What the latest job hunt period has taught me...

(DISCLAIMER:  A few entries back I posted an entry that implied that I was indeed employed again...that is partially true.  I work but it's not a 9-5 with benefits, so it's not what I'm ultimately seeking.  Hopefully that alleviates some of the confusion in the upcoming blah-blah-blah)

So here I am, 17-months on since my unceremonious departure from Avalon Correctional Center in April of 2012 and in that time I have learend quite a bit about job hunting in the United States of America in the 21st century.  Most of it is not favorable to employers but since this is MY blog and MY rules so if any bots scoop this up and posts it where any of my active apllications are bouncing around, deal with it folks, I'm pissed off.

Being a nearly 45-year old male in the job market is a very rough road indeed.  I have two marketable skills that apparently mean diddley/squat to the average employer in 2013.  One is the one currently entertaining you now and the other is warehousing human beings.  As for the other jobs I've had I consider them either go-between or character builders and to be completely truthful I was never good at them anyway.  

They were also dirty, noisy and hot, but that's beside the point.

If you are embarking upon a job hunt forced or otherwise, let me say that the road is very steep indeed.  It's not insurmountable but do NOT expect to get a job very quickly.  At the risk of sounding "old" the new way is to fill out online applications.  It's all environmentally friendly I realize but it's yet another way for people to either lose your application or ignore you completely.  

It also save them the awkward pause that comes after you hand them your application, cover letter and resume, standing there like a mannequin while the administrative assistant says, "Okay, I'll forward this and they'll call you for an interview".  Leaving you walking out cursing their name and second-guessing why you'd want to work there in the first place.  

Part of my problem has been the number of times I've been discharged/terminate/fired and the times I've been laid off.  It's very easy especially with online applications for rejection to take place with no notification to the applicant whatsoever.  It's happened to me too many times.  I may be old fashioned in my thinking but as it is I personally would prefer to take rejection face-to-face than to never hear anything, which has also happened more times than I can count in this job hunt.

 

I don't want to sound bitter but a recent conversation with two other people who also had a rather abrupt assisted departure from our mutual employer got me rattled today.  We discussed all the random problems we dealt with while we worked there...most of them immoral, some arguably illegal...and it brought frustration to the front of my mind and as it is one of the reasons to speak your mind these days, I decided to blog on it, because it's one of the things that keeps me sane.

Sort of.