Encouragement for People Looking For Work

[Leadfoot5311]

Well, I know it's tough trying to find work in this day and age, especially for young people, so I just wanted to share my story, for some encouragement to you guys

Ever since I was 14, I wanted to try to get some sort of job, except I had horrible luck. People told me to go to my "Local Teen Center" when I was 16, to get help with my resume and stuff: Well, that place shut down a couple months before my 16th birthday! Also, with health problems hitting me hard from a church missions trip, I could hardly do school, let alone work!

Then a lot of companies kept on saying "Once you turn 18, we'll hire you!" The companies included: Hollywood Video, Game Crazy, CompUSA, Best Buy Borders, Blockbuster, and Verizon Wireless. See what most of those companies had in common? Verizon, the only company that didn't shut down, apparently changed policies to require employees to have a BA, so I was up a creek there.

When I turned 18, one of my friends offered to give me a part time job, at his company that makes apparel for race car teams. I was basically the shipping consultant, so I organized shipments that came in and out of our warehouse. The job was alright, but I didn't enjoy it. He ended up basically letting me go 6 months later, because he needed to hire someone with experience in screen printing T-Shirts.

In 2012, I got hired at a Honda dealership to do auto detailing. It was a pretty fun job, but health problems kept me from working at my full potential, and then had some other issues arise, so I ended up quitting 2 weeks in.

In 2013 I had interviews with these companies
Best Buy (3 interviews at 2 locations)
In-N-Out Burger
Five Guys Burgers
Sprint
AT&T
Target
Ford Dealership
Toyota Dealership
Honda Dealership

And had no job to show for it. Then I decided at the end of 2013 to just be like "God, I give up, you pick!" and stopped "trying".

Ten days later, I got a job, working as a blogger for a website, Home

 

[TheAristocat]

Well, I know it's tough trying to find work in this day and age, especially for young people, so I just wanted to share my story, for some encouragement to you guys

Ever since I was 14, I wanted to try to get some sort of job, except I had horrible luck. People told me to go to my "Local Teen Center" when I was 16, to get help with my resume and stuff: Well, that place shut down a couple months before my 16th birthday! Also, with health problems hitting me hard from a church missions trip, I could hardly do school, let alone work!

Then a lot of companies kept on saying "Once you turn 18, we'll hire you!" The companies included: Hollywood Video, Game Crazy, CompUSA, Best Buy Borders, Blockbuster, and Verizon Wireless. See what most of those companies had in common? Verizon, the only company that didn't shut down, apparently changed policies to require employees to have a BA, so I was up a creek there.

When I turned 18, one of my friends offered to give me a part time job, at his company that makes apparel for race car teams. I was basically the shipping consultant, so I organized shipments that came in and out of our warehouse. The job was alright, but I didn't enjoy it. He ended up basically letting me go 6 months later, because he needed to hire someone with experience in screen printing T-Shirts.

In 2012, I got hired at a Honda dealership to do auto detailing. It was a pretty fun job, but health problems kept me from working at my full potential, and then had some other issues arise, so I ended up quitting 2 weeks in.

In 2013 I had interviews with these companies
Best Buy (3 interviews at 2 locations)
In-N-Out Burger
Five Guys Burgers
Sprint
AT&T
Target
Ford Dealership
Toyota Dealership
Honda Dealership

And had no job to show for it. Then I decided at the end of 2013 to just be like "God, I give up, you pick!" and stopped "trying".

Ten days later, I got a job, working as a blogger for a website, Home

But how'd you get the job if you stopped trying? o_o

When I was a teen I always used to think that job skills are more important than social connections for finding a job. Because companies are only looking for a set of skills to get done what they want done, right? Well, yes and no. There are a lot of people. You need good social skills to get recommendations or otherwise stand out of the crowd. Whether or not you have good job skills determines if you can keep the job. But social skills are more important to finding a job than job skills sometimes. Especially when nepotism enters the fray as is its wont.

But I remember that I applied to several different places, while working for my grandparents. Fast food joints were turning me down. Garbage disposal sites were turning me down. I had 5 years of college and university under my belt. No degree, though. Switched majors. Then I got a job at a McDonald's as a truck stocker, working two days a week. And that was because my mom already worked there as a shift manager. Before this a friend of mine had told me that during one summer he had applied to 30 different places before he found a job. So if you're starting out you definitely can't be picky.

 

[Leadfoot5311]

What I mean by "I stopped trying", was I effectively turned the job hunting into my idol of sorts. I applied to around 147 different places (I stopped keeping count around October), and only had those places to interview at.

Basically when I decided to put that stuff behind me, this job covering my favorite hobby just popped up