Economic Downturn Hits Home

this economy is not improving, i don't care what spin media and gov try to put on it. all the best.

 

Sorry to hear about that. I will pray he finds another job soon.

 

I'm very sorry to hear the news.
Hang in there; there is always light and silver linings at the end of the tunnel.

 

Been there, done that. Sorry for your DH. Job hunting sucks IMO.

One good thing about losing my job a couple of years ago was that I went to the local community college and started taking classes. I actually enjoy learning new stuff and I've kept taking classes in GIS even though I finally got another engineering job. Maybe your DH will find a new vocation or avocation?

Good luck to you both.

 

That's not good, not good at all. I'm feel badly for DH, mostly, but also for you and all the other workers who lost their jobs.

 

Ahh, well good to hear there's a silver lining.

If it's of any use, I find I feel pretty "safe" with income from a bunch of different places. I'm mostly self-employed, and it comes from probably 5 or 6 main sources throughout the year (with one of those sources further divided into 20 people or so!). Maybe he has something he enjoys doing that he could build up clients for over the next couple years?

Self-employment also gives one ample PriusChat time.

 

Sorry to hear about that. I heard about Grays Harbor Paper closing on the local news last night.

 

Sorry to hear about that Rae Vynn here in Florida we Where hit pretty hard as well it took me sometime to find a job but it will happen. You guys hang in there things are starting to slightly turn down here we have gone from 14% unemployment to 10 in last year and as an area at the fore front of either economic down turn or upturn things are getting better.

 

Downturn Hits Home

I am also saddened to hear that your home is impacted by the economic downturn Rae... but I believe you folks are movers and will come out of this little untimely event with a brighter tomorrow...

Sending out the good thoughts to get your home back to where you want it to be.

Bob Jr

 

Well I am happy to here that and glad DH will get what he wants in sorts. He will get a short vacation then back to the books to get himself a degree to buy you that round the world cruise

 

Good luck. Agree with bisco, things are not meaningfully better for "the rest of us", but with you still working that's such a relief.

 

I definitely feel (and relate) to what your DH is going thru.

If he has not looked for a job for a few years, it's CHANGED A LOT.

Resume: Must be Googleable with lots of keywords of what he is good at. Accomplishments - NOT duties or platitudes (also known as BS). Resume should be text upgraded to 12 and 10 point font - Arial or Times New Roman.

Why should a resume be done this way? If the resume is submitted on an automated tracking system, you are taking a chance if the formatting is much advanced than text-only....Word headers and footers are removed, so how can they call you? Same for tables and extremely large fonts.

The top third of a resume is the teaser - if it's not captivating, it's ignored in seconds (HR departments are way understaffed from five years ago)

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER paste the job description and hide it in white font so the applicant tracking system is fooled into thinking "perfect fit." Locally a network group cultishly told everybody to do this. Current applicant tracking systems will never consider any email that stoops to this kind of fraud....even if the company applied for is not that automated, select-all will blow the cover of anyone attempting this trick....many an interview was canceled this way.

Interviewing. Got to rehearse. "Tell me about yourself:" that really means a professional history in 2min or less of what you have done that directly correlates to the job interviewed for. Also have to explain what you have been doing while unemployed...volunteering, schooling, certifying. Must tell them your strengths. Must tell them a legit weakness, and preferably how you overcame it.....can't be "I'm a workaholic" but a real weakness. Can't do TMI like you are an alcoholic, either. Overdress a bit, be a little early, no body odor, treat everybody.... secretariaries and parking attendants often report behavior.

Like on your resume, and "30-second elevator speech" in professional settings, DO NOT RAMBLE - tweet concisely. You have to briefly and concisely sound bite what you offer.

Networking. If there is a networking group attend it for leads and education on job hunting. If you can identify someone in a target company, build a relationship....apply online as it's often required, but you can get them to walk your resume so to insure a hiring authority will see it.

Join LinkedIn - World's Largest Professional Network - they have 110M members and it's free. Companies/recruiters find it cheaper and more useful than CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com, etc. You can search by target company. To perfect your resume, have copies of the ideal job to apply for, search within LinkedIn for people doing what you want to do.....harvest the job's keywords (like CPA, SPHR, etc), all variations of the titles, load that into your LinkedIn profile and resume.

Since we are talking about internet and Social Media, be careful about your digital footprint. Employers Google applicants...some were going to be hired until their posts were read. Yes, you can say anything on the net, but it's a double-edged sword. If a company can tie a post to you and find it objectionable, they won't consider you.

Job Search | one search. all jobs. Indeed.com is a great site to search for jobs online...they aggregate from other job sites.

 

I know the media/economists try to sound optimistic, but I'm still seeing that we're in a depression that's second only to The Great Depression. It's not just about unemployment....IMO, part of the reason for lack of investing is there is so much less ventures. A lot of it was the money loss with real estate; the banks/investment companies are then also strapped in offering business loans/services too. I'm struggling with a downturn in my own finances, but at least I have savings. I know a few people that have decided to default on their mortgages because they'd rather just rent or find a very cheap house seeing as their current property is not an investment anymore. I'm conservative with economics, so I don't understand that myself. The whole credit risk is going to hit far more then just being approved for a loan. I'd much rather try and see how much of a hit I would have selling my house whenever I find myself in a situation where I can't afford it anymore. Anyway, I'm seeing that this economy is effecting so many people: it's not like other minor recessions of the last few decades where it was arguments about employment or inflation alone. There was a systematic financial collapse starting in 2007 which we're still feeling aftershocks from. It's going to take more time to sort all of this out!

In response to job hunting...I would only use LinkedIn for connecting with old clients/colleagues. You can message someone who accepts to be in your network: otherwise, LinkedIn has restructured themselves to start charging quite expensive fees to message people outside your network...and they're offering job searches now. From what I've seen of these services, though, they don't seem worth the higher price. Right now, I've been getting better responses dealing with recruitment firms.

 

LinkedIn's free version is still useful, although last week it went public and no telling what will happen.

 

Indeed it is...I was just giving an update about how its services have restructured. A year ago, I was able to e-mail folks out of my network to just give an introductory "hey, I got your name from so and so..." Now, you can't do that It's only a short reason for why you'd want them to join your network. Especially since these social networking internet sites are more about marketing and speculative investment, I think LinkedIn has really shot themselves in the foot. But that's a different subject. I do think that LinkedIn is the best site for searching for any client/colleague you've ever worked for (or exchanged business cards). The main thing about job hunts these days is continuing to keep your face present with all your old contacts as well: every segment is much more transitional/in the moment right now from what I've seen.

 

On the surface it may appear that GHP succumb to the big paper makers and the economy, but I really wonder if in fact the local family owning GHP didn't just throw in the towel, take their money and leave employee's holding unemployment checks. I wonder if GHP could have reinvented themselves if employees were given the chance to buy out the family.

Even though our economy has plenty of opportunities and lots of money to make, it's still hard to get back up on the career horse!