I got an email from a perturbed reader. Actually he wasn’t a reader of Thousandaire, just a reader of one of the sites I comment on. This was an interesting email, so I want to share it, as well as my response, with all of you.
In fact, I’ve been getting more and more reader emails recently, and I usually put a good amount of time into answering good questions, so you can expect to see more reader email articles in the future.
Today’s email features an angry unemployed person who takes offense to my opinion that I would not hire someone who had been collecting unemployment for more than three months. I’ll let Seth handle the rest of the explanation.
Seth’s Question for the Thousandaire
Kevin:
I stumbled upon your post on Darwin’s Money today. I must take great exception to what you said. Before you shrug me off as a whiny loser liberal, please note that I’m a libertarian (with a small “l”), MBA, former business owner, and I’m fluent in English and Spanish. Now, what you said:
“However, if I were looking to hire people, I would probably not hire someone on unemployment if he had been out of a job for more than, say, three months. If he couldn’t find work in three months, either he wasn’t trying very hard or there is a good reason other people he’s interviewed with didn’t hire him.”
You do realize that the average duration of unemployment is 39.9 weeks, right? And has been hovering around that mark for 3 years now? And those who do reenter the job market often do so with much lower-paying jobs. (Take it from me, I used to make $60K before I got my MBA and now I’m looking at custodian jobs at $25K. That’s a heck of a recovery!)
You come across as smug, and, if you took a walk in my shoes–or the shoes of millions like me–, you certainly wouldn’t have said what you said.
Long-term unemployment has a human face. Watch the blanket statements. Hope this sinks in.
Best,
Seth
The Thousandaire Response
Hi Seth,
I’m glad you emailed me.
Why wouldn’t I hire someone who has been unemployed for three months?
We are at 9.2% unemployment, but that’s for the whole workforce. You have an MBA, which puts you in the “Bachelor’s Degree or Higher” category. Unemployment there is only 4.4%. That means 95.6% of people who have bachelors degrees and want to work already have jobs.
Now I do understand that some of the 4.4% are truly high performing, highly skilled workers who were victims of circumstance. For example, a company going out of business, an entire department getting cut, or looking at the boss’s daughter the wrong way at the Christmas party.
I would expect these high performing individuals to find gainful employment fairly quickly after losing their jobs, assuming they have skills the workforce needs. That’s why I would consider hiring someone who was on unemployment for three or fewer months: because they have potential to truly be a high performing worker.
Once you get past three months of unemployment, I’m going to assume you’re in the bottom 4.4% of potential employees, and I don’t want you. I will readily admit that I could be wrong about some individual people, but in general I believe in the American free market and labor force, and I expect this to be true in most cases.
Luckily for you, I don’t own any companies, so my opinion on the long term unemployed doesn’t have any practical implications on your job search.
Now to address my “smugness” and my lack of experience walking in your shoes, well… the reason I haven’t walked in your shoes, or the shoes of millions like you, is not simply that I am blessed with good luck (even though I will admit that I have been very lucky).
I earned an engineering degree from a top-15 university, worked my tail off to get a job offer from a great company doing exactly what I want to do, and have been a top performer at my job since the day I started. I’ve also made sure to move into the fastest growing division in the company where our biggest problem is that we can’t hire people fast enough.
Each one of those things was a conscious effort on my part to position myself in a great job with loads of job security. That’s why I’m not walking in your shoes right now.
I Wouldn’t Hire Long Term Unemployed
If I did have a business, I wouldn’t hire long term unemployed people. It would be my right as an American and as a business owner to choose my staff as I see fit.
Too many people forget that businesses exist to make money, not to create jobs. There’s a name for ensuring everyone, no matter how unskilled or unmotivated, has a job: socialism.
Oh, and to complete the email, I did try to help Seth find a job. I gave him the website of a company that I know is hiring and I truly do wish him well. Unemployment sucks for everyone; the unemployed person and his family, the economy, and the taxpayers. Good luck Seth, and good luck to everyone else out there looking for work. Though hard work is key in landing and securing any job, a degree of any kind can certainly help you get in the door and open windows for you. Read right here about top 10 MBA programs that you can get online.
Just don’t apply to Thousandaire if you’ve been on unemployment for too long.
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
“This means, in general, unemployed people with a college education are the lowest performing 4.4% of the population.”
That is so not true. Think about how people became unemployed during the recession. Sure, many companies took advantage of the economic climate to layoff some fat, but many hard working people lost their jobs because their employers performed poorly or went out of business altogether due to no fault of the employee.
I wish that hiring and firing were truly as performance based as you think they are, but that’s completely unrealistic. A company can shutter a low performing business unit because it had a poor strategy or was outside the company’s core business and it may have nothing to do with how the employees are working to carry out that mission. One person’s performance often has little impact at Fortune 500 companies or even small businesses in big economic changes like the ones we’ve seen.
The average performance of an unemployed worker may be slightly lower than the overall average, but I’m betting you could find a set of 4.4% of workers who performed worse than the 4.4% who are unemployed. The former may contain some of the latter, but I would seriously doubt that the groups were even mostly the same.
Let me clarify. If I were an employer, I wouldn’t be looking for someone in the bottom 20% or 40% or 50%. I’d want top 80 to 90%.
I’ve seen first hand how a highly productive employee can do 2x the work of an average employee and 4x the work of a low performer.
If I were looking for an average employee, I’d certainly be open to long term unemployed people, as I’m sure there are plenty of average employees in that set. However, I wouldn’t be looking for average.
I think that’s very reasonable and a smart strategy as an employer. Yes, a top performer is less likely than a poor performer to be unemployed, but there are certainly top performers who are unemployed. Finding an unemployed top performer might get you a better deal on hiring them 😉
Really? How dare you! This is a heartless, careless post. I for one, have just unsubscribed and this is the last comment you will ever see from me. I dont want to support someone so callous. Clearly, you have never taken time off to raise children and then tried to re-enter the workforce. Clearly, you have never had to seek employment in a limited geographic region because you have to care for ailing parents or you are unable to sell your home. You present yourself as a narrow-minded, unsympathetic, priviledged brat. It’s too bad your top-15 engineering school education didn’t teach you any those skills.
The only privilege I’ve ever had was that of being blessed with natural intelligence. I paid every penny for my top-15 school with scholarships, grants, student loans, and working part time.
If you decide to have kids or buy a home, you do so understanding that those decision impact your career opportunities. I’m not saying it’s wrong to have kids or buy a house. In fact I think having kids is great (although I’m not convinced about buying a house). The point is, when you leave your job to raise kids, your employer has to replace you and retrain someone else and spend a lot of money in doing so.
So if I were an employer and I saw a resume from someone who was consistently leaving jobs and taking long times off work (no matter how noble the reason), I wouldn’t hire that person because I wouldn’t want to be the next business who gets him or her for a short time before he or she leaves.
That is SO sad, you (and many employers) have no clue what it’s like for some of us!! My resume has several jobs on it because I was laid off, then had an extremely difficult time finding work, so I worked temporary jobs and contract work until I am able to find a good decent long term position. Some of us have a lot of jobs listed on their resume because they have had to work temporary jobs or contract jobs for only 6 months or so at a time. I feel it’s better to get a job and work rather than have the government pay your way, even if it is only for 6 months or so and besides, do not realize that when you are on unemployment, you don’t have a choice, you have to take whatever job is offered to you, because if you refuse a job offer, then you’re out of unemployment!! So if you’re offered a temporary job, you have to take it!!
So you (and many employers) ASSUME that because the person has several jobs listed on their resume, they are the type of person that will just stay at that job for only a few months or a year, when in fact that person may have just had to work several different jobs, whether they wanted to or not, they had no choice and yet they have been working odd jobs and temporary jobs until they FINALLY find a long term position.
No I’m not an engineer and MOST people are not, and some of us have had a VERY, VERY difficult time in this economy finding that “LONG TERM JOB”!! I have to agree somewhat with Cat.
I aggree.
Ah, the hubris of youth!
If only the real world was anything like the fantasy world you live in…but the real world is waiting and one day it will present at your front door. I hope, for your sake, that day is a long time coming. I do not wish anyone misfortune.
There are so many factors at play outside of your control when you are in competition for a job. The big one is age. And that is coming to face near yours.
And I wonder what those from a Top 5 school would think of your degree from a lowly Top 15 school. A schooll of a lesser quality is as good a reason as any to deny someone a position in keeping with your train of thought…”poor guy must be a bit dim if he couldn’t get into a good school (Re: Top 5).”
And, quess what? you can keep your job, I would never work for someone with your lack of empathy and narrow-mindedness. Good luck with staying young and healthy forever.
I assume Kevin completely agrees with you when it comes to Top 5 vs. Top 15. It was his decision and he has to live with it.
“you can keep your job, I would never work for someone with your lack of empathy and narrow-mindedness.”
Come on… his “empathy and narrow-mindedness” in hiring people has nothing to do with his potential management and leadership of current employees.
Tom: I hope you are being facetious. Empathy has nothing to do with being a good manager? You cannot be serious! (You’re not, right?)
If you are being serious, then we obviously have opposing definitions for what makes a “good” manager (and, even, a good supervisor and, certainly a good leader where qualities like empathy will matter the most.)
There is a difference between a lack of empathy, and a desire to minimize situations where empathy is required. My preference would be to have great employees that never have any personal problems, but I would absolutely work with a great employee who needed to deal with personal issues.
Now if it was a poor employee who wanted time off and special considerations because of personal issues, that’s a different story.
It has nothing to do with the personal issues, and everything to do with performance. If I were a business owner, I would simply want to find and retain the highest quality employees possible.
Re-read what I wrote. A lack of Empathy in HIRING has nothing to do with being a good manager and having empathy as a leader. I never said anything about a lack of empathy in management and leadership.
When searching for the best candidate, you can’t be empathetic. For a highly sought after position, I would demand nothing but perfection in my candidate. Whether or not they turn out to be perfect is another thing, but they must appear and interview flawlessly. I would accept nothing less, empathy goes out window.
Well said Tom. I wish I had explained myself so eloquently.
I may disagree with your post, but not the principal of it. Something we’ve long forgotten is that people are not guaranteed employment, good or bad.
You have every right (at least you should) to hire or fire people for whatever reason.
In choosing not to hire someone who has been unemployed for a long period of time, you may miss out on one of the most intelligent, capable, and hard working people to ever apply for a position, and you even say so. This happens all the time, though. One of the easiest ways to sort through a million resumes/CVs/whatever you want to call them is to sort by college educated or not college educated. I’d be willing to guess that this is a very common way of shaking out the first round of applicants.
Are all non-college grads incapable of doing the job? No, but I would venture to guess that on average the college educated group is a better collection of applicants, so why not thin the pile and work on those? It only makes sense.
Wrong? Well, only if you think you own the right to a job, which you don’t.
Unfortunately, too many people (aka, Cat, and presumably others) will take this post the wrong way and think you’re a total d-bag for posting it. It’s very easy to hide behind the emotional side of every issue, hanging onto the people who are unemployed for good reason. But doing so means that you have to avoid the other side, the fact that the go-getters that make up a good organization are “company men” in the sense that there’s loyalty to the company first.
Whether or not you’re up to the task is, in most cases, your choice. There’s a reason that some people make $500,000 a year and some make $10,000 a year…something tells me that the people who make $500k a year give up a lot of time, choices, and easier routes to get that job. If you don’t want to do the same, fine. If you do, “welcome to the firm.”
P.S. – Kevin, you might want to make it more clear that in your specific area there is actually a labor shortage. I don’t think people can wrap their heads around the idea that fields do exist where there just aren’t enough people for the job.
That’s a good point, and I’ve said it many times before. If you put in the effort to get an engineering degree, you will get a job. There are so many technical positions open throughout the country, and there just aren’t enough qualified American applicants. If anyone out there has geographic mobility and a computer science degree, send me an email and I’ll get you a job.
That’s an excellent point.
Read the tea leaves or at least the news… there is, and will continue to be a massive shortage of engineers.
Why do you think Obama is pushing STEM programs?
Guy at my job has an engineering degree. So smart it’s scary. He had to go back to school to get a different degree to find a job in my city. Shit happens.
“You have every right (at least you should) to hire or fire people for whatever reason.”
The law defines reasons for which someone cannot be fired or considred for employment and it is designed to protect people from unfair filters. Maybe you didn’t mean your comment to say what it does, but geez!
I thought your previous comment was your last comment…
While I agree with this principal if we lived in a world without bigotry, racism, or prejudices, that simply isn’t the case. That’s why we have these laws in place to protect the minority against discrimination.
The fact that you have such a simplistic opinion on this tells me that you’ve never been in this situation yourself. While it’s true that sometimes businesses used the recession as an excuse to axe unproductive employees, the majority lost their jobs because the company couldn’t afford to keep them. This is especially true of people who had been with their jobs for 10-20 years. They laid them off so they could hire someone younger, for cheaper, and then the laid off has an incredibly hard time finding a new position that pays anything even remotely close to what he made before because some 22-year-old with massive student loans is willing to do his job for minimum wage because he’s thankful just to have any job at all.
And don’t even think about telling the guy who got laid off to get a job at McDonald’s, because they won’t hire him either: He’s way overqualified. They assume he will leave as soon as he finds a better job, so they pass him over for an incompetent high school drop out who has no other options. If anything, it’s the lowest-performing segment of your population that is able to best retain their jobs.
What you call a “free market,” I call a “race to the bottom.” And that benefits no one.
“then the laid off has an incredibly hard time finding a new position that pays anything even remotely close to what he made before because some 22-year-old with massive student loans is willing to do his job for minimum wage because he’s thankful just to have any job at all. ”
Normally you cannot replace a veteran w/ a college grad, doesn’t make business sense. If you’re talking about working on the mfg. lines, then yes, you can replace with a cheaper, younger person. They would have to, at least, be phased in over a long period to transfer that tribal knowledge.
The laid-off person has a difficult time finding a similar paying job because the market has changed. Take the Detroit area… there are a bunch of ex-auto employees running around looking for jobs, but decline to get paid 1/2 of what they made, even if their previous salary was WAY over market rates.
It all comes back to what the market rate is in the area that you’re in.
If someone is being paid $50 an hour to do work that someone else is willing to do for $10 an hour, then the guy making $50 is getting overpaid. Instead of feeling sorry for himself when he loses his job, he should be happy that he was able to work a job and make 5x market value for that position for any period of time.
It’s not a race to the bottom; it’s a race to fair market value. If a company can reduce labor costs per worker, that company will either hire more workers (because they have more money for more workers), sell their product at a lower price (because it costs less to make it), or increase profits (because that’s what a good business does). In most cases, they will do a combination of the three.
They won’t lower prices just because they can. But if they can lower their labor costs, then their competitors can probably do the same. Then when they are both making the same product at a cheaper price, they will start lowering prices to compete. It’s basic economics and it’s good for every single person in the world except for the overpaid worker. I’d much rather enjoy the greater good than let a few individuals enjoy inflated salaries
Kevin, what you just described is actually the very definition of a race to the bottom. What do you think that term means?
In this case the market labor rates are below current labor rates, so the race goes down. However, in cases of highly effective computer programmers that are recruited by Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, those salaries race to the top (which is also market value). You are acting like all salaries race to the bottom, which is definitely not true. They race to market value, up or down
Oh, and another thing. If you truly lived in a country where the best person gets the job, then there would be no affirmative action laws, women would make exactly the same as men for the same position, etc. etc.
Don’t think for a second that “performance” is the only consideration when it comes to who gets hired and who doesn’t. I’d wager to say, in a lot of cases, it’s not even the main consideration.
I agree that some people may hire for other reasons, but my article isn’t talking about other people. I’m talking about why I personally wouldn’t hire certain people.
Kevin,
I for one agree with you. Luckily though for Cat, Seth, and the plethora of others, I do not own a business and am not part of the hiring department.
Instead, I also have an engineering degree and work in a highly technical/specialized field. Because of this:
1) My job is very secure. Our biggest problems is that we can’t hire people fast enough. (is any of this sounding familiar?)
2) Within 2 months of applying for a new job, I had multiple offers at several different locations/companies. (Note I was still employeed this entire time)
3) When I accepted a new position, it included a 20% pay RAISE.
Now, some friends that stayed in school to get a masters/PhD are having rough time finding jobs, but many of them have found excellent “dream” jobs that they love…in this market.
Everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion, but don’t hate on Kevin for having an opposing view from yours. In fact, you should stop and actually listen to what he says, instead of waiting for your turn to speak. Doing so is how we learn and grow. You might not agree, but at least you will understand where he is coming from.
Kevin – keep up the good work. The reason I continue to follow your site is the exact reason you get the strong “hate” postings above – because you are NOT politically correct.
Thanks Stu. I’m glad to hear you’ve made some great decisions and have a great job! You’re a great success story.
I’m gonna keep being politically incorrect when that suits my beliefs, and I’ll be politically correct when it agrees with my beliefs. 🙂
Hi!
I came across this site due to some research I am doing on the same topic and I feel there is value to this discussion.
I believe Kevin’s post is a “bold, harsh reality” and reactions to it are less revelant than the “smack” of reality it presents. It is less about whether Kevin is right or not, it is a reality of how employers percieve these things. Recruiters, managers, and owners of most if not all private organizations are held accountable for their hires and will use any workforce trend they feel is credible as a tool to predict a potential bad hire. I work in HR and if I somehow knew that I was interviewing or reviewing the resume of a low-performer, I would not waste their time or mine.
There are situations (discriminatory) where the laws do need to step in and level the playing field. But for the most part, employers can and will hire/fire/lay off whoever they want. And should.
One of the traits of high performers is that they don’t wait to be “victimized”, they prepare for the worst as best they can. Preparation can take the form of continuing education, cross-training, volunteer work, networking, etc. They don’t wait until they are unemployed to prepare. They are preparing while they are employed. High-performers also have families, medical events, all kinds of emergencies. If you are a high-performer, you are doing whatever you can now to prepare for the worst. High-performers realize employment is not guaranteed . It is all about the decisions you make.
I believe this is the new reality. Now that this country needs to be able to compete globally, with countries whose workplace laws (if any) are quite different from ours. I believe it is pointless to argue with reality.
Of course, we are talking trends not individual cases, which I am sure there are plenty of exceptions to this rule.
My two cents (or three).
Well, I can see how a post like this would upset someone who’s been out of work for 3+ months, but I understand the sentiment.
Of course, there are exceptions to everything, but I believe that you acknowledged that. The point is, if you have to narrow down a few people from a large pool of applicants, this would be one ofthe factors you’d look at. The same way someone who went to a good school will have a better chance of getting from the application to the job interview, even though there may be someone from a bad school applying who would be a great employee.
I also work in a pretty high demand industry (accounting.) But you don’t have to be a genius to get an accounting degree, you just have to work at it.
For those who don’t have a degree, here is another example: At the company I work for, we are hiring for our receiptionist position. For someone without a lot of qualifications, it’s a great way to get a foot in the door. Past receptionists have become appreciated members of our bookkeeping staff, even without any accounting education. But to get to that point, you have to prove that you can pick up the mail on time, be pleasant on the phone, and remember to lock the door at night. It is amazing how many temp workers we have had that could not even do these simple tasks successfully for a week.
But the point is, you and Kevin are making assumptions about those who have been on extended unemployment that are, in many cases and ESPECIALLY during a recession, not true.
If someone got fired from three jobs and has a degree from a mediocre school, then yes, you can absolutely make some assumptions about their performance and enthusiasm for the work.
If someone has been on unemployment for six months, the only assumption you can make is that the person has been out of a job for six months. That really doesn’t tell you very much about them as a working. Don’t forget, being laid off is NOT the same as being fired.
I was around in 2008 when my company was doing a lot of laying off. The ones that were laid off were overwhelmingly low performers. Some that were great employees (like my boss) unfortunately had inflated salaries. If you are a high performer, but also have an inflated salary, it is important for you to realize that you might have been getting paid more than you were worth, and be willing to accept a job at the market rate instead of your previous rate.
Again, you don’t have to agree with me, and I’ve already admitted I will be wrong in some instances. But I stand my overall generalization of this group of people.
So after 5 years at a job you would tell them to stop giving you raises because you are at “fair market value”?
There are definitely jobs out there. Not a lot, but there are some. Getting your foot in the door is a great way to end up where you want to be. Unfortunately, our “instant gratification” society seems to have forgotten that.
I would not hire one of these people either because anyone can find a job if they really want to.
I don’t know about anyone, but anyone worth hiring. 🙂
I’m sure one of “those people” wouldn’t want to work for you, given the fact you are referring to long term unemployed individuals as “these people”.
While I disagree with the sentiments of Kevin and those who wholeheartedly agree with him, I must say that I am enjoying this thread. The behaviors of man never cease to amaze me. People with superiority complexes are some of my favorites, as I enjoy being entertained. Additionally, I relish in the fact of realizing their fall will be a great and most wrenching one.
I am a long term unemployed person. A low performer? I think not. A lazy worker? No way. An incapable worker. Not in a million years. However, I was an employee in an industry that was ran by greed. An industry where the insatiable appetites of corporate honchos gave way to unscrupulous practices. Regard for the welfare and survival of the average human was at an all time low. Scores of individuals lost their jobs and have been unemployed for quite some time.
The truth is I haven’t been actively seeking employment since I last worked for wages this past February. Instead, I have committed myself to my spiritual well being, my mental well being, and my physical well being. Now I am concentrating on completing my degree program because it will be extremely useful to me in my future career endeavors. Now that I am six months away from completion I am looking to enter the job market again.
There is hope after long term unemployment, and anyone who indicates differently is a severely uninformed person. Once I become an employer, oh yes, I’ll definitely seriously consider the applications of long term unemployed individuals. Why? Because anyone who is employed for a long term (more than three months as described by this thread starter), but yet continues to search for employment is a person with the skills I would love to have on my team. It’s quite easy to remain optimistic and positive while you are receiving constant wages. Nevertheless, it’s an altogether different story when it seems you are out of options, out of funds, and out of assistance but somehow manages to pull it together and rebuild yourself.
I thought this was the principle this country was built upon. Succeeding and persevering against all odds. I laugh at those of you who feel you have “made it”. Good luck on always being in the top, what is it 15%. Such ignorance!
It sounds like we both agree that we don’t want to work together. Isn’t it great that we can make those decisions in a free society?
Oh wait, Obama’s new job act would make it illegal for me to not want to hire long term unemployed person. So much for a free society.
And to clarify, I actually don’t see someone who goes back to school as “long term unemployed”. That’s someone who is making a career change and is an entry level worker. Very different than someone just living off unemployment benefits for a long time.
What Kevin is refering to is simple statistics.
A motivated, high performer will on average get a job in fewer interviews and will have more interviews in a shorter period of time. Aka, on average he/she will be unemployed for a shorter period of time.
The problem with statistics is that they are not always fair to the individual. While it is likely true that the percentage of high performers in the under 3 month category is higher, that doesn’t guarantee that there are no high performers that have been unemployed for longer.
Kevin is choosing an arbitrary cutoff to try to increase his chances of landing a better applicant. Some people create an arbitrary cutoff by requiring a college education (although there are certainly high performers without a college degree). Some people create the arbitrary cutoff of a GPA (although there are certainly good people with a low GPA).
I don’t see anything wrong with what Kevin is doing. Statistically it increases his chances of landing a better candidate without violating any protected class. As far as empathy goes, there are a lot of places for empathy, the hiring process is not one of them.
And The Hoff chimes in with a fantastic explanation. This is why I love to publish your posts. Well, this and your dashing good looks.
What about this statistic: when the recession first started to hit in my area, a huge mega-firm went under and suddenly there were thousands of lawyers competing for the same jobs. Now I’m not a lawyer (but a relative of mine is) and statistically speaking they can’t all just decide to start their own practice. Also I’m willing to venture that in order to pass the bar exam you have to be a pretty smart person.
statistically speaking wouldn’t it be harder to find a job in a market saturated with thousands of other people who have similar backgrounds? Keep in mind with that profession it’s not an easy matter to just pick up and move somewhere else, in order to practice law in other states you have to pass that states bar exam. So you could take that test in another state but they only offer it a few times a year and it takes a few months to get back results, along with the fact that I don’t think anyone is an expert on every states individual laws.
Lets look at another case, the silicone valley. lets say a bunch of internet startups go under, it happens all the time. But during the recession even more go under and less begin because no one has the money to financially back them (and the ones that start in someones garage that will take people on can’t really pay their workers yet so those don’t count as “available jobs”). Then lets throw in some larger companies, let’s say Sun Microsystems gets bought out and only a third of their employees get to stay. There’s another 10,000 people looking for jobs. Yahoo downsizes, ebay isn’t doing so well, but yes google is still doing well. But not well enough to fill the gaps of all the other companies that aren’t fighting the battle as well.
In the silicon valley there are a LOT of engineers, and usually a lot of jobs to go with it. But there were a lot more downsizing companies than there were hiring companies. I work at a company that is hiring now, and I worked at companies that were hiring before the economic downturn. Before the recession an engineering job posting could bring in about 100 resumes in a week. After the recession the same position would bring in somewhere closer to 400 in half the time.
Now I’m not a statistician, but I think my odds of landing a job are much better when there are only 99 other candidates than 399. Right now I think it’s narrow-minded to say that if you have been unemployed for 3 months then you won’t hire someone. Not everyone lives where you live, If you think engineers are going to leave the silicon valley to go where more tech-companies are or where more internet-based jobs are you are a fool. I’m not saying they won’t leave the silicon valley for a job somewhere else. I’m just saying if I were a crab fisherman, why would I leave Alaska if I’m looking for a job in my profession to see if there are more opportunities for crab fisherman in Detroit?
I strongly, strongly, STRONGLY disagree with you Kevin, and am a little disheartened at how you put it. I’ve been unemployed for 7 months now, and it’s definitely not for lack of trying. I have applied for several hundred different positions, and fast food was NOT beneath me. I didn’t get hired there either. I’ve been called in for interviews, and have even been narrowed down to the final prospects. And yet, I’m still unemployed.
The fact that you bring up your schooling and degree doesn’t necessarily help your argument in my opinion. Not many people went into their degrees and schooling with a huge recession on the brain. Back when a lot of people got their degrees, there were a plethora of companies and job opportunities out there for them. Yet, a recession came, companies folded, and people lost their jobs.
A lot of people, similar to you, got niche degrees at top universities. Not everybody can be an engineer or a master at computer science. Your comment earlier about “anyone worth hiring can find a job” just isn’t the case. There’s jobs out there, yes, but there’s also an abundance of people competing for the same job, and they can all be equally qualified, but somebody’s going to lose. The possibilities of this happening multiple times to the same person is more likely than you may think.
I’ll be honest; one of my downfalls in not being able to find a job has been because I don’t have a degree. I dropped out of college when my mom had a heart attack in order to work full time and help pay for things. I was lucky enough to find a full time paid internship that turned into a full time opportunity, and no matter how hard I worked and despite the results I produced from day one, much like yourself, I was still let go. I wasn’t the only one; even my supervisor, who DOES have a degree and had more years seniority than I was let go.
What I don’t have in education, I make up for in experience, which is what I’ve heard from every single hiring manager I’ve spoken with. While I was in college, I worked my ass off, doing multiple internships at a time, many of them unpaid, and gained the necessary experience. It’s just not as easy out there as you and others think it is.
Regardless if you see it or not, you ARE lucky to have your job. There’s thousands of people who took your same route as far as school, and working hard, and STILL got laid off. The fact that there’s people who wouldn’t hire people like myself, who have been laid off for more than half a year, just makes the problem worse, because it’s just going to keep going. Luckily, I’ve taken matters into my own hands and I’m pursuing entrepreneurship, but not everyone can afford that luxury.
I understand you’re entitled to your opinion, especially on your blog, but it definitely is going to hit a lot of nerves, especially how you put it. No matter what, you’re not going to understand because you’re not in our shoes, and probably never will be. You’re going to offend a lot of people who are struggling and I’m sure you’re fine with that. Just know, from one PF blogger to another, this post definitely hurt.
I didn’t mean to hurt you, and I am sorry for your circumstances.
However, I don’t consider “entrepreneur” being unemployed. So if I did have a business and you sent me your resume with “owner of xyz start up” then you would pass the unemployment filter.
I will say this though; I am confused by your claim that you are unemployed and an entrepreneur at the same time. Either you work for no one (unemployed) or you work for someone (yourself or anyone else). I don’t know what state you live in, but if you are receiving unemployment benefits, you may want to check your state laws. As far as I know (which admittedly isn’t much about local employment laws), starting a business renders you ineligible for unemployment benefits.
I’ll rephrase; I’m attempting to be an entrepreneur. The fees are still too expensive for it to be legit. I’m getting by, getting paid under the table, which would not be enough to support me without the unemployment. More like doing odd jobs until I can make the jump to be a full fledged entrepreneur.
Why not go back and finish? It might be extremely difficult, but you are going to continue getting overlooked if you don’t.
You admit that’s your problem.
You cannot rely solely on experience. Experience will only take you so far, you must meet the minimum requirements of the position, whether or not they are clearly identified. There are too many college grads out there looking for work.
I guess as long as you would actually (hypothetically) take the time to find out why that person was unemployed (in case, as you say, they were “victims of circumstance”) rather than immediately writing them off at the first instance, that’s fair enough.
I wouldn’t take the time to find out why. I would just allow the truly qualified candidates to slip through the cracks in the interest of saving time. Just like I would filter out all the people without college degrees. Again, I’m sure there are qualified candidates in that population, but they would slip through the cracks as well.
Every hiring manager is making arbitrary decisions on how to filter out candidate, whether it’s current employment, college education, or BS certifications.
It’s the only way to filter 1000 applications.
Theory is one thing, real life is another. Only with age will you see the naivte of this posting. Check back in 20 years and see if you would make the same post….
I have to agree with some of the points in this post, as I have seen them firsthand in my own life, due to, er, less than optimal choices made in my twenties. When I graduated with a degree in geology, there weren’t many jobs. I then got a graduate degree in ESL, but at the same time picked up some database development experience. I discovered there wasn’t a high demand for English teachers (duh), but my database skills, on the other hand, were pretty marketable. So I finally got smart, trained myself in SQL Server, got some certifications, and all of a sudden was getting multiple job offers while still employed, and in the middle of a recession. I have nearly tripled my salary in the past 5 years, and my phone is nearly always ringing thanks to my Linkedin profile and all the tech recruiters out there. For my third stab at school, I’m getting a master’s degree in Math/Statistics, like I should have done in the first place. My mom quickly got a job after being out of the work force for years, since she went into a field with high demand (nursing). My father, on the other hand, is unemployed and can’t seem to understand why. Supply and demand is why. Marketable skills is why.
A common reason for unemployment is laziness and individuals feeling as though certain professions. The government pays individuals way too much to be unemployed. I imagine Kevin is like myself in that he is never unemployed because he works hard, is likely easy to get along with, and if need be he’d probably fill out hundreds of applications. Too many of my ‘Generation Y’ peers fail to do these things.
I like all the people posting about how he is naive and wait till he is older and is facing the hardship of finding a job. Not even getting into the people getting hung up on the earners vs dead weight statistics.
As someone who works for myself, and as a Independent contractor in Branding and Marketing, a very cut throat field of experiential marketing, I have to find a new job 3 times a year if not more. It is all strictly govern by your background and experience. I have had to relocate more than 2-3 times in my current field to stay employed and not sacrifice pay. If you want to be employed you will be employed. That might take sacrifices in your lifestyle or your location to make it work.
To everyone who keeps throwing out BS examples of people they know, and such and such… Every example seems like they are all making choices that are keeping them unemployed.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
IF you go to the store cause you are looking for milk, and all the stores in your area are out of milk, you go to a different store, or you find a different drink that you can substitue for milk. Yes it might not be ideal, but if you were a store and saw someone just waiting around for the store to have more milk, you would call that person crazy…. FACT….
It is safe to make the assumption that a motivated person will be likely to do more leg work to get a job and all things remaining the same, get more interviews which would increase there chances of getting a job faster. Or more likely to make sacrifices to become employed while looking for more gainful employment.
As i hire around 100 people or more a year to work for me, I am pretty familiar with resumes and interviewing people. Before I even look at their resume to check their previous employment I look for grammatical errors and if i speak to them for them to articulate themselves well.
To say that using some ones unemployment span as a bad means to gauge someones viability is to say that either of the means i mentioned above are also bad markers. I highly doubt that anyone is going to say its unfair for me to use the methods above to gauge a possible employee as they are a standard practice for most interviewers.
For the record, I am 26, same age as Kevin, and I am quite certain that with age i will only get more particular in how i quantify a worthy applicant. I really cant see that me being unemployed (as i have been when the market went under, as my particular type of marketing is very expensive, when print and tv ads are much cheaper) would make me empathize more with someone else who couldn’t find a job, as a matter of fact that experience makes me less patient of those who have been unemployed for a long time as i made it work. Yes it was a lot or work, and yes i had to do things i thought were beneath me, but you do what you have to, if you want to get what you want.
My tuppence worth:
1) No one gets paid what they are worth: they get paid what the job is worth.
2) I do tend to have sympathy with older workers who have been laid off. Sometimes they have been moulded into ‘company men’ who believed they had a job for life. Sometimes people are reluctant to manage people much older than themselves.
Kevin, you are a rising star. Of that there is no doubt. But the world needs its plodders just as much as it does its rising stars.
A question:
Let me clarify. If I were an employer, I wouldn’t be looking for someone in the bottom 20% or 40% or 50%. I’d want top 80 to 90%. – How would you feel if the lady you hired suddenly got pregnant after all that training you’d given her?
Growing My Own
Even when age is on one’s side, there is still the Catch 22 of needing full-time experience to gain a full-time job.
I always find it laughable when people make statements set in stone. “I would never do this…”, “This will never happen to me.”, etc, etc. It can and will happen to you, I’m sure, unless the Lord himself has put a wall of protection around you.
Never would I have thought I would be unemployed; but, I was. I worked in a preschool where the funding for my position was cut. For about four months, I was out of a job. I applied to every job imaginable that I could possibly be eligible and qualified for, and yet nothing. Thankfully, a job has come through just recently…but in this economic situation, it is very difficult to find gainful employment.
I find it more than disheartening that you would pass this sort of judgement on someone based off of information you were uncertain of. Perhaps, for example, there is a beautifully written cover letter, describing in exact detail a person perfect for your position. The resume is concise, well formatted, and full of the degrees and other laurels you are apparently very impressed with…then, you see the work history, and they have been out of a job for the past few months. This minor detail, in this sort of economy, would make you toss it in the trash? This seem to me a wasted opportunity; this person that five seconds ago was your dream employee, is now garbage bin material because of your preconceived notions of the unemployed.
Obviously, not all managers are like this, as even in my interview, my now district manager expressed empathy and concern for my current situation. In hindsight, perhaps it is good you would toss out these qualified-but-unemployed resumes…I’m sure they wouldn’t want to work for you anyway. (Hypothetically speaking, of course.)
Wow! I can’t believe all these comments. I work with a bunch of dumb asses who got hired and they were previously employed. I would think that someone who is unemployed would despertately try to prove themselves and work harder to never have to revisit their current situation. It is the people who are comfortable who tend to underperform. I totally get where Kevin is coming from but at the same time just because someone is employed does not make them competent.
I am small business owner with 8 employees. 3 of them were long term unemployed. I looked past the resume tot character, work ethic, passion and people skills. yes, they have to have basic skills to perform the job, but I wI. Wanted to give the jobs to individuals who were desiring. most of them are beyond one year with me.
I am very pleased with all of them and they show their appreciation by being great employees. I realize there are lot of good people who need jobs. It is true that almost all employers will use the filters because that’s the eefficient and safest way to hire. At the same time it’s extremely unfair and callus to label long term unemployed as less valuable or lazy. I know too many well qualified individuals that are doing everything possible to get a job. Not everyone can be an engineer. If they could, therevwould surely be a lot of unemployed engineers.
Disparate comments about the long-term unemployed, such as those made by Kevin, come so readily from those who have not suffered the loss of a job in today’s icy economic climate.
We are in the midst of one of the worst financial melt-downs of our lifetime. There are millions of people out of work. Millions. Just this week Sears announced the closing of more than a hundred stores nationwide. This is 3 years after the crash and counting. Times are hard out here.
People that have jobs are so insulated from the harsh realities that the unfortunate “millions” face. They are stuck in a place where a business as usual demeanor perpetuates while business is anything but usual anymore in this Country.
I am happy there are so many that didn’t lose their livelihoods. You will excuse those that did to whom your commentary sounds like gloating. But when you’ve penned thousands resume’s in 3 years and had only 5 interviews, lost your home, lost your way of life, can’t afford medical care anymore, have gone through your severance pay and savings to stay afloat, and have watched people in your situation seeing no way out take their own lives, it gets a little easier to take offense to being called a person who is lazy and underachieving.
When you were once accustomed to sending out one resume, getting an interview, and getting hired, and your new reality is sending out thousands of resumes and not hearing the slightest echo back, you don’t need someone rubbing your nose in your misfortune by painting you as a loser, statistically speaking.
If you’ve run a multi-million dollar company and you are applying for a job checking coats, and every other job in sight you’re not thinking about up or down market value. You are trying to survive one more day.
Kevin, I think you have the most valid of view-points, if only we were still living in a pre-2008 economy. Unfortunately were are not. But I pray for the day when your logic makes sense again.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
You know something Kevin? I am unemployed for 11 months out of the year every year and you’re saying I dont have high productivity? Well I have something to say to you Kevin my boy:
Here comes two back button clicks of ‘edited by Kevin for nasty language’!!
I live on the most expensive island in America, the island of Manhattan. I’ve been unemployed for two years, with the first three months of that time spent repatriating/finding a permanent apartment for my wife and I in this crazy town, as we were coming off of a three year stint in Europe. How have i been able to survive financially, as I obviously was not eligible to collect? My wife’s income, which is more than sufficient. So I’m the trailing spouse who came back to the States without a job, under the false assumption that I’d be different than the rest and find work, because, well, I’ve always been a top performer, someone with management experience, no doubt. You could call me naive for thinking I’d pick up where I left off and be gainfully employed in no time. But no. What’s my excuse for not finding a job? I wasn’t laid off and no employer cares about my work experience overseas. Huge gap in my resume and it feels nearly impossible to garner any type of serious employment consideration. Because I supported my wife’s career aspirations, does that make me unintelligent, uunskilled, or unemployable? Perhaps not. Does it mean I made a I’ll-considered decision to transition back witout a job? I think so. Now I’m paying the price in spades, since being out of work for so long does a number on one’s mind. In my case, is not about the money – it’s about being valued as a member of society, having a purpose, being productive. Everyone has a different skill level and I can respect the need to desire the most talented performer. But let’s cut the crap. Most everyone deserves a chance and most everyone has potential, regardless of ability. It’s just that some people are in the wrong jobs and employers don’t know how to, nor want to, recognize the potential in a long-term unemployed person. This has nothing to do with your hypothetical choice to not want to hire someone who has been out of work for a while, but I just thout it should be said.
Does anyone post on any of those $5 dollar micro gig websites like Fiverr? I have heard there are more than 75 of them now! I list quick listings on a lot of them. It takes time listing to every one of them, but it seems to be worth it. Many of them are not just five dollars, some go as high as $50 dollars. Here are several that I use: Fiverr, Gigbucks, Gigthief, Fiftytown, twentyville, gighour, gigme5, tenrr. Some of them are just begining as well. I have actually had much better luck on the newer sites as your jobs are usually showing on the front page.