ChefSam, you say your mom is 62 and considering not continuing to hunt for work. When I read the stats about unemployment, I read comments such as "... not counting people who have stopped looking." How do they know who these people are, or how many there are, if they have stopped looking?

Although I'll be 62 next fall, there is no way in the world I could stop working. DS is only 18. And I couldn't manage only on Social Security.

I did two rounds of unemployment, while at the same time investigating temp work, of which there didn't seem to be a lot. One temp place told me that if I worked for them, I would have to commit to six months minimum without a single day off! In real life, we sometimes have to be off. I told her I could hardly miss DS's high-school graduation. And how would I interview at other places if I could never be absent from the temp job? People who aren't in our shoes really don't understand.

At this point, my not working for a year may be one reason I am not interviewed. Maybe it is thought there is something wrong with me. I'm going to try to do some temp work so I don't look too "stale."

A college degree from the 1980s might look old, but NO degree is always worse. A BA now is more like a high-school diploma used to be. It's one of several screening devices used to find what a company might consider the "best" people. If you have a degree, don't take it off your resume.

Yes, life is unfair, as with the housing thing. I try not to spend my time thinking about that. What I most want the government to do are (1) more strictly regulate the financial industry so a recession of this type doesn't happen again; I don't know if it can be prevented, but certain practices, such as Madoff-type Ponzi schemes, certainly can be; (2) do more to create jobs. I know this is easy to say, and hard to do; I wouldn't know what to do. But if companies are laying people off because of no money, why is so much of the stimulus money still unspent?

I think part of the current situation is the result of concern that there isn't a lot of stability/predictability in the economy. Some of that could be worry about government deficits or taxes, and some from fears that health-insurance reform might cost a bundle, leaving folks with even less disposable income. If investors would invest more, that probably would help, but what can ordinary people like us do to encourage them?

Keep writing thank-you notes even if some people don't appreciate them. A few times in my life, after weird interviews or related factors, I've been just as glad I didn't wind up working in a certain place. Would you want to work for a company that thought thank-you notes were dumb?

Absolutely not...but unfortunately that is were I find myself at the moment as I am already connected with them and I need the money until something else comes along! It makes me sad that they had that reaction and makes me wonder about how other companies react. Oh, well, wouldn't won't to work there any way!

Still looking with no success.

The last I heard, it's believed that CA has closer to 20% unemployment, instead of 12% reported, due to those "invisible" people.

No, she and my step-father can't afford to live on their SS income either and don't have a dime of savings, but they're burying their head in the sand. She has no health insurance either. I'm trying to plan for my daughter's college and our retirement. It frosts me that DH and I will end up supporting them to an extent as well because they've made poor choice after poor choice.

ChefSam, as mean as it sounds, you should strive to find a time when you can "tell it like it is" with your folks. Although I collected unemployment for a while, I wouldn't do it for longer even if I could, both because I want to be a productive member of society and because, long-term, I couldn't survive that way. As it is, I've used up a lot of savings, including ALL of my 401(k) from one job, and a lot from another. I EXPECT to have to work now until heaven knows when. I don't think your parents should rely on you for support when they aren't making an effort to do what they can to support themselves. In regard to no health insurance, in around 3 years they will be eligible for Medicare, which will help.

While your daughter has college costs (and who wants a young person to graduate with thousands of dollars of debt, even if she can get loans?), the folks shouldn't expect you to pay their costs. I've also read that people shouldn't put themselves in hock (read give up retirement savings) to put their children through. So between your basic living expenses, DD's college, and your own retirement, if modest, I can't imagine you would have anything left over, especially in the current economy. Maybe you can meet with DM and DF and show them some numbers, to demonstrate that you don't and won't have the money. My MIL still has BIL to help out, but if at some point they came to me and asked for money, I would tell them flat out that I don't have any and never expect to have any. Maybe this sounds heartless, but especially in view of their lack of effort, they need to know what the situation is. Maybe you can "scare" them into doing more to cover their costs.

Back to job concerns, here is something else to be aware of.

This morning I was applying online to jobs, practically the only way one can apply these days. I had written a cover letter, and was ready to submit it and my resume. I was taken to another screen where I was to answer some questions. Often these screens want demographic information, such as ethnic background (presumably to satisfy EOE requirements), or such things as education, willingness to relocate, and so on.

This questionnaire asked about if I had ever worked in certain environments, done press releases, etc. But THEN it had two questions I couldn't answer. One was to give an example of a confidentiality situation and how I'd handled it. Another asked for additional details about it. Of course at all my previous jobs I did my utmost to preserve confidentiality, even among staff, and especially in relation to "outsiders" such as people interviewing for jobs. But other than generalities, I couldn't come up with any examples. So I gave up applying for that position.

Be prepared to field almost ANY question thrown at you. To my mind, this again demonstrates what seems to be an adversarial relationship between companies and potential employees, which I find very off-putting. But what can you do? When you are standing in a grocery line or otherwise have to wait, maybe imagine all the strange questions you could be asked and try to come up with plausible answers. I hope your experience will enable you to apply to many jobs.

Be aware that sometimes the adversarial relationship is not between the company and the potential employee, but between the HR department and the potential employee. It sounds like the same thing, but it's not. As an employer (at a university) our lab, and many others, constantly butted heads with the HR department, especially with those online application systems. If you can at all find a contact person, it doesn't hurt to send them your resume and cover letter and let them know that you have applied through the HR system. That allows us to follow up through the back end if it looks like you are someone we'd be interested in.

I could give story after story of people who were in the system and never got interviews due to the key words. We are only allowed to look at resumes that HR pulls for us. We don't get to see the whole pool of applicants, although sometimes we can request the resume if we know an applicant is in the pool. In one case, we had an individual interested and he actually worked with my boss to tailor his application to the job description. He was certainly the most qualified (only a few people in the country work in that particular research area). And yet HR did NOT pull his resume. Huh???? We had to do a special request just to get his resume approved and sent so that we could hire him.

On a personal note, one of the online questions to a job that I applied for at a different university three years ago was ambiguous. I had some experience, depending on how you interpreted the question, but did not want to be thought a liar in the interview, so I answered "no." The system kicked me out and would not let me reenter the application process. I managed to find out the person who was doing the hiring and she was able to get me past the system. I was offered the job (did not take it for a variety of personal reasons that had nothing to do with the job) and in fact, when the person they hired instead of me quit last year, they cold-contacted me wondering if I'd reconsider and take the job (2 years after my interview!). But the HR would never have sent my resume through. Made the employer wonder how many other highly qualified people don't get through because the filter is done by a black-and-white computer that can't discern the "gray areas" of experience and qualifications.

So don't give up, and realize that sometimes you need to route around to someone within the company to get considered.

Simplicity, I agree. In fact, it's sad but I recently inherited a tidy sum of money from my father's father. My father has been gone for 8 years but my grandfather is still alive. He decided that since he's 89, he'd rather give each of his grandchildren money now when he can be around to see us enjoy it.

The point of my story is I didn't feel comfortable telling my mother about it. I would have liked to have been able to share the news with her - HEY! Look at what I just got! - but I was afraid the first thing out of her mouth would have been to ask to borrow some of it. We're using 20% to work on the kitchen and the rest is going right into the bank so we have more in our emergency fund.

Spending 20 years in IT, I can tell you of many NON-qualified people who made it HR because their resume looked good. If a decent IT person read it, they would have tossed it in the trash.

HR should not be qualified to pull anything other than HR/admin positions. Seriously. I didn't think that was a widespread tactic, but I saw it at 2-3 companies.

I understand the advice to go "around" HR if you can, but usually there is no way to find out which person to contact, IF they will let you do an end-run around the system. Most of the time, the resumes are addressed to HR. Companies are so picky that if any tiny thing isn't exactly right, they won't count you.

I personally believe that automated systems are a TERRIBLE way to recruit people. If they want to reduce the number of applicants, they could do several things, including not mentioning the salary if it is at all high (some people apply only because of the money). They should have people MAIL resumes, which automatically will eliminate folks too lazy to do that. For me, faxing is a deterrent - not because I mind driving to Kinko's and paying the parking meter, but because sending a fax costs several dollars. If I had any hope of a response, I'd spend the money to fax, but what few faxes I've sent haven't produced any better results than e-mailing or mailing. Indeed, I don't think anyone has ever responded to a fax I've sent. It is just too expensive to keep doing it.

I fear that as long as there are hundreds of people out of work, companies or HR departments will continue to use autoresponders and/or online applications (those certainly keep me from applying in most cases, because their "extractors" take info from my resume and put it into the wrong fields, to the point where you have to redo all of them, just too much work to do often).

What seems to be happening is kind of an exclusiveness developing, where only the creme de la creme ever make it past some of the barriers you all have described. Yet the rest of us still need work.

In my opinion, salaries have moved downward. If people could earn decent money doing X or Y, fewer of them would apply to jobs A and B, and there would be fewer resumes to plow through.

I wish you all luck in outfoxing the systems.

Hi,

Thanks very much for this comment. It help me to think about my ideals.


Tks again and pls keep posting.