Job Hunting In The 21st Century

News from the front lines on the jobs situation and American economy in this 21st Century.

Things have really, really changed even absent the economic impact of what is occurring now throughout the U.S. in the job market.

As one who has held a job since she was a mere 15 years old in some form or another, even while raising three children, and as one who also has been attempting to rebuild after the mortgage and foreclosure mess in the Southwest, it doesn't seem there are a lack of jobs in certain industries, simply a lack of jobs for those either over-qualified, without "degrees," or ill suited for those which have been given the most "stimulus."

I began my working career as most teens do, working for a fast food chain in the Southwest.

I got the job through the business department of my local high school, and crunched sales reports daily for the various locations during the after school hours, and during the summers in addition worked in one of the restaurants during the busy lunch hours, and in the afternoons then made cold calls to businesses and homes in the areas offering tokens for discounts through their small local ad agency representatives.

It paid $1.60 per hour, and helped me save for my first car, a used Toyota.

I subsequently then went on to working for a "national" bank, a life insurance agent and agency, and then a credit card company before the age of 20. I was "playing the field" and also bulking up my resume in scope, or so I believed.

Today, that is "job hopping." Marketing yourself according to your experience and worth in different areas in order to expand your knowledge and experience is passé and not an attractive quality for those in the front offices of at least quite a few industries.

Although, now due to the exhaustive tests that are also given through employment agencies, it would appear that the costs for training new workers have even gone down due to the prescreening processes in many labor intensive and other industries. Fireman, for example, already go through exhaustive physical standards and training for their positions. Health care workers now are "graduates" of colleges of higher learning even in the nursing and support positions. I was a candy striper also in my youth, (serving meals, delivering flowers and running errands, making beds, and wheeling out patients as a volunteer, and that position no longer even exists in most hospitals today).

I married, and we moved in order for my spouse to pursue his degree with less than $1,000 and all our worldly possessions in a U-Haul, arriving in the Midwest just as Nixon gave his resignation speech on the White House lawn. We were lucky since it was August, and within the first two days found an apartment complex that catered to students without credit checks, and found a "reduced rent" apartment in a large complex run by the onsite owners. We even got a twelve month lease with free rent the last month, but as a one bedroom was $20 a month more than the apartment we had in the Southwest. At least utilities were paid.

I searched the want-ads daily then, and got an interview at a local law office.

Legal secretaries were actually the highest paid in the clerical field, and I had worked for an executive at American Express prior to the move being promoted from the typing pool (typing letters eight hours a day almost non-stop), and so was confident I was up to the job.

I was first interviewed by the Supervisor of the "section" seeking to fill the position, and then was asked to speak with the attorney for whom I would be working - one of the managing partners whose practice was in labor and employment law. At the ripe old age of 21.

We hit it off, as he also had family living in my former state (a son) and was impressed with my keyboarding most of all (typing tests were mandated for all new hires, the only test I was required to perform). He was a few years older than my own father, and was a mentor also and due to his busy, busy travel schedule, pretty much had the responsibility to be the "face" for our existing clients while he was traveling conducting seminars and advising local management personnel and owner/operators throughout the country.

The job lasted over six years, while my spouse obtained his undergraduate and graduate degree, and involved many, many extra hours over and above the call of duty and girl Friday duties in trips back and forth to the airport too, picking up mailed documents for filing and preparation also while he was on the road, but for which I was truly grateful as during that time I also became a new mother, and my "boss" was demanding, but fair and considerate, and even provided us with a car when ours was on the fritz one winter, and a month's bonus pay at Christmas every year.

In the corporate world then, the martini lunch was standard for most mid to upper level management, wining and dining potential new clients, and in office meetings of the lawyers on various client matters, and at one point during the start-up phase when my new "boss" left a 200 attorney practice to set out on his own with several others from our former firm, I even performed receptionist duties for those visiting the office, and prepared all the month billings and statements for our client load.

Flash forward to 2010.

I have been hitting the local unemployment offices and resource centers and they are packed to the gills.

Computers lined up in one full room for those seeking job listings and any assistance that might be needed with resume writing (I didn't even have a resume for my early positions, simply filled out the standard two page front and back application).

Computer literacy is not simply a plus, but a necessity even in seeking a job.

Online applications are now preferred for even minimum wage jobs, and take a good 45 minutes to an hour to complete with all the questions that are included, and waivers included as part of the application process for requested testing over and above those tests which might be needed for the particular position applied for, and "background checks."

Many involve lengthy questionnaires even.

One recent one I filled out for a large big box company included a question that asked: "How many politicians today do you feel are dishonest?" and another that asked "Have you ever had a 'bad day?'

Occasional grumpy people, apparently, need not apply. Or those who might have reservations about at least a few of our political leaders, and given those polls it would seem that just might knock out about 70% at this point that might believe at least a good percentage of them just might be in political office for all the wrong reasons.

And if you are an experienced, or "older" worker, don't include anything that isn't part of your employment history prior to 2000.

The last ten years is all that matters, not the experience you gained from the varied positions I myself have held throughout my lifetime at this point.

Traffic tickets or other missteps with the law, even if you have "paid the price and done your time," or pled "no contest" in order to either not lose work time, or incur even added expenses for bench trials, not jury trials, or cannot afford a lawyer for many of these lower level offenses with hefty fines and penalties on more and more civil and criminal offenses, also are requested to be disclosed, except in about three states.

Which does tend to favor a younger workforce and population, since the question is preceded with "ever" meaning throughout your life, and of course the odds would go up the longer you live that at some point you have had a run-in with the law over something or other, since even the number of laws which have been passed progressively have increased in leaps and bounds.

Some even contradicting previously passed legislation, or placing citizens in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" position with respect to especially those low level DUI laws and blockades nation-wide based again on "science based" fallable technology, and evidentiary standards that are now at the point where you need a degree in science in order to even argue a speeding ticket anymore, since those are becoming more and more based on evidence that is not "witnessed" but "recorded," like those sports playbacks, although only from a single "fixed" angle, and in which the worlds "reasonable and prudent" means at times even driving the maximum speed on a snowy day won't result in a "speeding" ticket, but driving 11 miles over the speed limit on an abandoned highway in favorable, mild weather can.

The job search itself is now almost a full time job for many, and few that can meet some of those benchmarks.

Credit reports are also used routinely for almost any position, and if you are seeking work in this economy due to having also been impacted in a big way in either losing a home, or prior job, or need to get back into the workforce after an absence due to rising costs of living and expenses, those scores can mean you are dead in the water without the money to hire a lawyer even to assist with getting those reports to reflect the circumstances behind the debt, other than that one line explanation that really doesn't affect those ballpark scores at all.

And even one such as myself, who actually paid off all my credit card debt five years ago after an identity theft and during a refinance on a home, the fact that you have no debt or haven't had any in a number of years due to satisfying all your creditors through those highly advertised "home equity" loan programs also counts against you when it comes to attempting to re-establish or obtain any credit after more than a five year "debt free." You haven't had credit, so there are now brownie points, is how it now works, and most of those larger businesses pay the lower price for the "score" rather than the full reports, since drawing the full reports has also affected applicants, since pulling the reports themselves can also count against you in the number of reports pulled.

I went to a local job fair recently. I was seeking work in prior fields in which I had experience in the private sector.

The tables that were manned consisted of mostly universities seeking students for their educational programs and their grants tied in to the number of students they could encourage to go back to school and get re-educated, banking and finance companies seeking BAs in business or finance for some of those credit companies, hospitals and health care clinics seeking medical staff and personnel due to the new healthcare legislation (which definitely was a boom for their industry at the cost of the public and even the older generation who have paid local and state property taxes for many of the community hospitals that were built in the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's, and with now almost a hospital or health care clinic on every corner), a Mary Kay representative, a local television station "sponsor" with its fall lineup, and the local police force since there is a great deal of former military that are being recruited for local and state police forces throughout the nation (who are also demand for the government contractors for the infrastructure repair and jobs in the last federal jobs bill after working on rebuilding Iraq, in addition to many of the illegals in the West, Midwest and Southwest it seems).

It did appear that the job seekers were being mostly marketed to, in point of fact, by many there rather than those seriously seeking workers.

Keywords are stressed the most on those resumes and applications, and terms like those who "think outside the box" or are innovative, creative type individuals are now passé. Multi-tasking also seems to be out of vogue. The ability to "stay on task" is the 21st Century ideal. Some at the educational booths indicated that the largest hiring source now appears to be more and more "tech" jobs in the public sector, not private.

There are also new questions with respect to race, national origin, ethnicity, and disability, including whether or not you are collecting under any programs providing any benefits under state or federal programs, although some of those questions are merely asked to be provided voluntarily, although there isn't much room for explanations on some of those questions in order to further clarify anything other than the multiple choice answers.

Hiring definitely has also now become a "science," and it may be "science" once again that is preventing many of those workers who are truly qualified, and who need the work in all age brackets from finding it. Or a past due parking ticket, maybe. These "screenings" do seem to be geared toward also ferreting out those individuals whose dog may have eaten the parking ticket five years ago without "warrants," in these shared job resource pools from state to state in updating the movements of many now who are having to go from state to state at this point in order to get even interviewed or hired.

Migrant workers are not simply agricultural workers anymore.

And there are now even overlapping agencies that have taken up residence in many of the spaces at local malls formerly held by retailers that are not like to old jobs centers and boards with posted announcements and such, but provide resume writing classes, "test" interviews, and even clothing and fashion advice.

There seems to be a booming economy now, in another new industry.

Counseling and coaching the unemployed in order to recast them into "job material."

I wonder what Edison, Franklin, Grandma Moses, the Wright Brothers, or Albert Schweitzer would think?