Excelle

Thank you for that fabulously patronizing and overly-critical, "full of negative assumptions" response. Perhaps you need to re-read my posts or send me a private email if you take issue with something I've said. The reason many of us post comments on this board is BECAUSE these comments would be inappropriate to voice at interviews or to headhunters. Here we have a sense of safety and comfort, as well as faith that there is some kind of support here. For the most part, I have found that comfort and support on this wonderful board. The reality is that "places like the mall, McDonald's, any fast food restaurant, gas stations, etc." are minimum wage (and below) survival jobs for illegal immigrants. As a naturalized college-educated immigrant, I particularly find that insinuation rousing. These "survival jobs" are also for high school and college students who live at home with mom and dad. I am a single adult living in a very dense borough of New York City so this does not apply to me, as taking 3 of those jobs combined would not help me "to survive!" Our cost of living is very high here and it keeps rising. That kind of commentary is extremely offensive and unwarranted, considering  you don't know my situation even remotely. I understand it makes the corporate world very uncomfortable suspecting that there are people who take 9-5 jobs as "survival jobs." There are plenty of actors, performing artists, and others who have their own businesses on the side/independent contractors who do that. THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE LIKE US IN THE CORPORATE WORLD than is realized. Many of us do real estate on the side because - well, we make a lot more money there than in a 9-5 job, particularly in New York City's vicinities. This will continue as the market eventually improves. There is so much competition for 9-5 jobs here that the salaries are not quite as they should be - not everyone can afford to get a master's degree for a support position. In fact,  with my expenses (which are low-moderate), I would need two 9-5 jobs to keep my head above water.  Of couse if on planet earth, days consisted of 48 hours, then that would be fine. Moreover, most states are "employment at will " (NY included), so the employer can "fire at will for any reason or no reason at all with or without notice." Likewise, the employee has the same right under the New York State statute and case law guidelines. There is nothing wrong with using this when necessary and when cirumstances demand.  I fully comprehend that you must defend the client corporations who pay you to place a condidate with them. However, I am both the employee and the independent contractor on my own, on the side, for 15 years now so I must fully defend the employees and contractors. I am absolutely not saying that all recruiters are no good. My experience has been very negative with them here and the New York City pace just simply does not allow me to waste time to weed out the bad ones from the good - I have neither the time nor the money. We are not living in an ideal world (and this becomes increasingly evident in this recession) and some of us have limited options. But, no, McDonald's and gas stations are undoubtedly not viable options as "survival jobs" as we are not living in a "third world country."

I believe NYC has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, and that can lead to frustration that bubbles up to the surface at the slightest provocation. Add that to cultural differences between regions and it has the potential to cause a misunderstanding all around.

This forum is helpful to me precisely because people who I would not normally be able to communicate with, commiserate with, or seek advice from populate the board. I would take heed from a recruiter, particularly a global recruiter with so many years experience, and think about it long and hard.  Where else could I ever get that kind of advice? It's very difficult to get Human Resources professionals to tell you anything, so I'm very grateful for anyone who takes the time to write on this forum.

That being said, sometimes we all just want to pull our hair out, but it's kinda stuck in there and we need to look our best, so it's much easier to scream using a keyboard. It usually just means we are very frazzled in a very tough job market where it seems like every day someone is looking at us and asking "So, did you find a job yet?" and if someone isn't saying it to us, we are saying it to ourselves.  We get so hard on ourselves. We know our real worth, but as time goes by, and interviews don't work out, or second interviews don't work out, we get this little devil of doubt on our shoulders, whispering in our ears that maybe it's us....Maybe we're not good enough....maybe we weren't all that we thought we were.  Then, the internal battle begins, with fluxuations back and forth, and it feels like a little war is taking place inside of you. One side says "How dare these stupid people turn me down. Don't they know what I'm putting in front of them. Don't they know I'm the best person for the job? How dare they treat me like that, with their noses up in the air as if I were something that just crawled out from under a rock!!!  The opposite side continues with it's doubt statements, and "you shoulda, woulda, coulda's". It's enough to drive an abover average person mad!

But really the truth is in the middle. We all make mistakes. There are good HR people, good 22 year old interviewers, good, even great recruiters. We are human, we make mistakes and slip ups, we don't always give the right answers.  Our lives are not perfect and they shouldn't be because that would mean we haven't built any character. We learn more from our mistakes and from losing than we do from easy success, so failures are opportunities to learn, not just about life but about ourselves. We have to have some humility, some spunk and a whole lot of tenacity. Where would we ever gain those traits without going through difficult times? 

Everyone has their story to tell and we can learn something from everyone. It doesn't matter if it's an illegal immigrant janitor, a bum on the street, a CEO, a fine artist, or a 22 year old interviewer. Learn from it, accept the challenge that comes from that kind of introspection, and then move on to be an even better you! Because you will be a better person, you will be a smarter person, you will be a person of character for having taken the time to listen, no matter the status of the person, high or low.  A smart, successful person of character seems like a great goal for a life if you ask me.

n=1

 I am still looking. I am also still awaiting the decision on my first interview/audition for private chef in 3 and a half months . I flew across to Florida to do it last week. I am competing with a local girl who is also younger....but they loved the dinner I made for them and my agent says they were having a hard time deciding!

I just keep looking and praying - funds are very low, especially since I was hired in my previous job as a private contractor and received no severence pay and do not qualify for unemployment. But I am grateful for small mercies - roof over my head and food! Checking into taking early Social Security and trying to get part-time work.

Good luck everyone!

After 5 months I finally found a job.  The commute is a little longer than my last job, but at least it is a nice drive and it is the opposite direction of traffic heading down to NYC.  The pay is good, I have better benefits and more time off.  The people are nice too.  It is in the same field as I was in before, so it feels like I never left work.  I almost did not apply for the job because of where it was from my home, but I am glad I did.  Good luck to all who are looking - it is tough out there.

I fully understand times are tough, we are still in the recession, etc etc. I don't mind working harder than before, putting in some overtime if necessary I can make some compromise for the job and the boss. But they will not make any compromises at all on anything - they just want to work you to death. What I am going through is insane and that's what it feels like. It feels like something unreal out of a school textbook reading of some Charles Dickens novel about the nightmares of the overworked poor classes in an industrial factory.I feel like I am stuck in this nightmare and can't get out. I almost have no time to look for another job unless I do it very late into the night, very early morning, and every free moment at home that I have - and this is what I have to do. The other option is to just quit.

Well....

I cannot even get a survival job.  I am looking into returning to school, but, getting everthing straight with my unpaid student loans will be a job!  I am happy that this group is here.  Reading about the hard times of others has helped encourage me.  I am almost normal!  I do not have any friends or relatives looking for work.  I am all alone and pitiful.  I am really bored having to fill out all of those paper applications.  Once, recently, a hotel let me fillout an application even though they were not hiring.  This was a pleasant experience because I got to have a view of the water with the sun glistening down while I sat comfortably in the AC! 

I do have a problem with references.  Some applications do not want you to use relatives or former employers, and I worked for my father for years and years.  One of my best references is a former employer;  the others have never worked with me.  Do I bother people in search of references? 

I also have a problem with age and education.  I have about a year's work on an MBA, and I am 48.  I want to become a Certified Public Accountant.  When I tell people this I am trying to be honest.  I need one more class before I can take the exam, and I will need to study for the exam as well.  This will take time.  People don't seem to like the honesty; but if I lie that could cause me professional harm should I become a CPA.  What should I do? 

I am looking for work as a Graphic Designer, me and about a million other people. I am currently working on a Freelance project but waiting for it to come to financial fruition. God bless and keep everyone here, Faye

 GOOD NEWS! Success at last! I put an ad. on Craigslist offering to barter my chef/personal assistant services and put my website address on the ad. as well. The following day I received an email from a couple who said how impressed they were with my website and they were looking for someone just like me, would I please call them to set up an interview? The short of it is that we agreed on terms yesterday and I start at the beginning of August.

Good luck to everyone else - I do have positive feelings about things improving since I am hearing that also from other friends who have recently secured employment.

 Thank you Francesca (that is my middle name!) and good luck to you!

I have not found any taker in the job field and skill I have. I think its do to mostly being a mans field contract painter. My second choice is no better Dishwasher in resturant. In both field I have expertise. Painting I have over ten years, and as a dishwasher I have nine years.  Most of the job places like monster snag a job are geared to push the female population in to book keeping, nursing ect. Its still a MANS field if you do Trucker ,Contract painting or any field that a mans is used to do. I'm a tomboy I grew up with the attatude that I can do it. I have done both jobs at the sme time painting in the daytime and dishwasher at night plus taking care of family of four.

I posted about 1 month ago how extremely unhappy I was with my new furniture retail job. I took this job because I have real estate sales experience so it seemed like a good fit at least until the economy got better. For this new job, I gave up a decent part time job with decent working conditions for retail sales hell in mid-May. They misrepresented the income, the hours, and then transferred me to a location that I had to drive almost 1 hour to. Being in a borough of New York City, street parking in my neighborhood is very tough, especially in the late evenings when i was returning home from standing and working on my feet 10-11 hours a day (with 30 minute lunch). You actually make 4- 5% of the retail (price ticket) cost not what was represented in the interviews and 2 week classroom training. And I certainly did ask articulately many times. My 1st week of selling furniture on the showroom floor, I looked at the numbers and saw how much work I did and how little I brought in. I had them transfer me back to an area close to home but in this recession people go to Macy's get 50% off or a mom and pop cheap furniture store. There was very little business and no need to have 18 salespeople in a small showroom. Also, the working schedule is not fixed, it has floating hours different hours every day and every week. You cannot plan your life or get away for a weekend as they did not give 2 days off back to back. You have no time to wash your dishes, do laundry - and when do you look for a better job? You are so exhausted from working on your feet all day and dealing with the pressure from the managers. I was not sleeping and eating properly and just extremely stressed. They began putting more and more pressure on me, with weekly meetings with the managers where they were putting fear into me, and intimidating with implied threats to fire me. Last Wednesday, July 29th, after one of these "special weekly progress" meetings I cleaned out my locker. They told me they "couldn't see me lasting more than 2-3 weeks" there. I was told I would be let go at that point. They needed you to sell $50,000 worth of furniture in 1 week. Perhaps this would be possible in a booming economy on Park or Madison Ave in wealthy Manhattan. I got tired of the harrassment and intimidation and horrible working conditions. I QUIT. I JUST QUIT.Now I can ACTUALLY look for a better job - I can also eat, sleep and do my laundry. No more retail ever.

All my fellow job-hunters, I am still searching relentlessly. I have had, last week, 2 interviews with a well known non profit organziation in New York City. This week I should be getting a response from the company - and I will contact them by this week's end myself unelss I hear from them first. For some odd reason I get the intuitive feeling they're not going to hire me as my salary expectations were very slightly above what they want to pay - although I will take lower in these harsh economic times. This is all I've had in a long time. All those job boards like monster, careerbuilder and craigslist have yielded nothing - no emails or phone calls regarding my resume. There are way too many temp agencies, headhunters and other so-called middlemen brokers posting on these sites so I imagine many of these jobs just don't exist - they want to see salary expectations, get a feel for the current job hunters market, and prove to their client corporations that they are "working" on the company's behalf. Can you understand my cynicism? Now industry-specific job boards are a different story as I just got these 2 interviews via Idealist.org, a site that specializes in the non profit sector. That brings me to another observation: these various industry-target sites filter out the usual spamming, headhunter and other unnecessary and time wasting  "Internet craziness" that goes on the other job boards. I would encourage anyone job hunting online to find several industry specific sites (that appeal to your background) and use those! By the way, I DO miss the days when the Sunday New York Times had the most collection of job ads - wasn't that easy now?

I am officially employed!!!  Yay!  Finally.  I have been hired to serve as the Outreach Coordinator for a homeless shelter.  I look forward to the work and working for people that so many of us seem to forget or simply ignore.  I'm stoked!!!

I'm glad to see when someone gets a position especially one  that makes them happy.  I have been looking for something since Febrauary and I am losing hope.  I had twenty plus years with the USPS.  I  have been looking for something in support as I was a member of management with awards for my work .................... hardly a nibble. 

I am not looking for the same money I was making.  I think the thing that irrates me is when you answer an add or a posting and they start giving you this spill about how just send them this "fee" and they promise you'll get a job. I feel  like this is such a scam.... there probably wasn't any position to begin with.   There are so many scams out there "posing" as jobs.  It's just dishonest.

I have many hobbies, sewing-wall hangings, baby quilts.  I make beautiful silk arrangements that have sold. I've been thinking about putting some of the items on the web ot help with the bills.

I'm going to find something soon I hope,  I had heart surgery and other conditions that required correction.  They have left some horrendous medical bills.  Unemployement doesn't  cover even half of my exspenses.

Dawntildusk83

I'm with you.  To be honest I beleive corporate America is more focused on keeping their six digit bonuses than anything else.  I have seen postings for a receptionist with the following job requirements 65wpm, shorthand ( not many use this naymore) proficient with Microsoft Word, Excel, Power Point,  10 key, general ledger experience, multiline phones ability to lift and carry 50 pounds, push and move 200 pounds ... no benefits, $6.25 an hour.  I had to call to verfiy this was not a misprint.  It sounds like they want a receptionist, accounts payable clerk and office mainatence all in one!  I have wondered if jobs were listed like this so people won't apply and the employer can say no one was interested/ qualified in the job so everyone will just have to take on extra duties.  This eliminates positons.   Well, venting aside  by the time we get this country back to work there won't be anyone left with a decent credit standing. 

One of the ladies I work with had bypass (x4) earlier this year and she got her hospital bill, her percentage AFTER insurance was $113,000.00  that's just the hospital , it doesn't include the surgeons, doctors lab test, cardiac rehab.  She's retired on a fixed budget it's destorying her credit.

I don't know where it will all lead us, but the picture is not looking to good.   I put in for a job yesterday, honestly I am grossly overqualified for but I felt drawn to it on a personnel level.  Still I  am interested in it.  If it means creditors will have to accpet smaller payment well at least they would be getting payments.