Don't tell me things are getting better.
Don't tell me America's Phoenix is rising.
Going on 26 months in this wasteland now went to a job fair today in King of Prussia.
King of Prussia/Valley Forge is a heavy business area just outside of Philadelphia. You would think a great number of companies with positions available would be in attendance, hoping to attract new talent (or old talent looking for a new gig, ahem).
And so, while I was not exactly excited about the fair, I was hopeful and looking forward to it. Spent yesterday assembling a pile of resumes letters of introductions and fancy schmancy business cards (free from Vistaprint) for what I hoped would score me at least some good contacts.
I began to suspect problems when I got to the parking lot and it was not nearly full. There was no line out the door as in Reading last week. And people were LEAVING before the thing was even an hour old.
Once inside I found out why.
19 businesses were there. Of those 11 were either insurance companies or financial advisors. All looking for sales associates only.
1 replacement windows company.
1 mattress sales store.
1 security company.
1 green energy company (Viva Solyndra!)
1 radio station looking for advertising sales professionals.
Avon.
1 university hawking it's courses, not hiring anyone.
1 funeral home/cemetery sales.
I'm a call center telecommunications Guru. A phone systems geek. I program PBXs and ACDs and IVRs and Voice Mail systems. I've been doing it for 20 years. I couldn't sell a glass of water to a sunburned man lost in the desert.
Where are the tech companies, the companies with large medium or even smallish call centers who need a guy to run these things? This is King of Prussia, for god's sake. Mattress sales? A Funeral Home? Really? That's the best they could muster?
Overheard at one of the insurance tables: To succeed here you have to hustle. For the first five years we own your ass but after that you can earn a lot if you hustle.
Well, I'm fifty (almost) years old. I'm not exactly looking for entry level and I'm certainly not looking for anyone to own my ass for the next five years when in 7 to 10 years I hope to be thinkng about retirement.
Business professionals in suits and dresses were walking in with a hopeful smile and a fistful of resumes, taking one look around and then doing an about face and walking right out. This was geared for entry level sales who were young and eager to kill themselves to make a killing selling.
Truth is no one is hiring right now. No one is really recruiting. And if it's happening in an area like Philly, then it is happening everywhere.
So I handed out a few of my packets and on the way home applied at a local fire & water restoration place.
Then I made my way home with a fish sandwich, a fistful of resumes, and the sinking feeling that I may never find good meaningful work again.
8 comments:
(#&%((# MR, I hate it when you post this stuff. I am sick to my stomach about your situation and I don't even know you personally.
I'm gonna ask. Is there any consulting/freelance that you could advertize your services to?
Maybe involving some travel but not a move?
I might can front you some small amount of start-up $.
MR,
Wow. I know that area where you went to the job fair and am stunned.
AoW -- yep, if you know the area you know how bad this is for a job fair there. I was both shocked and seriously disappointed. As well as a bit worried.
SK -- Consulting work is absolutely a possibility and I have been in touch with some headhunters (and still am). What's come through so far would have cost me more than I would have made (or damn near) but that may change in time. And I appreciate your offer. I may take you up on it some day if I go that route full time.
As for hating it when I post this stuff I'm actually glad to hear it. It means not only you are paying attention but so are others and they are getting pissed off, too. Not because it's me but because it's millions of others like me and that's what I'm trying to get across. We need them pissed off or nothing will change.
I spent TWO YEARS there in the Valley Forge Residence Inn (driving back and forth to Manch NH on weekends) working a CRM project for E Provident Unum's GENEX group. That mall and the area around it is maybe one the most upscale spots I ever saw in the Richmond->Portland Me metroplex.
And you are right, and you HAVE IT RIGHT. Nationwide, no meaningful hiring. Why would there be? NO one can afford to buy anything.
At 62, and having the multinational I had a contract with withdraw all use for this area in terms of the kinds of sales we did of equipment, I'm really only thinking in terms of contract software work now. We formed a corporation to do this (HAH). I will probably be compelled to take SS in 2 months on my 62nd bday and just take the hit to SS pmts when I do contracts.
We should be okay, but ONLY because we have no mortgage or car pmts. I will NOT be able to have health insurance (and haven't for a while) because there is almost no competition here and the entry level with $5k deductible is about $700/month). Since I had a heart attack in 2006 this is not my favorite thing. Because we have too many assets we cannot get ANY state or federal help in that regard.
So, MR, I don't know much about your end of things profession wise, but if there is anything you can think of to do on your own, that is prob the only meaningful work POSSIBLE for the foreseeable future. YEARS. Even if a Repub is 100% successful in what he or she does, and the Telegraph UK is 100% right, you'll be 55+ before the BEGINNINGS of that have impact.
Forget it, and figure you are totally on your own.
What do you have an unfair advantage doing, and love to do?
Other than that, we can grab both families, and head for Vanuatu and subsist on the beach.
For my part, I like it that MR posts this stuff, because I think his situation is emblematic of our times.
If I were not a salesman, I would be in the same situation as he is. A sales guy can usually get a job at any time. However, I have had to take a drastic pay cut, and perhaps even permanently sever myself from my previous road of success. After all, who would hire a guy in the future who went from being a VP to a low-rank salesperson? Wouldn't you think there was something wrong with such a man?
I make 1/5 of what I used to make. I was a business owner and an executive, and now I am a lower rung salesperson in a cubicle in an office full of men who also used to be execs and business owners and who are now making 1/3 to 1/10th of what they used to make.
This economy is ridiculous, absurd and disgusting. It does not have to be this way. It is mostly Obama's fault.
I agree, keep posting this MR.
My stomach turns on every post and I wish there was something I could do, but it's something we HAVE to read.
It's important
($&)@$#& Pasto & Epa, I don't want to hear it!!!
I'm already bummed out enuf w/MRs plight. Not to mention AoW.
This crap is not supposed to happen in the US. Not that we're too good for it to happen but that our gov't should not be making matters worse.
Not hearing it doesn't help.
It just makes it distant and less real.
It's real.
Of the three of us, MR, Pasto and myself, do you realize not ONE OF US hits the national stats as unemployed?
Or actually underemployed?
Can you imagine what's REALLY GOING ON?
How much talent is being wasted?
Post a Comment