(no subject)

[badstar]

So the county fair thing didn't work out so well...I made it three out of five days. It was utter hell and on the fourth day, I decided not to go because I had almost no sleep the night before and it was Saturday. The way it went the previous three days on full sleep, I barely made it through and on no sleep, and knowing that it would be far more busy on a Saturday, I was either going to have a massive panic attack or haul off and rail someone in the first hour- both of which very nearly happened the day before. Not wanting to deal with a massive panic attack or assault charges (seriously, it was a matter of "when", not "if") I decided to forgo the last two days. I still made some money, I just can't put this on a resume.

How bad was it? Okay, I don't feel like going into all the details (maybe later, maybe not) butput it this way: I would rather do three months of black friday in retail...or a year's worth of tech support where Apple launched a new version of it's OS every day than another week of this.

I've had three interviews for jobs this week (woohoo) and I think that makes it six since I've gotten here- not counting the "interview" at Kelly Services which is absolutely useless. I call from time to time to check with them and it goes something like this:

Me: Hi, I was just calling to check and see if you have any positions available for which I'm qualified?"

Them: "We don't have any tech support work."

Me: "Okay, what about anyhting else that I might be able to do?"

Them: "We don't have any tech support positions."

Me: "Customer service? Data entry? I know technical support was the last thing I did but I am willing and able to do other things. Can I come in and take some of your assessments for Microsoft Office and other such software?"

Them: "We don't have any tech support work. Sorry. You can try calling back some other time if you want." *click*

(either that, or they tell me everyone's in a meeting and someone will call me back in an hour or so and I never hear from them.)

Then there's Office Team. They list jobs on some of the big sites like Career Builder, and they also have them on their own website. I call to ask about something that I found on Careerbuilder and get told that they hired for that position a week ago and that their web site is the most up to date source of information. But they don't get a lot of technical support work, so they might not be of much help to me. They get customer service work, but I've never done that so I wouldn't qualify for most positions.

I had to sit there and explain to the woman that I have done customer service work at my previous employer- it's there on my resume. And technical support IS customer service work. you know, someone calls up with a problem or a question and you help them with it. (What I didn't say was "Lady, listen, do you realize that tech support is just your basic customer service phone jockeying with about eleventy-eight times the headache?")

She says "Oh...okay, well I guess we can consider you for other call center positions then.

Yesterday I was looking over their job listings for the area. I didn't have a lot of luck finding anyhting until I just started clicking all the keywords to see what there was to see. I found three customer service jobs listed under "secretary-junior" I called in to ask about them and got a call back a few hours later...and am told that these jobs are all telemarketing positions (sadly, at this point, I would be willing to take a telemarketing job until I could find something else) but...they all want someone with immediate recent telemarketing experience. Which I don't have.

I point out that it's really difficult to tell what anything is supposed to be when a job titled "customer service" only shows up under the "secretary-junior" keyword and turns out to be a telemarketing position. The job descriptions mentioned nothing about telemarketing- in fact they specifically mentioned fielding inbound calls. I was told that this was because sometimes the employer changes their mind about what they want the position to be after the posting has already been made. It's your stupid website, you're telling me you can't be bothered to update it so people know what they're looking at?

*sigh*

On an amusing note, I was looking at the phone book this morning and saw that the local Yellow Pages have a heading for, of all things, yurts. There's a company in a nearby town that uh- sells? builds? yurts. This made both myself and Gavin happy. (Not that we particularly want a yurt. It just amused us.)

Comments

[linzbinz.livejournal.com]

Yeah, y'know the yurt company? My friend just bought one from them. FUNNY.

[rachel-w-wings.livejournal.com]

I have the exact same problem. I've been working nothing but call center positions the last five years, and anytime I call to be considered for a position that I know I can do (receptionist is pretty damn near call center work, thanks guys!)they're like, BHWA?! We don't have any call center positions for you....Dude, I'm not THAT old. I can learn to make coffee/bake bread/sell dildos. I SWEAR. Gah. It is frustrating....

[fuego.livejournal.com]

I figured it probably wasn't just me. I just don't get...are they trying to say that they don't have any positions that I could be qualified to do and they're trying to not hurt my feelings...or are they saying that they just won't consider me for anyhting else? I might try asking next time I call. It's not like I'll be any worse off for it.

I had an interview a few weeks back with the UofO bookstore...and they didn't hire me. When asked why, I was told that it had to do with the fact that I was talking about the importance of communication between coworkers in the interview. Uh, what? This is a problem how?

They probably hired the girl who was all "Uh when I don't agree with a policy, I just go along with it and shut up because I'm being paid to obey the rules." (It was a group interview)

[rachel-w-wings.livejournal.com]

That sounds super sketchy to me, like they were trying to find an excuse and weren't willing to put in the effort to find a good lie. It's amazing how a lot of employers just don't have the balls to be honest...
I seem to have the best luck with Craigslist, indeed.com, and taking advantage of the worksource's unlimited resume printing and just handing them out at all the businesses in a neighborhood I like. It's kinda hit-and-miss, obviously :P

[fuego.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've found most of the stuff I've applied for on Craigslist or in person. Thanks for that link- I've never heard of the site before but I see a bunch of stuff that I can apply for just glancing over it. Also, didn't know that they allow unlimited resume printing over at worksource. I don't have a printer right now so I'll definitely have to make sure to take advantage of that.

[erl-queen.livejournal.com]

I think putting a few days of temp work at a county fair on your resume might actually hurt rather than help you, so you probably didn't miss out on anything there.

And yeah, yurts are a big thing out here. You'll see postings on bulletin boards from people looking for some land to set up their yurt on, and you sometimes even see them for rent. It's something I've considered from time to time - if I had the land, it'd certainly be a cheap way to live.

[fuego.livejournal.com]

I think putting a few days of temp work at a county fair on your resume might actually hurt rather than help you, so you probably didn't miss out on anything there.

I'm curious as to why this might be. I figured, if nothing else, it would be someone I've worked for locally, new possible reference and all that. Not to mention something to show that I'm not totally stuck on OMG I have to have nice clean easy office work!

I remember seeing a craigslist positing or two for yurts for rent when we were looking for a place now that you mention it but for soem reason, seeign it in the phone book as its own little category amused me. It was somethign i've never seen before.

Oh, one other thing I saw in the phone book (this was the Dex phone book that they've just recently distributed by the way- ) there is a page with five coupons for High Priestess tattoos and piercings- both the regular one and the mini yellow pages one so, two pages really. don't know if you have any work planned, but I thought it might be something you would want to know about if you haven't already found it yourself.

[erl-queen.livejournal.com]

Ok, looking at this again, I probably stated too strongly - I doubt it would hurt, but I also doubt it would help. The company who actually hires probably isn't local but rather transient (going from fair to fair), and it's not exactly like those things have rigorous hiring processes, so I'm not sure it gives you any points to have worked a few days there. I could be wrong, I certainly don't always understand the minds of HR people. You're right that it could help you with non-office work to show you are fine with that, but OTOH it could hurt with more professional places that might look down on temp carny work (even if it's actually a positive that you're willing to do what it takes).

Thanks for mentioning the HP coupons - I have seen them, but I always pass, because I have a relationship with my tattoo artist and actually prefer to pay him full price (and tip heavily) due to his excellent work. I would consider the coupons for a piercing, but not planning any of those anytime soon.

[fuego.livejournal.com]

The company who actually hires probably isn't local but rather transient (going from fair to fair), and it's not exactly like those things have rigorous hiring processes, so I'm not sure it gives you any points to have worked a few days there.

Hmm, yeah I hadn't really thought about that. The hiring process was basically show up and be close enough to the front of the line that they get to you before all the spots were filled.

You're right that it could help you with non-office work to show you are fine with that, but OTOH it could hurt with more professional places that might look down on temp carny work (even if it's actually a positive that you're willing to do what it takes).

Well, even in this case, I could easily just have two different resumes depending on what I was applying for (for the first time in my life, I am running into places who are asking for a resume to be a cashier at a grocery store. I'm told that's pretty common around here, it's not even extra-obnoxious hoops because of the sucky economy.)

Then again, I could still try putting it on a resume for one or two places and see what kind of reaction it gets. So many places never bother to check references or anything.

Thanks for mentioning the HP coupons - I have seen them, but I always pass, because I have a relationship with my tattoo artist and actually prefer to pay him full price (and tip heavily) due to his excellent work.

No problem, I would have said the same for the guy that did my tattoos back in Baltimore.

[blaisepascal]

When I was searching for temp-to-perm work locally, I signed up with all three of the local temp services: Kelly, Manpower, and StafKings. One of them, StafKings, made it clear that they had multiple divisions for different types of jobs: the main StafKings handled clerical, light industrial, etc, StafKings Health Services handled home health aid staffing, and StafKings Professional handled "professional" services, including just about anything in the tech field. It was by sheer luck that one of their regular clerical clients called them for a "computer operator" position to fill in for a couple of weeks, and that I was signed up with them.

What I'm saying is that Kelly may be crap, but asking them (and other temp services) if they have a "professional services" division, and then signing up with them as a tech support person, might work out better than trying Kelly's normal office alone.

[fuego.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the suggestion, yeah I'm familiar with this. Kelly only has one local office in this town and they seem to handle everything as far as I can tell. It was the same back in Baltimore when I tried to go through them in 2006 when I was laid off from the Apple contract. But They actually tried to help me find work there and didn't constantly go "Yeah, we don't have tech support, screw off." I had a couple of interviews through them before I ended up going back to the same company on a different contract.

Office Team is one of the divisions of Robert Half (they've got about fifty-six different divisions it seems. Back in Baltimore, I had been in contact with three different divisions at least briefly.) I had my information transferred to the local Office Team by the Rbert Half technology back in Baltimore. Unfortunately, the nearest RHT is in Portland- a 2 1/2 hour train ride away, and they've told me that once in a great, great while, RHT in Portland gets something for here in Eugene but for the most part, if it's in this area and going through one of their divisions, it's going through OT. There's a couple of other temp services that I've at least talked to (two of my intrerviews this week were through one of those) and I don't think they have different divisions, but yeah, I could certainly check.

[theophania.livejournal.com]

Glad to see that sighted people have stupid job problems too. Mine is the "requires 3-5 years experience", "musthave a car", "musthave a masters or PHD" and of course, the job involving too many visual elements to reasonably be modified. No one has said that last one, btw, it's just something that I could tell from reading the descriptions. I hate how they say "entry level" and then require experience.

[bluedolfyn.livejournal.com]

Kelly Services here is really, *really* awful. Beth had zero luck with them, and they're just ridiculous. I haven't heard much good about them at all.

I'm sorry this is such a struggle for you. I knew it would be -- the job situation here sucks, and it took Beth 8 months to find her job; thank god I was able to transfer -- but that doesn't make it suck any less. :(

[fuego.livejournal.com]

It's still so much better than Baltimore and as the days go by, i'm finding more and more jobs that I can apply for. I sent out four resumes just this morning from Craigslist (and have another one that I need to figure out how to customize for a particular job before I fire it off) and have now found two more websites since yesterday that are full of jobs that I can apply for. After Baltimore, where the fast food restaurants wouldn't even take my applications (and even if they had, we never would have been able to live on what they were paying, we can live on me making minimum wage here), this is halfway to heaven. It's tough...but still so much less tough :-)

[isa-bel-la.livejournal.com]

Good luck with the job search and especially on the recent interviews. I'm in an interview right now and I am really, really nervous (deep down inside, not noticeable on the surface, of course). Have you ever heard of Victoria's Secret before?
The site is here. (http://www.victoriassecret.com/home?cm_mmc=Google-_-VS%20Brand%20II_VS%20Brand-_-phrase-_-victoria%27s%20secret)
That's where I just applied to. So far, they told me, they like the facts that I worked at Starbucks (as my first job) and I still work at Blockbuster, it means I can sale items and still help out with customer services at the same time. But, wow! I know the disappointing feeling of being rejected. So far I was rejected at a book store. :/

So, all the same, my best wishes are with you, my friend. :)

[fuego.livejournal.com]

Thanks. yep, I'm registered with them. I don't know if you caught it, but the last half of my entry was about the Office Team lady...and the monumentally asstarded methods of job classifications on their web site. lol

By the way, since you're in Baltimore and your job has more technical elements to it...I don't know if you're not already registered with them, but you might also want to get in with Robert Half Technology. If you're interested, I can give you the email for the guy that I had been talkign to in Baltimore.