#the job search

[burnt-kloverfield]

I'm on the job hunt so applying all over. I did a phone interview today, and it turns out that they're literally a staffing agency for a job that I interviewed for a week ago lolllllll. The moment they found out, the guy I was talking with went: "ou, do you want us to follow up on that job? See what they've said? put you in front of them again?" I'm just laughing like yeah absolutely let's do that. I need a job my good sir

[alinaandalion]

so i currently have two camps of opinions on this whole job search thing. 

husband, dad, and dad’s wife all think i should take the first good opportunity that comes along because i am currently a ball of anxiety over this job search.  struggling to eat, can’t sleep, constantly crying, and it’s only been two weeks.  also, no actual job offer has materialized, just the strong possibility of one.

mentors and one of my aunts think i shouldn’t sell myself short and should be more patient.  that i have the opportunity to think about what i want out of my career and shouldn’t settle.

i am currently absolutely miserable.  i know where i want to go in the future.  i know i need to get my cpa to do it, which requires a lot of outside work to study and pass.  husband’s salary covers all of our living expenses so whatever i make can just go straight into savings for our future. i also have to think about the fact that i want to start a family sooner rather than later and unfortunately for me as a woman, that means i can’t risk job-hunting while pregnant.

i have four interviews scheduled for monday and tuesday.  i have another application that i think i will hear back very soon to set up an interview.  i am not in a bad position.  i feel like i might be selling myself short if i do get a job offer from that interview.  on the other hand, it’s a job i know i can do and master and that could allow me the room i need to study.  i’ve already tried to get my cpa while being stretched at work and that didn’t work out because i am incapable of not choosing work because i always live a little bit in fear of being fired (public accounting job really made that even worse than where i started because that threat was actually constantly hanging over my head. there’s a reason not a single person who started there with me stayed and it wasn’t just the brutal hours.)

i still don’t know what to do.

[beaft]

do genuinely find it fascinating how indeed.com is like the biggest job-hunting website out there and yet manages to be profoundly useless in every possible way

[whydidisavethistomyphone]

[littlelovedsilverlining]

Me applying to several positions at the same company:

[eruptedinlight]

Saru: A Flat Ass Icon

[crazygnomenclature]

[thatbadadvice]

Help! I'm a Perfect Genius, but This Potential Employer Asked Me a Boring Interview Question!

Ask A Manager, 13 Feb 2024:

I was rejected from a role for not answering an interview question. I had all the skills they asked for, and the recruiter and hiring manager loved me. I had a final round of interviews — a peer on the hiring team, a peer from another team that I would work closely with, the director of both teams (so my would-be grandboss, which I thought was weird), and then finally a technical test with the hiring manager I had already spoken to. (I don’t know if it matters but I’m male and everyone I interviewed with was female.) The interviews went great, except the grandboss. I asked why she was interviewing me since it was a technical position and she was clearly some kind of middle manager. She told me she had a technical background (although she had been in management 10 years so it’s not like her experience was even relevant), but that she was interviewing for things like communication, ability to prioritize, and soft skills. I still thought it was weird to interview with my boss’s boss. She asked pretty standard (and boring) questions, which I aced. But then she asked me to tell her about the biggest mistake I’ve made in my career and how I handled it. I told her I’m a professional and I don’t make mistakes, and she argued with me! She said everyone makes mistakes, but what matters is how you handle them and prevent the same mistake from happening in the future. I told her maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since I actually went to school for it, I didn’t have that problem. She seemed fine with it and we moved on with the interview. A couple days later, the recruiter emailed me to say they had decided to go with someone else. I asked for feedback on why I wasn’t chosen and she said there were other candidates who were stronger. I wrote back and asked if the grandboss had been the reason I didn’t get the job, and she just told me again that the hiring panel made the decision to hire someone else. I looked the grandboss up on LinkedIn after the rejection and she was a developer at two industry leaders and then an executive at a third. She was also connected to a number of well-known C-level people in our city and industry. I’m thinking of mailing her on LinkedIn to explain why her question was wrong and asking if she’ll consider me for future positions at her company but my wife says it’s a bad idea. What do you think about me mailing her to try to explain?

Sir,

You have been wronged in the most grievous of ways by a coven of retaliatory, self-aggrandizing women who have failed in the extreme to recognize your brilliance, your talent, and above all, your general superiority.

Of course you should mail this mediocre "grandboss" on LinkedIn to inform her of the deep offense she caused you by interviewing you in the first place, let alone doing so using a boring question — indeed, you have a moral and professional obligation to do so in order to preserve your honor and the honor of scores of men like you who have never done a single solitary thing wrong in their lives, ever.

But I beg you to consider doing more. A single, private message to one incompetent bitch may not convey to the necessary parties the depth and breadth of the situation. Many, many people have important lessons to learn from your experience, and I encourage you to share it widely. Consider making a public LinkedIn post, and ensure that it is shareable across platforms. Depending on your financial resources, a billboard with your name, professional headshot, and contact information could go a long way toward ensuring that everyone in your industry who needs to know just how you handled the way these women treated you, does know about it. I hope that in your continuing job search, you are able to connect with potential employers who have a much better grasp of all you bring to the table.

[sickofthis666]

Every time I find myself hesitating to apply to a job offer because I don't have all the qualifications required, I think back on that tumblr post I saw years ago (when this website was feminist), quoting a study that said that men tended to apply to offers when they fit 30 to 40% of the requirements, while women would only do so when fitting 80-90%.

And I apply.

[magnificent-winged-beast]

November 5th first Aid Kit

I'm recently unemployed, but I only can think It's November 4 and yet, I feel unprepared for tomorrow.

[directactionforhope]

"Starting this month [June 2024], thousands of young people will begin doing climate-related work around the West as part of a new service-based federal jobs program, the American Climate Corps, or ACC. The jobs they do will vary, from wildland firefighters and “lawn busters” to urban farm fellows and traditional ecological knowledge stewards. Some will work on food security or energy conservation in cities, while others will tackle invasive species and stream restoration on public land. 

The Climate Corps was modeled on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, with the goal of eventually creating tens of thousands of jobs while simultaneously addressing the impacts of climate change. 

Applications were released on Earth Day, and Maggie Thomas, President Joe Biden’s special assistant on climate, told High Country News that the program’s website has already had hundreds of thousands of views. Since its launch, nearly 250 jobs across the West have been posted, accounting for more than half of all the listed ACC positions. 

“Obviously, the West is facing tremendous impacts of climate change,” Thomas said. “It’s changing faster than many other parts of the country. If you look at wildfire, if you look at extreme heat, there are so many impacts. I think that there’s a huge role for the American Climate Corps to be tackling those crises.”  

Most of the current positions are staffed through state or nonprofit entities, such as the Montana Conservation Corps or Great Basin Institute, many of which work in partnership with federal agencies that manage public lands across the West. In New Mexico, for example, members of Conservation Legacy’s Ecological Monitoring Crew will help the Bureau of Land Management collect soil and vegetation data. In Oregon, young people will join the U.S. Department of Agriculture, working in firefighting, fuel reduction and timber management in national forests. 

New jobs are being added regularly. Deadlines for summer positions have largely passed, but new postings for hundreds more positions are due later this year or on a rolling basis, such as the Working Lands Program, which is focused on “climate-smart agriculture.”  ...

On the ACC website, applicants can sort jobs by state, work environment and focus area, such as “Indigenous knowledge reclamation” or “food waste reduction.” Job descriptions include an hourly pay equivalent — some corps jobs pay weekly or term-based stipends instead of an hourly wage — and benefits. The site is fairly user-friendly, in part owing to suggestions made by the young people who participated in the ACC listening sessions earlier this year...

The sessions helped determine other priorities as well, Thomas said, including creating good-paying jobs that could lead to long-term careers, as well as alignment with the president’s Justice40 initiative, which mandates that at least 40% of federal climate funds must go to marginalized communities that are disproportionately impacted by climate change and pollution. 

High Country News found that 30% of jobs listed across the West have explicit justice and equity language, from affordable housing in low-income communities to Indigenous knowledge and cultural reclamation for Native youth...

While the administration aims for all positions to pay at least $15 an hour, the lowest-paid position in the West is currently listed at $11 an hour. Benefits also vary widely, though most include an education benefit, and, in some cases, health care, child care and housing. 

All corps members will have access to pre-apprenticeship curriculum through the North America’s Building Trades Union. Matthew Mayers, director of the Green Workers Alliance, called this an important step for young people who want to pursue union jobs in renewable energy. Some members will also be eligible for the federal pathways program, which was recently expanded to increase opportunities for permanent positions in the federal government...

 “To think that there will be young people in every community across the country working on climate solutions and really being equipped with the tools they need to succeed in the workforce of the future,” Thomas said, “to me, that is going to be an incredible thing to see.”"

-via High Country News, June 6, 2024

--

Note: You can browse Climate Corps job postings here, on the Climate Corps website. There are currently 314 jobs posted at time of writing!

Also, it says the goal is to pay at least $15 an hour for all jobs (not 100% meeting that goal rn), but lots of postings pay higher than that, including some over $20/hour!!

[burnt-kloverfield]

What the heck is with interviewers being so rude? The ladies I was interviewing with today for a bank teller position were completely checked out and uninterested in the interview? Like I get it, this is probably uninteresting interview number 12 of the day, but I tried to engage and ask how long they had been working there, and the one girl who was the one asking all the questions and pretty much leading the interview had to nudge the other girl and reiterate my question. She was completely checked out. Like I am trying to pay my bills by pretending to be a functioning neurotypical adult, If I have to play the "eye contact for long enough to show that I am interested but not long enough to show that I am a serial killer" game, then you have to, too. I learned my manners. I expect you neurotypical people to know your manners, too. Like isn't that your gosh dang thing?

[alinaandalion]

the absolute Stress of having a good interview and then having to decide if the job is indeed a correct fit or if I would just be settling out of fear of not getting anything else.

like, would this position actually be a step backwards career-wise or am i vastly overestimating my abilities here. someone else tell me because god knows i have no ability to develop a rational perspective.

[copperbadge]

I've started to build a bookmark file of jobsearch sites to check regularly, and part of that is looking around at employers local to Chicago. On a whim I went to the careers site of one of the larger corporations headquartered here, and while I was poking around to see what kind of requirements they have for what kind of jobs, I came across the worst tabletop campaign ever:

We’re looking for a data product expert who’s also the ultimate puzzle/dungeon master. Your quest: work with a group of diverse stakeholders to discover key problems to solve and drive consensus, adoption of data standards. The treasure? A faster, more resilient and reliable data system...

That's terrible and funny all on its own, but it gets even better when you know what Large Evil Chicago Corporation I was looking at:

McDonald's.

[turtledotjpeg]

i want one too

[lackadaisical-refrigerator]

Dystopian button my friend saw during a job application