Tuesday, August 24, 2010

The scoop


I've been following the job boards for a couple of years now with no success. One of the first things I noticed were a couple of jobs on the state run boards that had been there for over a year. I know for a fact that they were dead ends because I ran into a guy who got the job. The next thing I noticed was jobs being listed more than once. Having had a small business some years back I know how that works. The paper lists a duplicate listing and charges the business an extra listing fee. But I'm seeing this even more now. If a pizza joint is looking for a delivery guy the online paper lists all of the companies' locations and possible positions making it look like they need a mass of people and that there are a bunch of jobs to be had. Not true. I'm sure when even the slightest word goes out that there may be a position, the company gets flooded with applicants. I know this from when I was a photographer on the road and needed a receptionist. An add was placed in the local paper the day before I got to the town. When I arrived 50 resumes were sitting there waiting.

What are companies doing? They're cutting their staffs to the bare minimum until extra help is needed. Then they'll hire somebody for maybe a week or less to get caught up then lay them off. It's happened to me twice now. They won't keep me because they'd have to pay more for me than a entry level person but they know I'll get the job done without the long training process. So as you can see millions of us can't get ahead. Even working one day a week makes you employed (has to be reported) but isn't enough to survive.

11 comments:

Randal Graves said...

What a crock, you simply don't want to work. Are you calling our esteemed leaders liars? We need more tax cuts.

jmsjoin said...

It's a scam to make it look like a recovery. We keep hearing there are 6 people applying for every job but from what i see on TV it looks more like 100. From what I can see it would be much worse if republicans had their way. I don't care what they say despite everything this will get much worse.

Tom Harper said...

I hate those F$#%&! duplicate ads. It never happened to me with help wanted ads, but a long time ago I was apartment hunting, and this one number I called, this irate voice yelled "it's been rented!" and hung up. So I kept scrolling through the ads, and in a different category, I was just about to call this number, but it looked familiar; sure enough, it was the same number where that nasty bitch had just hung up on me. Apparently she had her rental listed in every conceivable category -- Rentals, Apartments, Duplexes, Rooms for Rent, and whatever else. I hope her phone rang off the hook for the next three weeks.

Demeur said...

Watch out Randal! I know the Dewey decimal system and the Library of Congress file system and I'm not afraid to use them. What'd you say you made?

Jim I've seen from 500 to 1000 line up for just a few jobs offered.

Tom they're probably doing that again now with everybody fighting for buyers and renters.

Tim said...

I once kept a list of all the jobs I had applied for, it tallied over 800.
Somehow working for yourself seems like the only thing anyone can do.

BBC said...

Over the course of my 67 years I don't think I've looked at help wanted ads more than a dozen times. Most jobs (and I jumped around a lot at times) were through word of mouth or someone hearing that I had just quit a job so they called to offer me one.

It was a small town advantage thing. And sometimes there is just a sort of karma at play. I got a job at the Ford dealership in Kingman, Arizona by simply dropping while on a trip and putting in an app, had a job offer when I got back home.

When I got tired of them and quit a few days later I went into the Big A auto parts for something and guess what?

The manager of the store used to live in Colville and knew me, I didn't ask for a job but two days later he sent his wife out to our place (we lived off the grid) to fetch me to work for them. I worked for them until I left Kingman to move to Utah.

My life has been sort of magical like that at times.

BBC said...

When I first started long haul truck driving it was for a farmer that had a truck working through WTB in Spokane. I was out for about six weeks and when I got back I quit him.

WTB pestered me for a week to go to work for another man that had trucks with them but at the end of the week I had an offer to go to work for a much larger company that paid much better and had a much better dispatch.

When I got fed up with them I quit and left the truck at their home terminal and bought a car and drove 2000 miles home.

Can I find work in this economy? Oh, sure, all it takes is a few phone calls, but I'm fucking going boating.

May you live in interesting times.

S.W. Anderson said...

Any hemorrhoid who thinks job seeking while collecting unemployment benefits is easy or fun should have to do it for months on end.

There's a considerable amount of sloppiness in job ads, and companies that go fishing among job seekers for various reasons.

The ones that killed me were the oh, so specific, incredibly detailed ads. They tend to be state or county government ads, and for colleges and universities. They give the impression they were written for a particular person the ad writer knew about when writing the ad. Or maybe I'm just becoming the suspicious type.

Ranch Chimp said...

You have a clear vision of what's going on which is a plus, because you wont waste valuable time where it's not justified, many are not that perceptive. Also Patriot here is right on the money, because rest assured... it will get worse before anything balance's out. Folk's talk of getting companies encouraged to hire more ... heh, heh, heh, heh, heh ... does anyone realize how idiotic that is? What would be any incentive in these time's currently to hire on more people? If you are "profit's driven"? The idea even that any admnistration can just create job's and make up for the million's ( in this type of democratic society with hardly no social benefit's such as a country like France )lost with over a million per year corporate legislated and sponsored degree applicant's brought in from abroad and locked in contractually to position's, as well as birth rate increases, and new domestic graduate's, etc, etc ... the list is endless ... how can we just bring back million's of lost job's, that wouldnt even if we brought back exact number's could even keep up with the growth of those seeking employment? .. it's mathematically impossible ... I may have an 8th grade education formally, but I certainly know how to do basic math, and understand the nature of business. I actually quit my last job and declined a few offer's of work over the last 4 year's here in Dallas, only because those who offered me work, knew me ... but I declined because I realize I can make more and pay less tax, working in these time's for myself. Another thing I want to point out ... is many I know like here in Dallas who stay employed ... it's mainly because of who they know and getting that so called, inside "hook up", those masses who stand in endless line's and on fax machine's faxing resume's that most likely go into the shredder are the one's that wait the longest it seem's.

Ranch Chimp said...
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Ranch Chimp said...
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