Out of Work Bum

In my last post I related how I was going to do a couple of weeks work stringing wire in some new buildings – work I left over 20 years ago.  Well, I did and I am back looking for a permanent job.  I mentioned in that post that there were times in the last few years where I wished for those “simpler times.”  I got that wish over the last couple of weeks.  It was two weeks of 10 hour days running and terminating voice and data cables.  If you have never done it it is hard to explain but you spend a lot of time on your feet neatly bundling thousands of wires and connecting them to patch panels and connecting blocks.  I won’t bore you with the details but separating and connecting thousands of wires is tough on the fingers. 

I must say, however, that I rediscovered why I got out of that kind of work and what I liked about it.  It can be grueling, monotonous, and sometimes dangerous but it can also be freeing.  There is no worrying about making sales numbers or preparing for a big presentation.  It is work that has a known set of tasks and  a defined end.  When you finish it is over and you don’t end the day worrying about tomorrow.  You leave the job and forget about it.   I also found that during some of the more repetitive tasks I could let my mind wander – something that was impossible during my stints as an executive.

That being said I am anxious to be getting back to to work.  There may be a time in the future where I can take on simpler, though less phyiscal, jobs but with two kids in college it isn’t now.

I haven’t posted in a while because I have been busy working — kind of.  I have been out of work for over four months and it is really starting to hurt.  I have reached the point where I am doing any odd job for money.  For instance I recently pet sat for an employed friend who went to Las Vegas with his wife.  Yes, I am jealous in case you were wondering.  I am also very good with computers and networking (I have spent 20 odd years in high tech.)  I have taken to working on the computers of friends and friends of friends.  These odd jobs don’t earn much but, as the title of this post says, “anything for a buck.”

Most recently my odd jobs have turned back the clock over 25 years.  See, I started out in the tech business in the construction end.  I have climbed poles to string cable TV cable.  I spent years pulling wire in offices buildings, hotels, hospitals, and new construction for telephone, TV, security, and various other systems.  When I was doing it 25 years ago all I could think of was how to get to a point where I didn’t have to do it any more.  I did, and spent the last 25 years as a very successful executive.  Ironically, there were periods when I was stressing over budgets or the latest sales figures where I wished for those simple earlier times when you did a job during the day and forgot about it at night.  Well, be careful what you wish for — you might get it.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am not complaining.  I am thankful for a couple of weeks work.  I even remember all of the “tricks of the trade” for wiring a building.  Some things you never forget.  Besides, right now it is anything for a buck.  I still have a family to feed.

Those of us looking for work have seen incredibly fierce competition for the few jobs that are available.  Recent government data confirms it.  According to the Labor Department there are currently an average of 6.3 unemployed job seekers for each opening.  That is the highest since the Labor Department began tracking the data in 2000.  As a benchmark there were 1.7 job seekers for each job back when the recession officially began back in December, 2007.

The report said that there were 14.9 million of us out of work in August.  Experts say that the unemployment rate will continue to rise through the middle of 2010 peaking at over 10%.  They also say that the unemployment will stay in the 8%-9% range (where it is today) until at least 2012.  Another unpleasant benchmark – the last tile unemployment exceeded 10% was in 1982.  I am old enough to have been in the workforce in ‘82.  It was not a pleasant time.  Many of the people working (or not working as the case may be) have never seen a time as bad as this. 

All I can say is “hold on.”  It is going to be an extremely ugly ride.

The latest unemployment figures are in from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  It looks like that despite the recent positive news about the economy unemployment is still on the rise.  I posted the statistics in the Labor Statistics page.  

A couple of major highlights are:
Unemployment rate is 9.8% –  up 0.1% from August.
The labor force is down another 571,000 people.

The economists say that employment is a lagging indicator in an economic recovery.  Let’s hope it doesn’t lag too much.  I and the other 9 million or so people out of work could really use a job.

About two months ago, in the post Starting a New Adventure,   I posted about forming an LLC with a friend as a hedge against the current dismal job market.  A lot has happened since then.  My friend was able to find a job.  He is woefully under-employed but, hey,  a job is a job.  I, on the other hand, am still unemployed and am focusing my attention on getting the business off the ground.  In the last couple of months I have completed the LLC filing, set up the business accounts, put up a website and secured my first customer.  I still have a long, long way to go before I can replace the six figure salary I used to have but it is a start.  Now the trick is to get customers.

Anybody who has started a business will tell you that getting those first customers is the most difficult part of starting up – and they are right.  I have been doing the standard things like networking, writing articles, speaking at business groups.  It looks like it is starting to work.  I got a call today from an attendee at a  recent talk I gave to a local business group.  We will see if it turns into a paying customer.

I still look for jobs and will take one if I get a good offer but in reality I hope the business takes off first.  I could get used to being my own boss.

As I wrote a couple of posts ago the national unemployment was 9.7% in August. While this number is disheartening, exactly how much so depends on where you live. I have friends all over the country. As I talk to them about the job situation I hear responses that range from “not too bad here” to “this is the worst it has ever been.” I became curious about why I wasn’t getting the same level of commiseration from all of my friends. I did some research (being unemployed I have a lot of time on my hands) and found out that severity of the unemployment situation depends on where you live. I expected it to vary from state to state but not as much as the numbers demonstrate. For all who are interested I have started collecting the unemployment numbers from the Department of Labor and posting them in the Labor Statistics category on this blog.  What I found is that the unemployment rate varies from 4.9% in South Dakota to 15.2% in Michigan.

We Americans have always been a more mobile workforce than others around the world.  Historically, I think that has been one of our strengths.  Today’s job market will only strengthen that trend.  Unfortunately, it will  further hurt regions where the jobs situation has only exacerbated a dismal housing market.

The state where I live has an unemployment rate in the 8%+ range and I have been out of work for several months. So, I for one, am going to broaden my job search to include states with lower unemployment.  Who knows, living in South Dakota might just be an adventure.  After all, it could be worse.  I could live in Michigan.

When you are unemployed as I am you spend a lot of time on the Internet. Much of it is spent looking for a job. Whether it is browsing company career sites,  pouring over the latest Monster posts, or trying to network on Linkedin I spend a lot of time on the web looking for a job.  As I search around the web I have begun to notice more and more ads touting ways to make money on the web.  Maybe they have always been there and I am just paying more attention as my bank balance keeps sinking.  You know the ones I mean.  You see things like YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A GENIUS TO SUCCEED or Learn how to make money online with Mike G and you have to wonder -  are they for real? 

I also see other offers that seem more legitimate like this one for making money with Google — Learn how to make money on Google or this one for freelance writers — Earn extra cash as a Freelance writer.  I know that all of them can’t be scams.  I know someone that operates several websites and does indeed pay for blog posts by experts on particular topics.

So the question is “How do you know which ones are legit and which ones are scams?”  If any of my out of work brothers or sisters have any experience with these type of Internet “opportunities” I would love to hear from you.  These days we all could use some extra income.

Does the headline for this post sound confusing?  It should.  According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Labor, the number of people filing new unemployment claims decreased by 12,000 to 545,000 seasonally adjusted (whatever that means.)   In the same release, two paragraphs later, they say that the seasonally adjusted number for insured unemployed rose to 6,230,000, an increase of 129,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 6,101,000.  So. . .the rate is going down but unemployment is still rising.  Gotta love the government’s numbers.

Some more interesting Numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor:

Unemployment Rate:
9.7% in Aug 2009
Historical Data

Change in Unemployment Level:
+466,000 in Aug 2009
Historical Data

Change in Employment Level:
-392,000 in Aug 2009
Historical Data

Unfortunately, for those of us who are unemployed, this looks to be a long dry spell.

In one of my early posts, Being your own boss,  I talked about using this time of unemployment as an opportunity to look at starting your own business.  I have a former colleague who did just that. After getting laid off he looked around for something to do to earn some money.  What he found was that there was a need among small law firms for someone who could do full service process server work.

If you don’t know what a process server is they are the people who hand deliver subpoenas, divorce papers and the like.  Process severs also file papers with the courts.  I am not in the legal business but from what I understand even the simplest legal matters generate a significant amount of paperwork that must hand delivered to various places. 

What my friend discovered is a niche.  Larger law firms can afford staff to handle the paperwork.  Smaller firms or single practitioners are forced to use the sheriff or a delivery service that does process server work as a sideline.  The sheriff will deliver the papers for free but on their time schedule.  The delivery services will deliver the papers but treat them as any other package.  For the small law firm neither of these is a great option.  Many of the documents are time sensitive and can’t wait until the sheriff gets around to it.  In some cases there is follow up paperwork that must be filed and notarized which the delivery services aren’t prepared to do.

What my friend did was to take the process server course (processor servers are licensed by the state) and started his own business called Tracy Legal Services.  What he is able to do is to provide the full services that the smaller law firm needs but a reasonable prices.  I think he has the opportunity to build a nice business here.  Glad to see someone who took the initiative to do his own thing.

After I received the “world’s fastest rejection” that I wrote about in my previous post  I started thinking about the automated systems many companies  use  to go through the hundreds of resumes the receive.  As I thought about how these systems work (I am from the tech industry, after all) I began to equate them to the search engines we all use every day.  Now I know that search engines like Google and bing use very sophisticated algorithms to rank the information they get by crawling millions of web pages every day but it wasn’t always that way.   In the early days of search, the engines  simply looked for keywords in the text of the page and used them to determine what web page to display for a particular search. What does that have to do with your resume?  Well, let me explain.

Many of the automated HR systems that companies use have rudimentary search engine functions.  This function searches the resumes in the company’s database for particular keywords that relate to an open position.  The resumes with the best match are delivered to the HR or hiring manager. So, how do you make sure that your resume makes the cut?  Take a lesson from online marketeers by using some of the same optimization techniques.

There are hundreds of sites and blogs dedicated to SEO so I won’t go into it here but there are a few simple techniques  that can help.  First, read the job posting carefully and try to figure out what they are really looking for.  Most times you will be able to get an idea from the posting what keywords might fit the best.  Next, try to work those keywords into the resume  you submit for that particular job. I know this means customizing a resume for almost every job but your resume has to rise above the rest to even be seen by a person.  Don’t go overboard though. Remember that once your resume makes it through the automated system it will be reviewed by a real person.  It should make sense to the human reviewer as well.  Also, don’t get too fancy with the look and feel of your resume.  Remember the automated systems can only read the text and are easily confused by fancy formatting.  You can still have a attractive resume to hand out to people but the automated system won’t care what it looks like.

So, take a lesson from the search engines and create an optimized,  machine readable resume  for submissions to automated systems.