pieces for small local magazines. Now he writes for major magazines as well as Lonely Planet. Through this all he has written a novel and is just now in a position where he may be able to get it published. Through his travel writing he made friends with the woman who wrote "Eat, Pray, Love" and she is helping to hook him up with publishers for his book and he also has an agent that is shopping it around for him. A co-worker of mine recently had a book published. His book is a nonfiction book about the Washington Nationals and the opportunity to publish came only after years of working as a sports reporter in which he started out covering high school games and worked his way up from there. If you want to be a writer, you can't just write a book and send it out to publishers and hope to make it big. For one thing, you really need an agent to get anything major published, and to get an agent you will probably want to have your writing out there somewhere. In between looking for a job and your hour of writing on your novel, you may want to spend another hour or two researching writing opportunities available to you. You may have to do some writing just for clips or for peanuts to get your name out there, but once you have some clips with your name on it as being published, it starts to get easier from there. If this really is your dream, then don't treat it like a hobby, treat it like a goal and a career path, even if it is one that is going to take a long time and a lot of work and effort. Use some of your free time to look for ways you can get published now and get your name out there, so that in five years you don't look around and realize that you are still working on your novel with nothing else to show for your writing career. As for teaching English, many people who go abroad to teach English don't know the language of the place where they are going. The classes are usually immersion classes, so you speak English the whole time. I have heard that it is getting harder to get these jobs though, particularly from the more reputable companies, but that may only be for Japan, since so many people want to go there. If you are open to going somewhere that is less popular that may be a better bet. And going to a foreign country would probably be good for your writing.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 08:24
|
|
|
Are you weird In Real Life? Is there a reason 10s of places you have applied to, including entry level lovely jobs, haven't called you back?
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 08:31
|
|
|
Shawn Colvin 2012 posted:Are you weird In Real Life? Is there a reason 10s of places you have applied to, including entry level lovely jobs, haven't called you back? that is relatively common for anyone. It is, however, especially common if you have a lovely resume and/or are a college graduate applying exclusively to fast food places that are looking for a teenager whom they can count on. on that note: OP, is your resume full of as many basic english errors as your posts, or perhaps full of mistakes like your "my biggest weakness is my family issues make me unreliable?"
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 08:50
|
|
|
Sigma-X posted:that is relatively common for anyone. It is, however, especially common if you have a lovely resume and/or are a college graduate applying exclusively to fast food places that are looking for a teenager whom they can count on. You can almost always get a job dishwashing or some other kind of manual labor. The OP seems fairly literate and hasn't posted about any kind of criminal record. I'm not saying his situation is impossible from everything he has posted. But yeah he probably isn't applying to certain jobs like manual labor or theres some kind of weird thing going on, IMO.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 08:56
|
|
|
OK so my 'career services at your alma mater' post either got ignored for a reason or lost in the rest of the discussion; I still think it's a good one. But I'm here with another suggestion: is there a small, non-chain gym near you at all? (You're somewhere in SoCal, I think?) If there is, go there, and ask if they are hiring. It so does not matter if you are not in shape (you might be yoked like crazy for all I know), a small gym may need someone reliable to run the desk, clean up and make sure that things are running. In exchange, they probably give you a membership, and you can get in a workout after your shift! I'm turning into the goon who suggests GYM as the solution to any problem ever, but who knows.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 16:01
|
|
|
Benny the Snake posted:I'll branch out within the next few weeks but right now I want to spend this week focusing on what's convenient. Branch out now. You've had the past 2 months to focus on what's convenient.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 17:48
|
|
|
Dr_Amazing posted:It's true he's probably going to have to open up the search a little. But unless he's like the only person in the country that can do a job, no one is going to pay for an air ticket just to get him in for an interview. Are there any jobs at all that would do this for anything outside of a one of a kind engineer or surgeon or something? Is it really something that happens often? There are other professions that do this with candidates for entry-level positions (e.g., first full time job out of undergrad). My degree was in business administration/finance, and when I was in school I applied to firms in investment banking, consulting, marketing, etc. that paid for airline/hotel expenses so I could interview at their offices. The same thing happened for paid summer internship recruitment. Most of the students in my program who had solid grades got the same treatment. Banking and consulting firms were willing to hire top-tier grads from pretty much any major (since they're going to put you through months of specialized training regardless), so this has applied to English majors on occasion. Lately, however, this kind of thing tends to be limited to people who attended top ranked universities and graduated with 3.5+ GPAs. Regardless of whether you can find a fancy corporate gig that will pay for you to fly in for an interview, the search does need to be opened up. At some point, you're going to realize that taking a gamble on bus reliability is better than not having a job at all. You've spent a lot of time hunting for local jobs - this has been fruitless, and soon enough you'll have exhausted the opportunities in your search radius. Start to apply for any jobs you can theoretically reach by public transportation (even if this means switching buses or a long commute). Worry about your long-term transportation options AFTER you get a job. Maybe there will be a carpool you can participate in. Maybe, by widening the search, you'll find something that pays more than minimum wage and be able to save up for a car relatively quickly. Maybe you'll find a roommate and an affordable apartment so that you can live cheaply near your workplace. These things are unknowable until you find a job.. You're putting yourself in a chicken-and-egg situation right now. You won't conduct a reasonable job search because of your housing and transportation limitations, but you can't improve your housing and transportation situation until you have a job, so sacrifices have to be made when it comes to commuting. You can get a jump start on improving your circumstances by finding odd jobs or freelancing opportunities (other than writing) to take on while you search for jobs, as I suggested before. If you can get them, tutoring gigs usually pay pretty well. Depending on the weather, look for snow shoveling or landscaping jobs, and so on. Take the money you earn from this and put it in a savings account. Don't touch the money unless it is going toward moving somewhere with better job opportunities or purchasing a car. Uncle Salty posted:OK so my 'career services at your alma mater' post either got ignored for a reason or lost in the rest of the discussion; I still think it's a good one. I am hoping/assuming that this was disregarded because the OP has already exhausted his school's career resources, as this is the obvious first step. If that is not the case, then for the love of God, try this. You should not hesitate to take advantage of the institution that sold you an expensive and difficult to market degree. This is part of the reason people go to college - even if they choose an impractical degree, the connections they make through their university can help them start a career. If they have an alumni database that you can use for networking/job search purposes, this is also a tremendously helpful resource. If they don't, ask everyone you can get in touch with at the school - career counselors, academic advisors, former professors, other students - if they know of alumni who'd be willing to speak with you and provide career guidance.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 17:59
|
|
|
Benny the Snake posted:1)I'm currently using the services provided thru my university's career center. ... Well, I apparently can't read, because OP did post this, in response to a direct question about it earlier in the thread! So, good. Also, sorry! Now I'm going to pick on your writing.
Go back to George Orwell and don't use any phrase you're used to seeing written, like "But right now that's neither here nor there", "stuck the landing" or "nail-biting". Don't use sloppy short hand like "thru" when you mean ''through''. And for everyone's sake, including your editor's, learn to spell (repeatedly typing things like "date entry clerk" make you look like you don't actually know English, when it's just spelling errors or typos), learn about the comma splice, and learn to order your thoughts. I'm not saying that you need to be able to do any of these in order to be a "best-selling author". But if you want any kind of externally-facing job where you're mostly your own boss/police, including blogging, you need to master these things. Blogs where twenty something men talk about The Dark Knight are as numerous as the motes of Cheeto dust illuminated by the monitors in a goon's basement. Uncle Salty fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Jun 5, 2014 |
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 18:48
|
|
Uncle Salty posted:Now I'm going to pick on your writing. OP, if I asked you whether or not you agree with this poster's use of a hyphen to connect the -ly adverb externally to facing and why, would you be able to respond? I'm not trying to make you feel stupid, OP, but when you've been writing an hour day for four years (maybe) and obviously still don't grasp the basics of how words work together, maybe you need to go take a class if you want to be a ~writer~. That level of granular bullshit is the entry-level to writing something well. Also, do you want to be a writer or do you want to write? Everybody loves the idea of being a whimsical writer who lives in a modern New York City loft and sees the world from a different angle and is loved for being a-little-blunt-but-never-wrong, but very few people want to be awake at 3:00 am when you have to be up in four hours for work and agonizing over whether you should connect externally and facing with a hyphen because doing it one way might imply this vs. that, etc. (Not picking on poster I quoted. He/she has some solid writing advice OP should take.)
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 19:26
|
|
|
Uncle Salty posted:
Can we not do this? I have a professional job that involves writing most of the day, but I don't try to make my internet posts meet the same professional standard. Yeah, if he does some of those things in his resume, cover letters, or professional writing he should probably stop, but what he posts here is not necessarily indicative of what he writes there. Going grammar-nazi on his posts seems kind of silly, really.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 19:27
|
|
|
OK, I see your point. I thought it was relevant because OP mentions his writing, and his love for it, frequently. He is very close to using a blog as an excuse to avoid doing other stuff, too. But grammar fascism isn't fair. It's often boring. And anyway I type like an rear end in a top hat a lot of the time (for example, why did I go to the trouble of saying "nail-biting" and not "twenty-something"?).
Uncle Salty fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Mar 25, 2013 |
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 19:38
|
|
|
Uncle Salty posted:Well, I apparently can't read, because OP did post this, in response to a direct question about it earlier in the thread! So, good. I'd actually like to hear more about how the OP has been utilizing his school's career resources. So far, I've seen you comment on their job fair and getting feedback on your resume, which is great. Do they keep a database of job listings, and are you checking it regularly? Are there any "alerts" you can set up so that you're notified when relevant positions are posted? Do they offer any workshops or mock interviews or other types of training for job searches? Do they ever host local employers for campus visits or info sessions or recruiting events, outside of job fairs? Are you taking advantage of your school's alumni network? At my alma mater, the career center manages an alumni database that contains contact information (as well as information about their employer/job title) for alumni who are willing to speak with students. If you have anything like this, use the hell out of it. If not, then be more proactive about tracking down this information on your own. Career counselors can often help you with this. When it comes to alumni in white-collar positions (even if you're only looking for some kind of administrative, entry-level gig), don't initiate contact by emailing a resume/cover letter and asking about job opportunities. Instead, just introduce yourself, tell them you're interested in learning more about what they do, and see if they're willing to have an "informational interview" by phone or over coffee/lunch. Ask questions about their career. Demonstrate an interest in what they do. Look for common experiences, like classes both of you took or professors you each had or clubs you both joined. See if they have any colleagues or friends who would be willing to connect with you. Once you've developed a rapport, then you can politely ask about openings at their company. If there are no openings, ask about job shadowing or part-time/short-term internships. These things can still go on your resume, and you'll get valuable face time at the office. If there truly aren't any opportunities at that time, then ask to submit a resume to be considered for future openings, and then follow up occasionally with all of the contacts you made, not just the hiring manager. Repeat this process with as many alumni as you are able to find. It can be stressful and exhausting, but the success rate is so much higher than when you approach a complete stranger about a job. Think of it as working smarter, not just harder. It's going to take a damned long time for anyone in this economic climate to find a job if they all do is submit online applications or cold call hiring managers, which is most of what you've been doing so far. And you're even more constrained than most because of how much you limit yourself geographically. You need to start being strategic about your job hunt, and that requires a little more planning and effort and thoughtfulness than firing off resumes and dropping by every fast food joint in your neighborhood.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2013 19:39
|
|
|
Well I had a very productive day today. After my interview today was canceled, I walked up the street to the Target shoping center. There's a Radioshack next door and I ask if there's any positions open. The manager says there is and he asks me for a resume which I have prepared. He tells me to apply online and I answer a couple of questions. I was also called today to show up at a WaBa Grill that I applied to. WaBa grill is a local chain of teriyaki restaurants. I show up expecting an interview. The shift manager instead puts me to work taking the fat off of boneless chicken breasts and filleting them. That's fair, it's a test and they paid me for two hours of work. I made extra sure I took off as much fat off the chicken and leave as much meat on them as possible. I made sure I was doing it right. So I'm feeling pretty good about it. Unfortunately, I overhear from the store manager that someone from Zendejas (a small local Mexican chain) applied. I was told to wait a week for a call. All I know is I did the best I could. I'm making a second pass around town tomorrow. Edit: It's spring break right now so I'll wait untill next week to go back to school to follow up on alumni leads and the career center.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2013 05:06
|
|
|
OP, have you considered that the powers that be have voided the social contract by pretending there are enough valued positions in society that college is a good investment for everyone, when really what they need is peons who are desperate enough to do difficult degrading work for the lowest wage legally possible, and that your only obligation to society or your parents is to smoke crack, set fire to police cars, and worship Satan? JUst a thought.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2013 06:57
|
|
|
Benny the Snake posted:Well I had a very productive day today. After my interview today was canceled, I walked up the street to the Target shoping center. There's a Radioshack next door and I ask if there's any positions open. The manager says there is and he asks me for a resume which I have prepared. He tells me to apply online and I answer a couple of questions. Awesome. So that's three hours of job hunting, right? I expect after that, you went home for lunch and hit the online recruitment sites for an hour, then spent a couple more hours applying for jobs at places you found there? You have a job. It's called job hunting. A 2 hour trial and handing a CV in at one local location isn't a full days job hunting. You should be starting at 9 or 10 in the morning and finishing at 5 or 6 in the evening, with an hour off in the middle, plus a couple of short 10-15 minute breaks. Like you would any other job. This is the problem. You see 1 resume dropped off and one 2 hour trial attended as very productive, while most of us see it as 3 hours work at most. edit: Job seeking is like roulette, and the hours you put in are your chips. IF you put in 40 hours a week you'll have most of the wheel covered. Your number will come up sooner or later. If you put in 10 hours a week most opportunities will pass you by, you need a lot more luck to be hired.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2013 09:39
|
|
|
Masonity posted:
While I agree that hours put in and volume of applications/resumes submitted are are a great way to improve the odds of finding something, I do want the OP to keep in mind that there are better uses of his time than the approach he's taking now. In addition to not devoting enough time to the job hunt, he's not using the time he does dedicate to it as well as he could. Right now, he's making the rounds of local stores and restaurants to hand out resumes. He is one of very, very many people doing this. He's not differentiating himself to potential employers. Even if his resume is perfect, a hiring manager who's received hundreds of applications may not read it. Theoretically, a college degree should give him an edge, but that doesn't work in this economy because 1) more college-educated people than ever are competing for unskilled/low-skill jobs and 2) a lot of hiring managers are going to prefer someone with a high school diploma and relevant work experience, because they view college grads as overqualified and likely to expect higher wages / quit as soon as they find another job. I worked retail from summer 2006 to winter 2009 and saw this shift for myself, especially when we received a flood of applications during the holidays. I worked for a mid-to-high end department store that, against the odds, outperformed in a lovely economy and was one of the only retail employers expanding and hiring in my area. The store got a ton of applicants who were college educated, middle aged or older, and recently laid off from white collar positions. Overall, students looking for work over winter break and others with high school diplomas and retail experience had better luck than these candidates. Why? They knew how retail jobs worked, cited recent relevant experience, and had realistic expectations about pay, hours, and responsibilities. Some of them had horrible resumes but still won interviews, because resume-writing skills don't translate into ability to work a cash register and fold sweaters. Good resumes are important, but the jobs that you're applying for don't weight things like this as heavily. This is why I stressed alumni networking in my earlier post. When you are able to find common ground with a potential employer, they're more likely to remember you and consider you for job openings. It's easier to forge a personal connection and make a good impression. Your resume is less likely to be thrown in a pile and ignored. You'll have a leg up on the job hunters with GEDs and five years of burger-flipping experience, especially if its a low-paying office job that requires a greater degree of professionalism than fast food. I think the closest you've gotten to acting on this strategy was visiting your aunt's/uncle's employers and using them to get a foot in the door. Don't restrict yourself to family connections - go out and make some of your own. Please treat the job search as a full-time, 40 hours/week commitment, but I don't think it's enough to dedicate more time to doing what you're doing now. It hasn't worked, and it probably won't work. Maybe that's because there are limited opportunities in your town, or maybe that's because of the issues associated with being a college grad looking for minimum wage work. Either way, something you're doing is not working, and I think there's more to it than lack of time devoted to finding a job. That said, I didn't realize until reading the post that I quoted how little time it seems you're actually spending on this. Do not think of this as an excuse to continue treating this process as a part-time job. You need to work smarter AND harder..
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2013 15:34
|
|
|
Benny the Snake posted:
The people who staff the career center are most likely administrators, and they might not get a spring break. The offices probably don't automatically close (I work in higher education and my guess is that some people are taking time off because of religious holidays but others are looking forward to some quiet time in the office to catch up on paperwork and play minesweeper.) Give them a call!
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2013 17:27
|
|
|
Benny the Snake posted:Well now that my writing is under scrutiny.... Screw around however you want while applying for jobs, but if you want to be a writer, you need to write. Right now, you're looking for jobs, but you're not pounding the pavement every moment of every day, and I'm not sure you're looking and applying and following up ~9 hours a day. So what else are you doing that you can't squeeze in a little bit more time to write. Four years and you have less than five chapters? I'm not trying to be a pain in the rear end, but as a counterpoint, I managed to write an entire novel while in grad school taking classes every night and teaching elementary school full time. It can be done. You need to want it. (Which is another piece of advice for you, OP, I have a BFA in creative writing and an MS in education, and I work in finance. Do not limit your job hunt, you never know where your career path will take you.) It's true for every aspect of your life. You can get a job, you need to want it. You can move out, you need to want to. You can grow up, but you have to get sick of the rut you've put yourself in, and want a better life for yourself. The people at your career center are most likely there, administration tends not to get break. But a phone call to find out if they're open won't cost you anything more than five minutes of your time. I also think you're short-selling yourself in your hunt for jobs. Right now, college seniors are getting ready to graduate and there are tons of job fairs, go to every single one and do not pooh-pooh potential employers. Most first real jobs suck, and job is a job is a job, but a job that pays more than fast food is better for saving up and getting your independence.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2013 22:17
|
|
|
You are not going to be a professional writer. You can't find time to write, you can't clearly explain yourself in forum posts, you can't even spell. If you enjoy it, you should do it for fun and to express yourself creatively. There is nothing wrong with that at all. It's good for you. Write like crazy. But don't think of other jobs as something you're going to do between now and the imaginary time on the horizon when you Become A Writer. This is not meant to sound harsh, I am just stating facts as I see them and giving advice accordingly.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2013 22:27
|
|
|
toby posted:You are not going to be a professional writer. You can't find time to write, you can't clearly explain yourself in forum posts, you can't even spell. The best advice I ever got when I said I wanted to be a writer was when someone told me to write two hours every day for three months. If you do not have the drive to be able to do at least that then you do not have the drive to write. Maybe one day you will but you do not now. I took my English degree and made a career I love and even write a bit on the side but I did not and still do not have the drive to be a novelist. Maybe one day I will and if the bug bites me again I can. Until then dreams are nice but they do not pay the rent or give me the lifestyle I enjoy.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2013 22:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 03:16 |
|
|
Xenocides posted:The best advice I ever got when I said I wanted to be a writer was when someone told me to write two hours every day for three months. If you do not have the drive to be able to do at least that then you do not have the drive to write. Maybe one day you will but you do not now. I took my English degree and made a career I love and even write a bit on the side but I did not and still do not have the drive to be a novelist. Maybe one day I will and if the bug bites me again I can. Until then dreams are nice but they do not pay the rent or give me the lifestyle I enjoy. Yeah. Like I said, I'm not trying to be harsh. But as it stands right now, if he sits around waiting for his writing career to materialize without giving any other thoughts to his future, he's going to be miserable for the rest of his life. I mean: what's the plan if no job in the writing/English field can be landed?
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2013 22:45
|
|