Just got rejected for a job...

[Endangered Specie]

Living proof that a college sophmore with a 4.0 cant get a job as a lab rat...:wtf: :grr: :nuke:

I didnt do anything stupid/wrong, resumee is decent.

I just DONT FUCKING GET IT!!!!

needed to rant.

better

[mhr]

1. Unemployed Four Years - Think How I Feel

eom

[Endangered Specie]

4. Probably 5x as pissed as I am,

you could say Im getting a little taste of the real world... I think Ill stay in college for, bout another decade or 2.

[CTLawGuy]

12. its the bad economy

furthermore, half of getting a job is WHO you know, not what you know.

[ringmastery]

9. I've heard you say this about a thousand times

Have you considered moving? Obviously, there are no jobs for you in your city. Pick up and move.

There are areas of the country with fantastic job growth. Las Vegas, Phoenix, come to mind.

[MI Cherie]

10. Picking up & moving is not an option for ...

... everyone.

I live in an area where my 16 year old can't get a minimum wage, part-time job. I can't find anything comparable to what I had a few years ago when my former employer closed the business. Hubby has had the same lousy paying, dead-end job for 20½ years and is afraid to try anything else.

I'd move just about anywhere anytime to find a good opportunity. All my known family has passed on — now hubby's mom has had health problems lately. We can't move thousands of miles away.

When one has obligations and responsibilities, options are sometimes very limited.

Contrary to the rosy spin about the "fantastic" economy — the Great Lakes area leaves a lot to be desired.

[ringmastery]

15. yes

but desperate times call for desperate measures.

If I was out of work for four years, I would take any job, look into moving anywhere, and check my ego at the door. You got to eat.

Even a menial low-paying job will help defray some expenses and get you out of the house and doing something. There's nothing more demoralizing and depressing than staying indoors all day wasting your life away watching tv and surfing the net.

[stopbush]

11. Job growth in Las Vegas is a chimera, unless you want to work at

Burger King, Taco Bell or the gas station. You can do that without moving.

Seriously, there are a dearth of good-paying jobs in Vegas. A job that pays $100k in NYC might pay $45k here, and the COL isn't half of NYC, believe me. It's a really weird city. My wife works as a cosmetologist. She's licensed in 4 states and has 20 years experience. She's lucky to make $500 a week.

I, on the other hand, haven't found a steady job here in 12 months. Overqualified, blah blah blah. And I've been willing to accept anything...except the scams, which are aplenty in this town. Plenty of interviews, but nada. I'm pretty sure we'll move to CA before the summer ends. I'm currently involved in interviews for *real* jobs in Monterey, Costa Mesa and Long Island. Hopefully something will break soon.

On the other hand, my wife has a client who's a high school kid. She gets paid $700 PER NIGHT to set up chairs at the convention center! How the hell do you get a job like that?!! Man, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

[Guy_Montag]

13. British story (sorry)

I heard on the BBC recently that Greenock (a small, post-industrial town near Glasgow, Scotland) had unemployment at just 10%. Not what you think when you drive through it, the reason for that is that 60% are on invalidity benefit.

So while Tony tells us that unemployment is at its lowest ever, in fact in that town only 30% of people are actually earning a living. I imagine that a lot of former industrial towns throughout our country are the same.

[Sapphocrat]

14. Touching bases with mhr!

We only see each other in these unemployment threads, don't we? But I think of you -- and hope you've succeeded where I haven't.

Four years -- when was the anniversary? I'm still "only" at three years, five months.

Be well, my fellow record-breaker! I'm wishing us both much-needed miracles!

[wtmusic]

2. Maybe they just didn't like you

I've had that happen so many times. It's a numbers game.

[tjwash]

3. Keep plugging.

Just keep going and going, that's all you can do. Hell I worked a lot of shit jobs in college. I know how it feels to be a better engineer than the guy you are working for, yet you are doing some meaningless menial tasks for them. Hmm, did that just sound bitter? :think:

[Endangered Specie]

5. lol, thanks

[7th_Sephiroth]

6. i went up for a tech job

for a company with a military contract and i diddent het it, all the recruters were women and they only hired women

[Sirveri]

7. I lost my job in Feb 02

Since then I've worked as a cashier at a hardware store and was fired because they didn't want to pay me any benefits. After that I started working for a security alarm company when the boss confided in me that he had only been able to give himself one paycheck so far that year. All of these companies paid me over 10k less than I was making before.

Needless to say I'm desperate for work.

[Robert Oak]

8. Welcome to the Multinational corporations of America

Yes, the land of the exploitive, the land of the campaign contribution,
the land of corporate lobbies and free trade agreements, where people are trading like slaves for the cheapest buck.

America: where if you play by the rules and work hard you'll get
ahead.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=291907

[Sapphocrat]

16. I won't hand you any happy-crappy...

...and I'm not trying to one-up you here at all -- but I do want to try to impress upon you the advantages you have over many of us.

College sophomore? So, you're what, 19?

I'll be 43 in September.

4.0?

Classic underachiever here, who nixed higher education in favor of an upward-and-outward career that did indeed provide "salary commensurate with experience" -- all the way into six figures, until the bottom dropped out of the high-tech economy.

Decent resume?

Darlin', I used to make money on the side writing perfect resumes and cover letters for other people -- and my own were f**ktacular, I assure you (and 100% truthful, if you can believe that).

End result: The last company I worked for closed its doors, without warning, on December 6, 2000. Most of the staff had roughly two hours to get their crap out of their cubicles, say tearful farewells to one another, hand over their card-key badges, and vacate the premises. As part of the skeleton crew left to return valued data to customers and shut down the servers one last time, I became officially unemployed on December 27, 2000.

Merry Freaking Christmas, and Happy Fuggin' New Year to me.

I was damned good at what I did -- which, since 1985, included such once-sought-after skills as down-and-dirty COBOL structure-design and coding, SAP administration, and Web design and development when the WWW was still a mystery to the vast majority of computer owners. As much as I hate dealing with hardware, I can still rip your box down, and rebuild it into something better and faster.

And at 42+, I am washed up. Just four short years ago, I was looking to retire quite comfortably by 45. Now, my once-robust mutuals are dead, my two Roth IRAs are gutted, my life savings is gone, and I will be lucky to ever work in my chosen field again.

I wouldn't choose to be young again (it's hell!) -- but if the promise of a decent future were all that concerned me in this life, I would give anything to be 19, in college, and have a 4.0 GPA.

You will be okay. Bush*, unlike diamonds, is not forever.

But at 19, it will just feel like forever.

[MercutioATC]

17. Helpful hint: Apply for a Federal job.

...and I'm NOT talking about the military.

I know they're few and far between, but once you're in, you're in to stay. I've been a Federal employee for 13+ years. They've talked about pay cuts...never happened. They've talked about furloughs...never happened. The fact is, my income has increased every single year since I started (except for 2 years ago when I had worked a ton of overtime the year before and almost none that year).

It's really the best security you can find right now..

[MichaelUK]

18. Quick suggestion

Most companies don't look at the resume or the interview, they look at the person and if they'll "fit" with the team. Look again at your resume and put anything in that you can think of that shows you're a team player and that you're actively involved in social event outside of the work place.

[midnight armadillo]

19. Me too

I got turned down for a job on MOnday. I was in the final 3 out of hundreds of applicants, the company was great and the job would have been interesting and challenging. GOod pay and a 15 min commute would have been nice too. :-(

So now I'm still stuck in a shitty postdoc that doesn'T pay the rent with an asshole of a boss. The frantic job hunt continues...

[displacedtexan]

20. Lots of job descriptions are written by the chosen future employee

When the job market is tight, most employers target individuals (friends, family, etc.) for job openings, and they actually invite these people to assist in writing job descriptions for employment ads which make it difficult for John/Jane Q. Public to get hired.

This set back has nothing to do with your skills, talent, or aptitude!

Time for you to start networking!

Disclaimer: The only job I was ever turned down for (I came in second!) was the only one I ever actually applied for. In all other circumstances, I was asked to apply, which meant I was their first choice.

[stopbush]

21. You're right. I've been *considered* for at least 10 positions

in the last two years that were already targeted for someone else. Sometimes it's just so the company can fulfill their EOE quota. Other times, it's a ploy to show some competition and get the heir apparent to shit or get off the pot and accept the insider position.

My most recent run-in with this ploy came only 3 weeks ago with a company in Santa Monica. The recruiter was all over me with 2 phone interviews and the "they need to fill this immediately" crap. Then, I didn't hear for a week, so I e-mailed her. She came back very apologetically with the "I'm sorry, but they had an inside person that got the job. I'm sorry that I put you through this...I didn't know what they were pulling, but believe me, I'm seeing this bait-and-switch more and more."

Yesterday, I got an e-mail rejection from a company in Salt Lake City. This after two 1-hour phone interviews with the owner (who, in his words, was "salivating" over my resume) which were followed up by a 2.5 hour marathon *profiling* interview with some company the guy retains to *match* people to his company. I hadn't heard for a week, and called him. Got the voice mail. Left a message and asked for an update. Four hours later, the standard, non-personalized e-mail arrives with the bad news. The pisser about this one was the the job was extremely specific and unusual in its required skill set...and that skill set fit me like a glove. It was in my industry, and I can count on one hand the number of people in my industry who were *truly* qualified for the job. And, it paid real money.

So, it's on to this week's hopes, which are tempered by the realities of the current employer-friendly job market.