BTW I am praying for God to give you the strength, insight and wisdom to get through this very difficult time. I have been, (and soon expect to be...in fact I might be going to the job fair myself) in a similar situation.
Keep pressing on and you will make it!
Here's the info... sorry I can't clean up the html, but it should be readable.
2003 “Field of Dreams” Pittsburgh Employment Expo
Sponsored by The Employment Guide
You are invited to attend the major career event of the year in Pittsburgh!
| On Wednesday, MARCH 19TH, from 10am to 3:30pm, the 2003 “Field of Dreams” Pittsburgh Employment Expo will be held at Heinz Field on Pittsburgh’s North shore in Club Level East, with entrance near gate “B”. Admission to this one-day event is free to all job seekers, and will feature over 60 area employers and schools. Positions to be filled include healthcare, sales, customer service, office/clerical, drivers, manufacturing, banking/finance, hospitality, security, IT and much more. Attendance is expected to be 3,000+ job seekers, making it the largest free public career fair in Pittsburgh’s history. |
| Address: Heinz Field Club Level "B" Enter near Gate B Pittsburgh, PA 15201 Click Here for Driving Directions |
Time: Wednesday March 19, 2003 10am - 3:30pm |
| This event is being organized and produced by The Pittsburgh Employment Guide and Employmentguide.com, a division of Trader Publishing, in partnership with ClearChannel Communications, parent of six major Pittsburgh radio stations. “The goal of this event is to bring employers and job seekers together, all in one spectacular setting, Heinz field. This has never been done before in the Pittsburgh region to this scale”, reports Pete Denio, General Manager of the Employment Guide. “To our knowledge, this will be the largest general public career fair Pittsburgh has ever seen. With the troubles certain industries in our area have experienced since September 11th, here is an opportunity for displaced workers and those seeking something better than they currently have to meet face to face with Pittsburgh area employers.” |
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.