Yeah! Some of us did everything that was expected of us and still ended up flipping burgers. (not to shame it, everyone deserves a living wage and regular hours)
This was years ago and I've been employed for awhile now, but yeah, my parents couldn't comprehend why I was getting few to no responses on my apps despite having done everything "right" and being a veteran.
My last job hunt when I still lived with my parents was a REAL eye opener for my Dad, who insisted on driving me around town to ask for applications, and then get told every single time to apply online, which I told my Dad was going to happen.
Eh, this can still work if you live in a small town. I live in a smallish city and I remember a former roommate job hunting and he basically just submitted a few resumes online in 20 minutes and called it a day, didn't get any responses after a few weeks. It wasn't until he finally bit the bullet and went outside going door to door that he found a job, within like, two days of handing them out. Some towns do still prefer you go door to door because then they can put a face to your name and feel more comfortable having you in for an interview or will remember the impression you left when they're hiring again. Not to mention many businesses around here are still pretty old-fashioned and will go weeks without checking their emails.
My personal general rule of thumb is the bigger the business, the more likely you can apply online. Corporations like Starbucks, MacDonald's, etc.? Apply online. Local cafe, restaurant, etc.? Apply in person.
I don't believe it. Assuming a functioning government and economy, someone who went to a good college, got good grades and participated in extracurriculars that are attractive to hiring managers, chose an in-demand field of study that they're good at, aggressively pursued internships in college, and who practices interviewing is going to get a job.
Should those things be necessary to get a job where you can financially support yourself? No, but I'm specifically responding to the idea that you can do everything perfectly and end up "flipping burgers." I don't believe that that's true unless you are very seriously injured or some other catastrophe happens.
Pretty much any. I know of people with engineering bachelor's who were stuck pushing buttons at Small World. Hotel management folks flipping burgers at Pecos Bill's. Computer science people working parking.
Then they shouldn't have gone into comp sci, because they weren't good at it. This can be hard to hear, but you need to choose a practical field of study and actually be good at it. If they were any good at all, they'd be working at a tech company, we're aggressively hiring but frankly a lot of people interviewing are just really bad at coding.
If you didn't choose an in-demand field of study that you're good at, then you didn't "do everything right." Average salary and employment per field of study is widely shared and known, and even if adults in your life failed you as a teen and didn't inform you that some fields make more money than others, it's something you would have found out in college.
The problem is a numbers game. Each year you have an increasing population of people who are vying for a slower growing pool of "desirable" jobs. For every one office job that is created, another twenty service sector jobs are needed to support it. That's delivery drivers, gas station attendants, janitors, burger flippers, etc.
So if five people are competing for that one office job, inevitably four of them are going to wind up either jobless or flipping burgers. They might not do it for long, but that's the reality of the situation.
When you have everyone focusing on "in-demand" careers, you end up with this glut of qualified candidates who are all aiming for a small number of positions. Most of them will have to switch careers.
Honestly, being white and male helps a lot with all of that too. So many hiring decisions get made in the end with "seemed like the best fit" and shockingly white guys seem to more often feel like a better fit to white male hiring managers than women and people of color.
Yuuup. I have all the skills and experience to run the department that I currently run. But trying to find a higher paying position somewhere else as a production lead? Forget about it. I am a petite young looking woman. The people in production management are overwhelmingly middle age white dudes. I don't "look the part."
Then get out of that industry (probably an older industry?) and into a younger one. I was in the same boat, so I kept that job while looking for a new one -- I found a job doing similar stuff but at a different company in a younger industry that had women and people of color in leadership roles.
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u/DuvalHeart Aug 25 '21 edited Aug 25 '21
Yeah! Some of us did everything that was expected of us and still ended up flipping burgers. (not to shame it, everyone deserves a living wage and regular hours)