Job Hunting When You Are Unemployed Is the Worst

Not attacking anyone; my thread is about how frustrating it is to be nearly 50 and unemployed trying to find work. I understand down was trying to share her experience with recruiters as positive. But, my experience with recruiters is negative, so seems really dismissive and insensitive to post about how great one's experience with recruiters is, knowing I haven't had that experience. Not very nice or considerate, to do that here, frankly. Shows a real lack of empathy for my situation, to dismiss the stress and frustration I've had to put up with regarding the recruiters I've encountered, by writing about positive experience with recruiters knowing that's not what I've experienced.

I am excited to see your new hair color, Tams!!

I'm in the same situation as you. I am not picky though and will do whatever is available within my skills. I am already in my 50s and will scour the ads and apply. I wanted to go on disability but was dissuaded by my psychdoc. So, I must make the best of my situation.

Sorry to hear you're in my situation too, bpforever. It's not that I am super picky but I know I can't pay rent on minimum wage.

Even if legislation were passed to protect people in our age range from age discrimination I worry that just isn't enough to help us find really decent paying jobs.

I hope you are able to find a good job -- I hope we both can.

ok help me understand how minimum wage is worse than no wage at all when it comes to paying rent? At least you are showing a work history, and that you are employable. Yeah making more would be nice but when you are starting from zero then its a step up to work at all.

I'm in the same boat. My struggle has been with recruiters. Personally I think they have so much power to decide which candidate is to be interviewed which is not. They judge by what they think is the right resume and questions!! It's superficial to try to judge a person from a paper, and a 15 mins call.

By the way, these agencies are getting paid from employers, not from you, that's why they don't care about you. I visited one once, and the recruiter told me I have no experience, and I should take courses. I told him I can take internships (even unpaid to gain experience) to prove myself, but he said, no, you must take courses with one of the employers he knows and pay them!! I have never seen him again.

I have been unemployed for 3 years in the last 5. Currently I am unemployed, and broke, and I feel down and even depressed. I don't have industrial experience, and no one is willing to believe in me and give me a chance, although I have academic experience. The resume gap also is a huge problem. Recruiter/employers think I'm not in demand, so the gap keeps growing.

I also didn't want to take any survival job because I wanted to invest time in learning new skills and programming languages, although a job can help a little with paying the bills.

I believe networking is a huge part of getting a job. I heard that more than 85% of jobs are filled internally or by connections. These direct applications and via agencies have very low chance, or get you the wrong job.

Anyway, wish you all the best in your endeavor, and wish you to find a good job that matches your qualifications and skills soon.

What a relief to know I'm not the only one who's had negative experiences with temporary agency recruiters. I'm really sorry, Nxious, that has been your experience as well.

I agree with you that there is definitely a power struggle with temp agency recruiters because to them it's merely a numbers game; they get paid by their clients regardless of who they push forward for their open assignments. It's us -- the temps -- who suffer when we get passed over for biased-based reasons.

I'm really sorry to hear that agency recruiter gave you the run around. Can you apply at other temp agencies for industrial work? I hope that you can. I am also broke, feel down, and even depressed like you do. Were it not for my grad school refund money, I'd be sleeping in my SUV which I know people have to do and I am lucky that I found a roommate who will let me pay her some rent $ for the next 2-3 months at least.

I agree with you that resume job gaps is also a problem, as is being unemployed. Having those cards stacked against those of us job searching, feels insurmountable. I know that there are ways we can cover up those gaps on our resumes though; with the functional resume format that focuses on skills instead of a chronological employment history.

And I agree with you that networking is definitely the majority of the way people find their jobs. I hope you can network somehow to find a job. I contacted my alma mater's alumni association but I have serious doubts that my former classmates will want to help me b/c its been more than 20 years since college. I have no idea.

I turned down 2 wrong jobs at the temp agency last week b/c I had been in those job situations before with bad outcomes; one was a temp to hire that was a horrible customer service job with low pay, the other was lower pay but a heavy duty data entry job. The temp to hire job was wrong b/c temp agencies have fired me (happened twice) after I accepted a temp to hire job, but then turned down the job offer b/c after a period of being in that temp job, realized it was the wrong place for me long-term.

The result? Both times, the temp agencies fired me for rejecting the job offers. That's ethical, how? It's not ethical. At all. It's horrible political maneuvering on the temp agency's part. The second scenario I was in was a heavy duty data entry job supporting two sales depts with zero training sitting by myself in a separate building from the two sales depts., and I was fired after only 3 months on the job b/c the sales depts. told the temp agency recruiter that my accuracy and speed wasn't up to their par.

SO, when I rejected both of those same scenarios at my current temp agency, I HAD to turn them down, having been there, done that already with being fired each time. I wasn't about to put myself in that same scenario again with this current temp agency.

We can't just take "survival" jobs b/c we need to earn a buck. If we take the wrong jobs, we make our situation worse in the long run. It's also why I won't take a minimum wage job; just can't pay rent on $7/hr not to mention the fact that my health problems now prevent me from running myself ragged in a retail environment for 8-14 hours a day b/c if you work a shift to close the store, you WILL be stuck closing the store for a minimum of 2 hours and when I did that during my first grad school experience (work a 2nd retail job on top of teaching during the day) I went to the ER a couple of times, after having a severe asthma attack even after using my inhaler. So, no way will I put myself in a work environment like retail where I am forced to exert myself to the point of having asthma attacks.

It's terrible how difficult it is to find a job. I swear it's more difficult than a demanding full-time job. It shouldn't be like this. Studies show that these recruiting procedures produce results near random, which means they are useless. But hiring managers and recruiters like to think they can tell the good from the bad because it's their job!! They cannot half of the time.

I'm with you on the low paying jobs. I prefer to do something more productive like learning a missing skill. These jobs are physically and mentally consuming, with no enough return to cover all the bills.

I have to say that I have severe anxiety (the other day I ended in the ER for a panic attack where I felt I was dying), and I'm not good in dealing and talking with people, at least people I don't know and when I know I am talking with a recruiter who has so much power to decide my fate to move forward for a position or not, and it shows, and naturally recruiters assume I'm not a good fit, and I lack confidence. They need someone who is "outgoing" and like the "small talk" to connect with other employees. Which is fair, but judging the whole phone call on how I was nervous and anxious, and dismissing my qualifications and skills and potentials!! I don't know. It's not a fair assessment to me. They want someone to brag about themselves. Someone talkative maybe who can create the illusion that he knows. This isn't my personality.

As for Alumni, from my own experience, and I finished my advanced degrees just 5 years ago, no one cares. I contacted some of the people whom I wouldn't say I knew very well, but I was talking to them very frequently and our encounters were friendly, and no thing. OK, I don't demand them to refer me to a job. I mean if they can help that's great, and if not that's OK, but at least care a little. The responses I received were very cold, and usually after the first response they stop replying!! I become a burden. Every time I contacted someone I know, including my academic supervisors, I felt worse.

Again, very tiring and mentally consuming. I totally understand your struggle because I relate. But hope is what makes me keep going. I am depressed and discouraged and feel rejected by every one, but what else I can do