What Color Is Your Parachute?

how to better job-hunt, and also to find job-leads.

6. Private employment agencies. You go to the private analog to the federal/state agencies (directory of such agencies can be found at www.usa.gov/Agencies/State_and_ Territories.shtml).

7. Civil Service. You take a civil service exam to compete for a government job (http://federaljobs.net/exams.htm and/or http://tinyurl.com/9vyfqe).

8. Newspapers. You answer local “want-ads” (in newspapers, assuming your city or town still has a newspaper, online or in print, or both). The Sunday editions usually prove most useful. See http://tinyurl.com/d58l8z for how to use them; for a directory of their online versions, see www.newslink.org. There is also a site that lets you see current news about any industry that is of interest to you (where vacancies have just opened up??), at http://www.congoo.com/Industry.

9. Journals. You look at professional journals in your profession or field, and answer any ads there that intrigue you (directory at http://tinyurl.com/dlfsdz).

10. Temp Agencies. You go to temp agencies (agencies that get you short-term contracts in places that need your time and skills temporarily) and see if the agency/agencies can place you, in one place after another, until some place that you really like says, “Could you stay on, permanently?” At the very least you’ll pick up experience that you can later cite on your resume (directory of such agencies, and people’s ratings of them, at www.rateatemp.com/temp-agency- list).

11. Day Laborers. You go to places where employers pick up day workers: well-known street corners in your town (ask around), or union halls, etc., in order for you to get short-term work, for now, which may lead to more permanent work, eventually. It may initially be yard work, or work that requires you to use your hands; but no job should be “beneath you” when you’re desperate.

12. Job Clubs. You join or form a “support group” or “job club,” where you meet weekly for job-leads and emotional support. Check with your local chamber of commerce, and local churches, mosques, or synagogues, to find out if such groups exist in your community. There is an excellent directory at Susan Joyce’s job-hunt.org (http://tinyurl.com/7a9xbb).

13. Resumes. You mail out resumes blindly to anyone and everyone, blanketing the area. Or you target particular places that interest you, and send them both digital and snail-mail copies of your resume, targeted specifically to them. Ah, but you already knew this method, didn’t you?

14. Choose Places That Interest You. You knock on doors of any employer, factory, store, organization, or office that interests you, whether they are known to have a vacancy or not. This works best, as you might have guessed, with smaller employers (those having 25 or fewer employees; then, if nothing turns up there, those places that have 50 or fewer employees; or, if nothing turns up there, then those with 100 or fewer employees, etc.).

15. The Phone Book. You use the index to your phone book’s Yellow Pages, to identify five to ten entries or categories (subjects, fields, or industries) that intrigue you—that are located in the city or town where you are, or want to be—and then phone or, better yet, visit the individual organizations listed under these headings (again, smaller is better) whether they are known to have a vacancy or not. Incidentally, the Personnel Manager (http://tinyurl.com/3jnjewo) or Human Resources office there—if they have one—is that employer’s friend, not yours. Their basic function is to screen you out, so avoid them if possible. Sometimes, to be sure, you will stumble across an HR person who likes you and is willing to become your advocate, there. If so, you’re one lucky woman (or man).

16. Volunteering. If you’re okay financially for a while, but can’t find work, you volunteer to work for nothing, short-term, at a place that has a “cause” or mission that interests you (directory of such places can be found at www.volunteermatch.org). Your goal is not only to feel useful, even while you haven’t yet found a job, but your hope is also that down the line maybe they’ll want to actually hire you for pay. The odds of that happening in these hard times aren’t great, so don’t count on it and don’t push it; but sometimes you’ll be surprised that they ask you to stay, for pay.

17. Work for Yourself. You start your own small business, trade, or service, after first carefully observing what service or product your community lacks but really needs (see http://tinyurl.com/3rwxmka; also http://tinyurl.com/3syrmq7).

18. Retraining. You go back to school and get retrained for some other kind of occupation than the one you’ve been doing. Especially important if you don’t know computers at all.

LIES, DAMN LIES, AND STATISTICS

That’s how some wag once declined the word “lies.” I mention this here, because Alternatives do give you Hope, but statistics can take that Hope away, if you give them undue weight.

Much of it depends on what statistics you pay attention to. The media, the Internet, blogs, tweets, twenty- four-hour news channels on TV, newspapers, and magazines, all love statistics. But they generally are in love with a very particular kind of statistics, namely those that convey bad news. Discouraging news. Doom and gloom.

Why is this so? I dunno. But it is. Example? With regard to the labor market in the U.S., there are always two sets of statistics floating around for each month. First set of statistics: let’s take the month of February 2009, the height of the recent Recession. As reported on a website called JOLT (Job Openings & Labor Turnover)[1] 4,360,000 people in the U.S. found jobs that month. Yes, you read that correctly. And at the end of that month, 3,006,000 additional vacancies remained unfilled and available. Good news, right? 7,366,000 vacancies were available or filled, that month alone. At the height of the Recession.

Ah, but every month there is a second set of statistics, reported on the first Friday of each month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, called the Current Population Survey.[2] It is typically called The Unemployment Statistic, though it is more accurate to think of it as “the monthly measure of the size of the work force in America.” Anyway, the CPS said that during that same month, February 2009, the size of the total labor force in the U.S. shrank by 726,000 jobs. And so, the unemployment rate rose from 7.6 percent to 8.1. Bad news, to be sure.

Okay, there you have it: two sets of statistics, one good news, one bad news. Now, which of these two sets do you think the media pounced on? Yep, you guessed it: the bad news set. “726,000 workers lose their jobs,” commentators and news analysts shrieked. “Unemployment rises to 8.1 percent.” Along with that, they threw in, “There are six unemployed workers now for every vacancy.” All in all, it was enough to take the heart out of even the most optimistic job-hunter that month. Or any month.

HELPFUL STATISTICS

We have to always watch which statistics we are paying the most attention to.

For, surely, statistics can sometimes help us, and not merely depress us.