The job search, Frustrations, Depression and scammers

Good day all. Well, it’s been almost three weeks since I was “Restructured” from my job along with another person. Both the other person and I have an idea why we were selected and not more junior members. I won’t go int that. What I have been doing is sending out resumes.

This has been a frustrating experience. The good news? I’ve had several responses and two phone screens. I have another phone screen next week and a face to face interview.

The down sides and there have been many include the unemployment office. Unemployment in New Hampshire sucks. You’re better off losing your job in Massachusetts. The New Hampshire Employment Security web site isn’t archaic, it’s fossilized. Then there are all the job sites.

There have been some major changes since the last time I was looking for a job. Monster.com, which used to be the “Go To” job site pretty much collapsed and was bought out by Careerbuilder. Then you have sites like Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor and LinkedIn. I’ve been spending most of my time on LinkedIn and have connected with a few people and recruiters. I’ve also applied to a number of positions through Linked In and the other sites.

I’ve stopped doing that if I can. Now I go directly to the hiring company site and apply there. The reason is simple. I”m not sure the company’s AI system isn’t just dropping applications from the job sites.

Then there are the scammers. I’ve run into a number of them and they are good. If you are contacted by a recruiter, always check the email address. If it’s not from the recruiting company’s domain, mark it as spam and delete it.

Another issue I’m running into are the Indian call centers. These people “Represent” some fly by night recruiting firm that you’ve never heard of. When you look it up, it’s some sort of generic site that looks like it was run through a copier. They will email you, reach out on LinkedIn, call you and text you. I’ve found that almost all of these calls are coming from New Jersey.

If you do answer the phone, the voice on the other end is using a bad VOIP connection and speaking with an accent so thick, you need a chainsaw to cut it. Most of them are, quite literally, unintelligible. Add to that, the background noise coming in through their cheap headsets. You can tell they’re sitting in a call center and doing cold calls. Don’t give them anything and block the number.

One of the things I’ve been using for a very long time is Google Voice. You can get a VOIP number and forwarded it to your mobile phone. It allows you to do a number of things. One of these is forcing the caller to announce themselves. It also has a fairly good spam catcher. Best of all, it doesn’t cost anything. If that number gets inundated, you can always delete it.

Getting back to the various job sites, one of the issues is filtering. It sucks. You will be shown jobs that are either two far away or you just aren’t qualified or interested in. This includes jobs for the defense industry. Companies such as Raytheon, BAE, L3Harris, etc, are hiring constantly and for jobs that I am qualified for. The problem is security requirements. Almost any job with these companies requires a security clearance.

I don’t have one and have never had one. You can’t apply for them and pay to have one conducted on you. They have to be applied for by the defense contractor and they are not cheap. I don’t see a reason why I couldn’t get one, however, if a defense contractor has a choice between a highly qualified person with no clearance and one who is less qualified, but has a clearance, they will go for the less qualified person.

This brings us back to the job site filters. They won’t let you filter out jobs that require a security clearance. They also will post jobs as “Remote” meaning you don’t have to be on site, but when you go into them, you’ll see that you have to be on site, and that site is across the country. Then you have companies that list a job in a city near you. When you go into the job, you see that it isn’t local to you and that relocation halfway across the country is required. Add to that, the state is probably one you would never move to in the first place.

I’m hoping one of the jobs I’m interviewing pans out. I’ve long since learned not to get my hopes up and just keep on applying to anything that pays me what I consider to be my minimum. If that means Helpdesk work, then so be it.

One other thing you need to do is keep a record of your job search. I use a spreadsheet, but recently discovered a new online tool that seems to be useful. It’s called Flosa, and when it’s working correctly, and you have the extension loaded in your browser, it will load all the details automatically. It’s not a perfect tool, but then it is free, at least for now. It’s a handy backup to a spreadsheet.

Well, it’s time to get back to the job search. For me, this is a full time job. You would think with the “Free” time I have, I would be posting a lot more. In fact, my prep work has fallen behind. Looking for gainful employment is my priority of course.

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~