What Sarah did this Summer-Part 1: Job Searches in the New Age

 

Good morning!  We have a TON to unpack, so let's get going!

So, for those of you who don’t know. I lost my job last May. Well, I mean, lost is a

weird word. I know exactly where my job is. When the company got sold in October

of last year, the first thing the new owner did was fire the salesperson. And

not hire anyone to be the salesperson. Which means, by May, my job, and the

jobs of 1/3 of the company, were cut, dumped, dropped, blown away because Ding

Ding couldn’t connect the dots between sales and the viability of the company.

Officially, I wasn't fired, I was “laid off.” 

I grew up in the automotive world of SE Michigan. “Laid Off” was the term that indicated that,

 eventually, the person would be called back. Such was the understanding I had with Ding Ding. Well,

except the first thing Ding Ding did after laying me off was to make sure I

shipped the computer, printer, and all the supplies I had in my home office back

to him. (One wonders what he’s going with all the equipment he collected from

those of us he laid off.) But I’m not one to dwell. Well, sure I am, but we have

to move on in the story, otherwise this blog is going to be a thousand pages

long. 

Getting laid off in May didn’t seem like a problem. Everyone told me,

“everyone’s hiring, you’ll find the perfect job in NO TIME!” Hey, you know

what’s not true? That statement. Because, apparently, there is NO perfect job

open for a 54-year-old woman who needs 32 hours a week, working from home,

making $24 an hour. Oh wait, yeah, there was. And then Ding Ding fired the sales

person… 

So I spent the summer going through what I call the beauty pageant phase

of the job world. I applied for literally hundreds of jobs and went on more than

2 dozen interviews. Let’s talk about the interview process that is in place now

in 2022. It’s not about walking into a company, filing out an application, and

then meeting with the manager. Not anymore. It’s about uploading your resume to

the job boards and applying to companies with the click of a button. Sounds

super easy, right? 

Oh sure, that part is. 

But then comes the part where your resume is then spun through third and fourth party 

staffing company metrics and

spit out either into a heap in an HR person’s in box or dumped into a vast

wasteland of resumes that didn’t measure up. Unless you upload your resume to

Career Builder. DO NOT UPLOAD YOUR RESUME TO CAREER BUILDER. I cannot stress

that enough. All that will happen there is you’ll get 10,000 phone calls and

texts from people who clearly do not live anywhere near your neighborhood, and

by neighborhood I mean continent, who will promise you all kinds of perfect work

from home jobs…as long as you cash a massive check for them first. (don’t get me

started.) And don’t upload your resume to Ziprecruiter either. You’ll get

assigned a “person” (mine is Phil) who will email you ten times a day with the

PERFECT job…one that has NOTHING to do with ANY of the parameters you put into

Zip Recruiter. And you can’t just cut Ziprecruiter off by calling it spam. Nope.

I’m going to be getting notices from Phil until the day I die, and 90% of those

“perfect jobs” will be warehouse work for Amazon. That leaves Indeed. Indeed’s

process is the most user friendly. If you’re on Unemployment, it’s helpful to

apply through indeed, because indeed keeps track of your weekly applications.

Indeed doesn’t email or text you. The legitimate interviews I got were through

Indeed. 

Which brings us to the different types of interviews. 

The first type of interview is the

one way video interview. This. Is. Horrible. Exactly as the name implies, the

one-way video interview is you…logged into some website, answering prerecorded

questions while on camera. Ever try to be charming, witty, and collected while

talking to a computer screen? Yeah. That. To no one’s surprise, I did NOT get

either of the two jobs that required that kind of interview.

 The next method of

interviewing is the ever so popular ZOOM meeting. This is slightly better than

the one-way video…but only slightly. I had one such interview, and it was for a

job that the phone screener assured me was PERFECT FOR ME. So the interview was

a mere formality, right?

 That interview consisted of me facing a split screen with two

women, one of whom asked me questions that ranged from the normal, “Tell me what

you liked about your last job.” To the ridiculous, “Was there ever a time you

had trouble working with a manager and if so, what did you do?” (Um, DUH.

Everyone has had a hard time working with a manager from one time to another.

And we DEAL WITH IT.) Anyway, there was one woman who asked the questions and

another who said zero, nada, nothing. For half an hour I’m talking to both women

and one is just staring at me with dead eyes. She didn’t say hello or goodbye.

Just stared at me. I finished with that “formality” and guess what? NEVER HEARD

FROM THEM AGAIN. 

Which brings me to phone screeners. You think is a phone

interview. They call it a phone interview. But what it really is an appointment

during which you set an appointment for another interview. The phone screener

ACTS like an HR manager. Some even call themselves that. But, and this is

important, these people have ZERO power to hire you. In most cases, they aren’t

even in the same building as the people who do have that power. So, lest you

think you’re getting somewhere because Kimmy from HR at Company XYZ says you’re

a perfect fit for the job, you’re not. I just had to get that in there. I was

burned way too many times. 

Finally, the third kind of interview, the good, old

fashioned meat market that is the in person interview. While this is the most

tried and true method of meeting potential bosses, this is also the most

annoying. At least with the first two methods you didn’t have to put on pants or

get in the car. The in person interview involves getting tarted up, and it’s the

full deal. Hair, clothes, make up. I’ve been working at home for the past seven

years. I’ve also lost 35 pounds in the last year. Any office worthy clothes I

may have had are 1) too big, 2) too wrinkled from being crushed on the floor in

my closet or 3) way too out of style. Like not even close. While one doesn’t

need to have up to the minute fashion, one would like to look like one’s been to

a store in the last decade. So, realizing I was going to need some formal

adjacent clothing, I went to the one place a broke, out of work office gal can:

St. Vincent de Paul. And there, thank goodness for those 99 cent tag deals, I

was able to cobble together two appropriate head to two looks. I call them

“first interview” and “second interview.” I won’t bore you with the details of

all of my interviews. There are too many to put in any number of blog chapters.

But I will give you the highlights. 

Tomorrows chapter: The in person interviews and why I chose Stuff, Empowered.