Thursday, July 24, 2014

UNEMPLOYMENT

Image result for image of someone applying for a job


My spouse is retired.  He receives several pensions.  His health is no longer A+.  He "works" as a recruiter for a Fortune 500 company that deals in financial products. He is productive and useful but can come and go as he wishes.  He enjoys it.  He likes to talk.  He likes to feel persuasive.  He likes to "shoot the shit".  He likes to tell stories --- most specifically, sea stories.  This job is ideal for him.

They receive resumes primarily from Career Builder which is a service of Chicago Tribune newspaper.  He will take 50 resumes at a time and call the applicant.  Of fifty, 48 will go to voice mail.  That is how vested in the job search the applicants are.  After he receives voice mail twice for a single person, he will usually text message them.  About sixty per cent of the text messages get answered.  This is an interesting illustration of the way computers have changed our lives, but that is just an aside.  Out of one hundred percent of the people he has contact with, thirty percent will say, "I am not interested in that kind of work." Or, "I can't see myself doing that kind of work." This reeks to me of a sense of entitlement.  He has encountered this reply so frequently that he has a rote rejoinder available which often opens up a discourse.  He asks how that compares with what they are now doing which is usually nothing. 

Of the small amount of positive feedback he gets, which would mean people want to come in for a "training" session telling them about the company, its resources and opportunities, (It is not Amway.) the figures once again fragment.  Maybe fifty or sixty percent of those people will agree to come into the office.  About sixty per cent of the people that actually are given an appointment to learn more, which is really all that is on the table at this point, will not show up.  Of the people that show up, about eighty per cent of those enter the employ of this company.  This is actually six to ten people a week.  After that, it is out of my husband's ken, and other variables come into play which may be worth analyzing, but not by this company as they do just fine with these odds. 

When people talk about how hard it is to get a job, no one mentions how selective certain people are, how entitled other people feel, and how lazy some of the job seekers are.  My grand daughter, who, to be polite, can best be described as a flibberty jibbet, was recently "handed" a full time job with a major US corporation that has plans to expand to Europe and offers a wonderful benefit package. She doesn't like the 45 minute drive to work. But she might stay there.  Her Blue Cross ID and her dental insurance card came in the mail today. 

"You can't please 'em all." (Joni Mitchell) 

The last two full time jobs I had, someone knocked on my front door and said, "So and so needs a such and such.  Want it?"  One was short-lived.   One lasted six years and was 'plum". The full time job before that, I walked into a light manufacturing plant in my neighborhood and said, "Are you hiring?"  That job lasted six years and was an incredible amount of fun.  They also paid my college tuition, but I had to turn down their other benefits as my husband had them.

Reality check time. 



Photo Attribution:  ohsoyoureawhat.com

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