Posted on 03/14/2003 6:55:22 AM PST by sonsofliberty2000
And, guess what? When my husband and I got married, he'd been out of college one week and didn't have a job either. He went to work as a stocker for Lowe's at $6.50 an hour. I still married him--and so will your fiance. She loves you for who you are, not what job you have. And it's so much easier sharing expenses!!
I will certainly pray for you, and the rest of us unemployed Freepers. Try to keep your spirits up- planning a wedding can be SUCH a fun time. And marriage comes with all sorts of opportunies for free entertainment. ;-D
Great advice as well, Nick. This past year my husband was laid off, and spent 6 months looking for work. He had kept in contact with his old boss from a job 2 1/2 years ago and about 3 jobs ago. Mr. lawgirl is a very friendly guy and emailed him just to say hello, what's up, and this established some contact. When his old boss emailed and said "what's up", Brad told him, and the boss said "well we have a job right now that's perfect for you!" and bingo, he got the job of his dreams.
Although it's in Wisconsin and we have to pick up and move! LOL! My point is- email old colleagues as well. And just to tell you those 6 months were really, really rough, but in the end God blessed us all the more for patience and waiting for him to show us what to do.
I am now trying for unemployment benifits, which I'm sure my ex-company will put up a fight. I have tried in vain to find another job,but no one wants to hire a 50 yr.old with health problems.
My next step is to try for disability,which I'm sure wont't be easy.I feel like giving up but I refuse to!
I will remember you in prayer and hope you remember me.
I apologize in advance if any of this sounds condescending or if you've heard this a million times before, but I'll offer a couple of recommendations that I have for anyone in your position . . .
1. Based on my experience and on everything I've read, answering ads is probably not the most productive way to go about a job search. Often for the very reasons you described in your story -- you don't know anything about your potential employer, and their needs are so general that they post the position in a newspaper that is read by anyone. Personal contacts are probably the best way to go about this, though that might be a little hard to do if you aren't familiar with the area.
2. The most difficult thing for someone in your position is not finding the job, it's getting the right interview. An employer who receives a lot of resumes isn't going to review them in great detail, and even if he did he wouldn't know more than a tiny little bit about you. One of my strategies when I first got out of school was what I call a sort of "forced interview." This does not mean showing up at someone's door unannounced -- it can be done by attending a conference or similar venue in your field of expertise. Not only will you meet a lot of prospective employers, but you'll meet them in a perfect environment where they will have some time to talk without the formalities of an official interview, and where they would fully expect to meet people in their line of work anyway. And you'll have an immediate advantage over any other future job applicants because you made the effort to show up at a conference that wasn't specifically intended to serve as a job fair. In the eyes of a potential employer you will immediately be perceived as a "professional" of sorts in your line of work even if you've got no experience at all.
3. Be flexibile in what you are looking for. You have training in a very specific area, but keep in mind that your skills can be applied in a position that might seem completely unrelated. Someone else here suggested that you leave your field entirely and get involved in a health-related field, but I don't think you need to be that drastic. I work for a civil engineering consultant, and because we are a small company we hire only a couple of people for administrative functions. We don't have an accounting department, marketing department, or IT department, so we will never post a job for a prospective accountant, marketing specialist, or IT person. But we've got a couple of young guys here who are going to school for civil engineering, and we pay them well enough that they're willing to finish school part time. We do this because they save us a lot of money in other ways -- one of them runs our company server (he's got a secondary interest in IT-type work), one of them helps out with the financial records, etc. You may start by working in a different type of job, but once your employer sees that you've got a number of other skills you may be asked to do more and more work in your original field of work.
4. That's some beautiful country down there in West Virginia, but I know the economy has been in pretty bad shape there for some time. Be flexible when it comes to looking for a job -- the best job you find may be in a different region of the country. Family ties are definitely important, but having a job several hours' drive away from your family will still keep you close enough to see them regularly.
Please keep me posted over the next few weeks and months -- I really do like to hear success stories, and I think you've definitely got plenty of potential.
Maybe a FReeper can hire you.
Aha! You did the right thing--but then you knew that already ; - )
Good things are happening for you, I can feel it.
Thanks for the update.
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