Experience Required, Please.....

Am I the only one who is tired of the advice columns and articles on What to do when you are unemployed, How to cope with being unemployed, How to find a job when you are unemployed, and How to be happy and contented when you are unemployed?

Actually, the main reason that I am tired of those columns and articles, is that they are written by people who are EMPLOYED! It’s easy to sit back and say and write enjoy yourself and your time off and go out and “smell the roses”, when you are the guy growing, selling, pocketing the money for the roses and collecting a regular weekly paycheck. It’s a lot different and more difficult when you are the guy scrounging around to find the money to buy a couple of daisies! I really think that you need some recent first hand experience on the unemployment line to fully understand what is going on and how difficult it is.

I have tried all of the networking, and websites and job fairs. I have tried finding all of those so called “hidden” jobs and have applied to temporary consultant jobs and have gone through the long explanations, given in the advice columns, to explain why I am not “overqualified” for a particular job, or if I am, how it could still benefit the company, and how I really don’t care if I am “overqualified”. I am still unemployed, though. Most people that I have talked to have also done these same things and are still unemployed and not real happy or contented about it.

Despite what those columns say, and what the government itself may be trying to tell us to try and paint a somewhat hopeful picture, today I received the following very telling email from one of the Recruiting / Management Consulting Firms that I have been working with which really sums up the situation:

“Some of you are concerned that I have not sent any new positions/projects within the past few week. It has been tough and jobs are very limited. Most of our clients are trying to hold onto their core group, and others have had lay offs and hiring freezes.”

And that’s really the way it is. So, going forward, please only those who are actually, currently unemployed should write advice columns and articles about being unemployed. Of course, then, I guess, if they are writing the articles that would mean that they were no longer unemployed, but, you get the picture.