I AM BEYOND CHOMPING AT THE BIT TO WRITE THIS "LETTER?"/POST THESE THOUGHTS ON LINKEDIN, BUT AM AFRAID TO DO SO.
BUT, I AM SICK OF LIVING IN FEAR, AND SICK OF NOT HAVING A REAL CONVERSATION ABOUT THE F*****G NON-EXISTENT JOB MARKET.
SHOULD I POST IT ON LINKEDIN??? Please read it.
https://talent.works/blog/2018/03/28/the-science-of-the-job-search-part-iii-61-of-entry-level-jobs-require-3-years-of-experience/
After wasting too much time looking for a new job, I'm pretty much giving up. Yes, I'm on LinkedIn, saying that I am giving up on my job search. I see former colleagues on here, playing the LinkedIn game, posting their 2.4 articles per week, branding themselves, trying to offer "value" to the LI community, thinking their articles are imparting some great wisdom to their followers when all they really do is put another notch in the fledgling writer's belt for having cranked out yet another 2000 words.
I have seen no one on LinkedIn, or anywhere, express the truly bleak, dark, incessant frustration inherent in looking for a new job. I can't possibly be the only well educated, "white collar" employee who has had enough of job-hunting. But, I might just be the first, perhaps the only one, brave enough to tell it like it is. I am sure this writing would kill whatever meager chances I have left of securing employment if my name were disclosed and/or I posted it on LinkedIn. Therefore, I will merely use my moniker of "leftpro: I need to get this off my chest, and I am using probably the last forum I should be using to express my disgust...but I don't give a damn.
The article below says that the chance of anyone finding a new job drops by 8% for EVERY YEAR past 35. So, by my calculation, people should basically give up looking for any decent job once they hit 42.
For the past two years, I have submitted resumes to numerous off-shore recruiters who clearly never took an English class. I would speak to them about whatever position they were pitching, and I would then get my credentials submitted to said client. Weeks would past, sometimes two months, then, NOTHING. The position invariably was tabled, or put indefinitely on hold, or, was filled by someone INTERNALLY. OFTEN internally.
I have decided to never use recruiters again.
I am also on every FREE job board (no more The Ladders or IVY Exec for me), and submit my targeted resume and targeted cover letter and waste hours of every day filling out useless job applications...useless, because, THEY HAVE MY RESUME! Why waste my time NOW, making me fill out every damn detail of my work history when you already have my resume???? I know why. It is because all you look at on the application is how much money I made, and use that figure to discount me because it is either above (usually) or below your salary range. Someone told me to just enter 0's. I have, and it doesn't seem to work either.
So, I might just stop applying online. More than half the articles I read and emails that bombard my inbox say that job boards are useless anyway.
"Life Coaches" and self-described "Resume Wizards", "Career Coaches", "Interview Gurus" and millions of other nomenclatures used by people pitching their $5000+ resume-writing/cover letter-writing "magic services" are CHARLATANS. I have listened to seven different online pitches with the obligatory chat box made available to all the lemmings who received invitations and attended the presentations of these charlatan-messiahs to try to unlock the big secret on how to get THEIR resume floated to the top, land an interview, and win the job. They all begin, then end, their presentations by pitching their multi-thousand-dollar "packages" and services.
I've heard enough, thank you very much.
Temp Agencies: Temp-to-Perm is a sad, pathetic way to make a living after a certain age. You lose money while you're temping if, heaven forbid, you get sick with the flu and miss two days of work. You have a doctor's appointment, you lose money. Everyone gets a holiday off....your cohorts who are actual employees, can enjoy their holidays because they are getting paid for them. You, on the other hand, can't quite enjoy it, because that is another $100 less you'll bring home that week. Temping should be reserved for new graduates, who have no experience, or spouses who just want a little extra "pocket money", since the other spouse is the breadwinner.
Contract work - I've applied to several much higher-paying-than-temp contract jobs. These are the positions typically pitched by the hundreds of off-shore recruiters who contact me. Their other downside, besides usually being eventually filled by internal employees of the client, is that no benefits are offered...no paid sick days, no insurance, no paid holidays...nothing.
At this point, I have applied to all levels of marketing and even non-marketing jobs that I could still clearly handle. It doesn't matter what type of job I have applied to.......I am always deemed "significantly over-qualified", or, mysteriously, just "not the right fit". Marketing Specialist, Marketing Manager, Senior Marketing Manager, Marketing Director, Senior Marketing Director, VP Marketing jobs (which is actually my real title in my current role.....I lowered my title on my Linkedin profile just to try to be considered for Marketing Director-level jobs. My soon-to-be ex-boss is aware of this). For some reason, my very diverse yet also in-depth background in direct marketing isn't the right fit. It doesn't seem to matter HOW MUCH I target my resume to the position....even to the point of no longer recognizing my career. I don't land an interview.
After reading MOST of the article below....I couldn't bare reading it all the way through....I have decided to stop looking for work. You may think I have no tenacity. You are sorely, very sorely, mistaken. I have more tenacity than anyone I know. I also have the highest level of tolerance for much of life's BS, including a mother who has been suffering from dementia for the past four years, a different family member who is impossible to live with, and a host of other life challenges that have been heaped on me during the past five years ON TOP OF the empty, rejection-filled world of job-hunting. I don't care how supposedly healthy the stock market is, and I definitely don't care what the government announces as "the unemployment rate" (since they NEVER include the grossly under-employed or those who have given up looking for work and have completely fallen off the radar)...this country's job market SUCKS, and it particularly sucks for those over a certain age.
And the salaries...my God. Salaries today for identical jobs from twenty years ago are upwards of $15,000, $20,000/year LESS....LESS...after twenty years. As long as Americans continue to simply accept the crumbs that companies will deign to feed them, the further they will all collectively drag us into the plutocratic society that has already taken shape.
I'm taking a long vacation from job-hunting, and will let the collections agencies start calling. I know what that will do to my credit rating, which in turn, will ruin my chances of finding a job even FURTHER, because in this country, they still allow employers to PULL YOUR CREDIT REPORT, even though a person's credit rating has no damn relevance whatsoever as to whether or not s/he can do the job.