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In trading, I've met two others that were on temporary hiatus from work like me.

As to me, got the surprise news in the beginning of March. I'd only been with the company for 6 months but nonetheless I wasn't prepared for it.

On that day, a company-wide e-mail from HR went out to everyone wishing one of the accountants the best of luck with his career and thanking him for his time with the company. I worked with him like 2 days earlier and he said nothing about leaving. After reading the message, I went over to accounting to talk to another one of the accountants and he let me know his last day with the company was that day too. I felt terrible for him so I wished him the best of luck and then told him to reach out to me if he needed anything. Sure enough, 20 minutes later, my boss comes into my office, shuts the door and has this funeral-type look on her face. I was like DOH!!!

I was able to quickly pick up part-time work and have more time to blog and post here. To keep up my game habit, I've been trading a lot. It's a good break to think about what I want to do for the future. Perhaps even getting into the game industry in any way shape or form... But first focus on getting a job in my field of course.

Oh well. Before I got my previous job, I'd been searching so I view the continued search as a continuation of the original search with a 6 month break. Since March I've gotten to the second and third round of interviews with a few companies and even two with my Alma Mater. However, it's been quite slow for the past three weeks.

Any of you guys in the same boat? Or get out of the same boat?

AgencyAgencyAgencyAgency

The old truism that 70% of jobs are found through personal contacts is as relevant as the landline dial-phone. The greater number of operations that are likely to be around long enough for you to wear a groove in your office chair all depend on agency services for their employee hunting, because agencies can legally discriminate where employers cannot amongst a great many other reasons.

So get your self indentured with one or more agencies and if you're worth hiring, someone will hire you.

In my case as a roving technologist, it's been 'the project, department, company, entire industry has shut down' so i've had to pivot constantly ;\

Thanks for replying!!! Was worried no one would say anything.

Totally agree about talking to the agencies and recruiters. Like the personal contacts, these guys get you past the gatekeeper.

Got my job before last through a recruiter. Almost got another one (last round of interviews three weeks ago) through one too.

I got made redundant twice within 5 years.

Tee up an agency to find work. I've done that before and had ongoing work within a week.

That said, the Australian system is a little different than the US one.

I've actually been continually hoping that I'll get made redundant for that severance package. Originally I was supposed to be back when I worked tech support and we outsourced. That was about 7 or 8 years ago.

Now I'm slinging code and they keep saying that India is part of the "global strategy", but I'll believe it when I see it. Been thinking about jumping ship before it happens, but it'd be even more severance if they let me go now, so I might stick around another 10 waiting for that to happen.

I did my job the old fashion way
Cry after getting left off, mope for a week and a 1/2, drink for the rest of that week, then apply to 15 jobs a day,
I eventually got it.

 chromedog wrote:
I got made redundant twice within 5 years.

Tee up an agency to find work. I've done that before and had ongoing work within a week.

That said, the Australian system is a little different than the US one.

Good to hear.

Australia, U.S., other common-law systems are pretty similar I think other than the healthcare system here.

In the U.S., we are pretty much at-will, which means they don't need a reason to let you go. I'd just come from Japan where if you became a "regular employee" you were pretty much unfireable unless you did something heinous. My Japanese boss kept on telling me that when he was trying to convince me not to leave Japan, "You are seishain (regular employee) in Japan, but when you go to the U.S. you'll be at-will! They can let you go for any reason or no reason!" Well he was right, and that was one of the first things that popped into my mind when my U.S. boss delivered me the bad news.


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 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I did my job the old fashion way
Cry after getting left off, mope for a week and a 1/2, drink for the rest of that week, then apply to 15 jobs a day,
I eventually got it.

Amen to that. All it takes is one. I applied to jobs from Japan before I got back here. Over 230 applications in about 6 months. Same strategy now.

I have remote part-time work now, something unheard of in Japan. I'm kind of getting used to it if only it were more hours and better pay. I mean, my daughter was sick on Wednesday and other than the conference call I had to take, I pretty much I could tend to her for the morning until wifey came back home from work.

IT depends on the state, some(Like Cali) are At-will, others are not

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
IT depends on the state, some(Like Cali) are At-will, others are not

Darn that state law system. I should have picked a state other than Illinois lol...

Headhunters on LinkedIn have worked well for me.

So has getting to know Financial Advisors in my area. They seem to know a lot about who is hiring where.

 Easy E wrote:
Headhunters on LinkedIn have worked well for me.

So has getting to know Financial Advisors in my area. They seem to know a lot about who is hiring where.

Thanks Easy. I'll head over to 5/3 Bank to talk to mine (which seems to change every year). Makes sense though because their clients are the ones hiring.

Yup, job market has been pretty brutal for me too. Talked myself out of going into the teaching profession several years ago and pursued law instead, didn't wanna wait around forever to get work after graduating. Of course, joke was on me because after I got my paralegal license I spent 2 years looking for work. Finally got hired on as a law clerk at a personal injury firm, but that lasted 4 months. HR manager just had it out for me for some reason. Now I'm working security and back in school to get my bachelor of education, as I should have done years ago.

Some of this confuses me. I say this because i did get my job through the family and friends route (a family friend specifically) and my work was only willing to look at me looking for work through that. I had the interview and got the job right away. I have been working there for 5 years.

I have seen people that come in without knowing anybody and there's like an 80% firing rate of them and they have to work much harder and be much better than the family friends employees. I kid you not the only way family friends or friends of current employees tend to leave is by quitting (most likely) or by doing something really bad (punching somebody) which is rare enough i've only heard of one person pushing somebody in my entire 5 years and he was fired for it after working for 12 years.

My outlook why i've probably lasted there so long is 'I work because i need the money and the job and i get along with the people (awful or not) for that reason. At the job we're a team and we can't fight. Also i need the job to live.' In the entire time i've worked there the boss has only ever been annoyed when i come to work sick so which only happens because my half sister tries to force me to work even when i am. That's only ever happened maybe 2-3 times in 5 years. The supervisor i used to have however (his son) was super angry. I had to ask to change departments to work under so we wouldn't annoy each other and i was usually nice to him too (he caused a lot of people to quit).

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
Yup, job market has been pretty brutal for me too. Talked myself out of going into the teaching profession several years ago and pursued law instead, didn't wanna wait around forever to get work after graduating. Of course, joke was on me because after I got my paralegal license I spent 2 years looking for work. Finally got hired on as a law clerk at a personal injury firm, but that lasted 4 months. HR manager just had it out for me for some reason. Now I'm working security and back in school to get my bachelor of education, as I should have done years ago.

I guess that goes along with you have to do what you like. But the truth is we just can't see the future. My pops hates being a dentist, has told us his whole career he should have gone to film school but even so he put me and sis through college and we had some nice vacations over the years. He now supports my mom and his new family and will never be able to retire.

Best of luck pursuing teaching. If you'll be happy doing it, I have a feeling you'll succeed. The legal industry is tough especially if you graduated from 2008-2015 due to the global recession. It is getting better I think.


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 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Some of this confuses me. I say this because i did get my job through the family and friends route (a family friend specifically) and my work was only willing to look at me looking for work through that. I had the interview and got the job right away. I have been working there for 5 years.

I have seen people that come in without knowing anybody and there's like an 80% firing rate of them and they have to work much harder and be much better than the family friends employees. I kid you not the only way family friends or friends of current employees tend to leave is by quitting (most likely) or by doing something really bad (punching somebody) which is rare enough i've only heard of one person pushing somebody in my entire 5 years and he was fired for it after working for 12 years.

My outlook why i've probably lasted there so long is 'I work because i need the money and the job and i get along with the people (awful or not) for that reason. At the job we're a team and we can't fight. Also i need the job to live.' In the entire time i've worked there the boss has only ever been annoyed when i come to work sick so which only happens because my half sister tries to force me to work even when i am. That's only ever happened maybe 2-3 times in 5 years. The supervisor i used to have however (his son) was super angry. I had to ask to change departments to work under so we wouldn't annoy each other and i was usually nice to him too (he caused a lot of people to quit).

If you have connections like family and friends, it's the best. However, in addition to that, it sounds like you have good people skills which are an extremely invaluable skill set. Getting along well with co-workers allowed me to survive in a not so exactly great environment for about 9 years in my job 2 jobs before my current part-time one.

Dunno if i'd say i have great people skills. I tend to get along well with people ten, twenty or more years older than me. Far as people my age that's depends. I mean i just realize at my job and in other places what i can get away with and what i can't. I also act a bit different at my job than i normally do. I do what i gotta do in order to stay employed. I do it because i need the money to live off of and without that i'd be in serious trouble. I just look at the reality of the situation. I mean to an extent i'm semi-nice to my current roommates for the same reason and one of them i absolutely hate (he's a neo-nazi and yeah that's what happens when you make super quick decisions without background checking roommates or having a trial period).

Anyway i'll stay as nice as i can in both situations. Currently learning how to adapt in my job and leaving one part of the shop for another helped my relationship with that co-worker and kept sanity for us both. The roommate situation i dunno how to handle except to move out and finding a roommate isn't always easy.

In a more casual atmosphere it depends for my people skills. I mean i'd say i act more normal there. If somebody's a jerk to me i am sometimes a jerk back. Depends where we are as well. There are some people at the local GW i don't really like but only a few of em. Won't deny that in some cases it might be me too. I don't want to get banned from the store but it's much smaller of a deal then getting fired at work or kicked out of a living situation. I mean if i get kicked out of a store i can just go to another. One of the people i dislike almost did in one case but i don't think i've ever gotten close so far.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
Talked myself out of going into the teaching profession several years ago

Budget cuts affect teaching too, we are loosing a few teachers next year (3 from core subjects) and god knows how many over the two years after when dropped subjects have been seen through.

That said, if you do teacher a core subject, and do more than the bare minimum that your job role requires, (and you are in a union) you can be very hard to shift. Hope you have better luck teaching than you have had elsewhere.

I got made redundant in autumn 2013. It took a year to find another job, which was on half the pay.

I got made redundant from that after six months. It took another year to find another job, this was the pits of a job on less than 1/4 my original salary. But it was work.

I moved from that to something a bit better, then moved from that to my current position, which while not a great salary is a respectable job in an awesome company. I feel like I've got my mojo back and can have some hope to move up in the next couple of years.

All I can say is to keep on applying for stuff and don't be afraid to look outside your normal field of expertise. People appreciate guts, perseverance, a positive attitude and general 'nous'.

Don't be afraid to keep applying to different stuff at the same big companies. I applied for at least eight positions at my current company over the course of three years, and eventually they let me in.

Few years ago lost my job after 12 years due to state budget cuts, went through the whole nobody is going to hire a 40+ year old human punching bag, feeling sorry for myself. Applied for a ton of jobs, went to a bunch of interviews, turned down a bunch, and landed a great job in the end. Went from prison guard to insurance guy in a huge corporate office. Good luck with the job hunt.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I got made redundant in autumn 2013. It took a year to find another job, which was on half the pay.

I got made redundant from that after six months. It took another year to find another job, this was the pits of a job on less than 1/4 my original salary. But it was work.

I moved from that to something a bit better, then moved from that to my current position, which while not a great salary is a respectable job in an awesome company. I feel like I've got my mojo back and can have some hope to move up in the next couple of years.

All I can say is to keep on applying for stuff and don't be afraid to look outside your normal field of expertise. People appreciate guts, perseverance, a positive attitude and general 'nous'.

Don't be afraid to keep applying to different stuff at the same big companies. I applied for at least eight positions at my current company over the course of three years, and eventually they let me in.

Thanks Kilkrazy. I've been with a large American theme park and entertainment company on 3 different occasions in my career and I'd love to get back so I understand the excitement of working for a great company in different capacities. Unfortunately its nowhere near Illinois.

I took a 30% pay cut to come back from Japan to the U.S. with the previous position and now a 60% pay cut from that previous position with the part time work. I definitely need to get my mojo back and can't wait to do so! As to applying it's that "all it takes is one" aspect that keeps me going. Great to hear your story.


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 Chute82 wrote:
Few years ago lost my job after 12 years due to state budget cuts, went through the whole nobody is going to hire a 40+ year old human punching bag, feeling sorry for myself. Applied for a ton of jobs, went to a bunch of interviews, turned down a bunch, and landed a great job in the end. Went from prison guard to insurance guy in a huge corporate office. Good luck with the job hunt.

Approaching 40 here so very very encouraging to hear you made it Chute. This change in careers is becoming really interesting to me. It's quite a common thread. However, the part-time work has me tethered to my old (and current) career, so seeing what'll happen.

It may be a blessing in disguise. Getting laid off encouraged me to go back to school. Now I'm making more money than ever and have less stress. If you get unemployment you can take your time looking. Depending on the industry linkedin may be a big help.

 Monkey Tamer wrote:
It may be a blessing in disguise. Getting laid off encouraged me to go back to school. Now I'm making more money than ever and have less stress. If you get unemployment you can take your time looking. Depending on the industry linkedin may be a big help.

Hey Monkey, thanks. Yes I get unemployment and got a small severance package as well. With partial benefits and part-time work, this whole process has been much more survivable for me.

Just something I found out today which kinda reinforces the "Know somebody" idea being put out
I just met the second hiring manager who was the manager in another department from a summer job I used to work, When asked she said "Oh yeah, I vouched for ya and all your refrences, when I saw you worked at [Blank] I knew it was the same great guy. They didnt even call your refrences"

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Just something I found out today which kinda reinforces the "Know somebody" idea being put out
I just met the second hiring manager who was the manager in another department from a summer job I used to work, When asked she said "Oh yeah, I vouched for ya and all your refrences, when I saw you worked at [Blank] I knew it was the same great guy. They didnt even call your refrences"

Yeah, knowing people is the best. Gets you past the gatekeepers. That helped me get into Japan as well as into the entertainment company all three times. Now mingling with classmates, ex-coworkers, etc., as much as I can on LinkedIn Beyond the networking though, it's just really nice reconnecting with all those people I've missed during my years in Japan.