After starting my own successful consulting business I have decided to try and give back and help people who have lost their jobs in this recession. I share tips of what to do, how to stay up to date and lead some Twitter chats where people can come together and vent and share information. However I am starting to notice that a lot of the long term unemployed are developing emotional scars that are not going the heal quickly. It is the scar of feeling like you are worthless and of no light at the end of the tunnel.
I met Karen via a connection on LinkedIn. She had an impressive background of actually providing value and results for every company she has ever worked for. She was laid off from her job almost 2 years ago not and when I hadn’t heard from her in awhile I got a very long email mixed with dispair and frustration.
“I have given up really looking for work”, she said, “I mean how many times do I need to send out a resume and never hear back from anyone. Even though I have an MBA and am doing some consulting I just don’t think there is any opportunity for someone who wants to really make a difference”. Ouch.
She told me of going to job fairs which she described as a “humiliating and humbling experience” but what really took the wind out of her sails was the last position she interviewed for. ”The job was perfect for me, a strategy interactive job that fell right into my strengths. I interviewed for almost 2 months and as they were getting ready to make me an offer I was told the job was put on hold due to current business conditions. After that no word from them or the recruiter, it’s like I didn’t exist anymore. To get so close only to have it taken away from me underfoot is really demotivating”.
Welcome to a buyers market. The truth is that employers get hundreds of resumes for open jobs and that its not about finding the perfect person to add value it’s about getting the right person who can do the job at a rock bottom price.
The long term unemployed do not show up on the unemployment numbers. They spend there days looking over job boards trying to network and doing everything that “experts” tell them to do but they are not finding the doors open when they knock. Some say that in the current state of the economy we will not get back to prerecession employment levels until 2016. That means that a lot of people are going to take a big hit to their self esteem.
Karen has been quoted on Mashable and some other great marketing BLOGs and you would think that somewhere someone would reach out her and ask her if she is looking to join their company but alas that has not happened. She is single and her 40′s and can relocate for the right opportunity but the silence of people not calling back is deafening.
Believe it or not this economy WILL turn around and when it does a lot of employers who laid people off to make numbers are going to find that a lot of their current employees are leaving and that candidates are now saying “no thanks” because there are other options. When businesses learn to treat their employees as people not number on a report they will become a stronger organization. Until then a lot more people are going to be scarred by long term unemployment.
Hey Rich,
Thank you for your blog re: scars of long-term unemployment. I was especially moved by Karen’s story! The quote that her last 2 years have been a “humiliating and humbling experience” is so accurate.
I have been actively searching for employment for the last 10 months and have been “doing everything that ‘experts’ tell me to do”. Similar to Karen I have a MBA along with two BSc degrees and considerable experience in adding value to the organizations I have worked for.
Your last point about how businesses that learn to treat their employees as people not a number on a report will result in that organization becoming stronger hopefully will play out in the near future i.e. organizations that truly care about their “most important resource” will be rewarded!
Thanks Rich. This was a great piece. I hope Karen is reading as this is something that made me chuckle the other day.
http://www.bnet.com/blog/evil-hr-lady/why-you-weren-8217t-hired-even-though-you-8217re-fabulous/2148
Suzanne Lucas is brillant and really right from the heart for you job hunters (and employed) out there! Hang in there.
“Believe it or not this economy WILL turn around”
How long have I been hearing that? Since I came out in the middle of a management fad, at least, I believe, back during the last century. The fad was to refuse to fill any position by hiring anybody without 2-5 years of relevant work experience; to absolutely, stubbornly refuse to offer any entry level opportunities whatsoever. The theory seemed to be that one could let other companies go to the trouble of doing for my peers as others once did for your peers, Rich, and break in new employees. A few years later, people started noticing a shortage of junior professionals. Imagine that. The fad went away, for a little bit, but those of us who had been rendered long term unemployed by it were now being refused employment on the basis that we were among the long term unemployed. As we remain to this day, by and large, seeking vainly for somebody, anybody willing to admit that there is something more than a little unjust about this history of discrimination. Having given up on any hope of getting past that discrimination, one might at least hope to hear an admission that one was done an injustice, and one doesn’t even get that.
“Welcome to a buyers market. The truth is that employers get hundreds of resumes for open jobs”
The reality is that there are thousands of employers, so in rational terms, no, it really isn’t a buyer’s market. It’s just a market in which the buyers (aka human resources “professionals”) are unmotivated, stoned out whack jobs on power trips, who’ve encountered little other than cheerleading from the bulk of the American population. Those of us who have been victimized by this have been far too patient for far too long. So, I’m going to offer a more rational suggestion, even if it’s one that you don’t like.
Those who skilled in language aquisition should seek out what work they can find abroad, without giving the slightest amount of regard for the well being of the country that tossed them into the gutter, just to prove that it could. If one is a nuclear engineer, and the only would be employer is Al Quaeda? Go for it. The newly employed professional lives a little more easily, and as for the collateral damage, who cares? A few cities going up in nuclear fireballs would probably have a saluatory effect on the attitudes of what remained of the American people. If not, then doing one’s part to turn this worthless country into a lifeless radioactive wasteland would, at least, offer some small measure of satisfaction to those of us who’ve had so much taken from us, with so little justification.
Pride goeth before a fall, and the American people have been proud beyond all reason. It is time that they were brought down to earth, forcibly and with as little mercy as they’ve chosen to show to their often randomly selected victims, both at home and abroad. Obviously, nothing other than carnage will be enough to get the point across.
Yes, the economy will turn around, but many white collar jobs are gone forever, due to factors like outsourcing. What’s wrong with retraining for a blue collar job? It wouldn’t kill some of these people to do a job other than sitting behind a desk.
I see the picture clearly now. Many people are sitting home, refusing to work “just any job” and waiting for the economy to turn around. It won’t turn around for a long time, and again, your cool, comfortable office job may not come back.
I wish you luck ’cause you will need it.