Is it the End of the World when Job Booms become Busts?

by Richard , updated on November 1, 2020

When the economy flattens out or moves into recession it can change the way we view the world around us. It can also conversely alter how we are viewed by the world. When companies and individuals have to tighten their belts it often unfortunately causes a narrowing of perspective.

Taylor Grey Meyer

This is precisely what our guest blogger Taylor Grey Meyer has recently encountered and her experiences and the lessons she has learnt from them are enlightening.

Over to you Taylor…

If you haven’t heard of me I’m relieved.

If you have, don’t expect any apologies for the counter-offer email I wrote back in August to an invitation to apply to spend $500 to attend a job fair.

At that point I’d been to:

  • grad school;
  • flight school;
  • written a children’s book for charity as well as articles for magazines,

and I still couldn’t find work.

The net I was casting was exceptionally wide. I answered ads for bartenders, cocktail servers, sandwich makers, even a minimum wage ticket-selling position for the team who later presented that ludicrous ‘opportunity’.

Interview after interview employers turned me away. They viewed my law school schedule and experience as a major turnoff rather than a strength. Things were so bad that I defaulted on a student loan and was sleeping on a law school friend’s couch. By the time that email was received, I’d had enough!

I quit school and decided to move abroad to teach English.

That’s the back story to what a search engine entry of my name will reveal. An overqualified but unemployed 31 year old with all kinds of experience who finally got her money’s worth from all that education by telling a sports franchise to suck it.

Right away emails started pouring in. Thousands of them from all over the world, from people wanting to share similar experiences from:

  • less than positive HR encounters,
  • to massive pay cuts,
  • from lies they told to appear less qualified and therefore more appealing,
  • to losing homes, and
  • moving back in with parents.

It seems well-educated, experienced and versatile applicants are having the worst time finding jobs. According to the USA Bureau of Labour Statistics roughly 23 million Americans are either unemployed or underemployed. This is a major reason my ‘counter-offer’ struck a chord.  I just happened to follow through with a thought so many people only entertain.

And now I’m at it again writing that is.

I started a blog soon after realising my job seeking experience was not exclusive. Still, this isn’t really something people understand unless they’ve lived it.  From the outside, it sounds ridiculous, not being able to find work when you have a masters or PhD and a well-rounded work history. So what I hope to do through my site and upcoming ventures is help give others in similar situations a voice. A place to relate,
commiserate and hopefully, laugh.

Humour is needed most in the direst of circumstances.

Being broke, out of work and watching your once perfect credit score circle the drain. If you can laugh in the face of a seriously demoralising predicament, you’re on your way to victory.  I’m hoping that if content is delivered in a way that is as informative as it is cathartic, more people will read, submit and share.

I’ve read recent articles about Australia’s projected soft economy, the end of the mining boom, and speculation over increasing bad debts.  I sincerely hope these contractions don’t lead to something Australian professionals can characterise as ‘Jobageddon’.

But if it does come to that, the equivalent of the European and American job crisis, there are a few things to remember…..

Companies..in your struggle to stay in the green, do not endeavour to capitalise on the desperation of job seekers.

Everyone is hit by an economic downturn. Don’t foster bad feelings by giving your potential applicant pool an extra (and unnecessary) smack. Just like you, we don’t like it rough.

HR Managers..be mindful of the power you hold over an applicant’s life.

Act ethically. Be willing to hire experienced professionals, rather than recent graduates you mistakenly believe are less of a risk. Take note of the many studies done that disprove this faulty hiring partiality.

Job Seekers..be flexible and thick-skinned.

Some may label you lazy. You may be given bad advice from people who are lucky enough to never have been out of work. You might be called entitled, because shocker of all shockers, you thought you’d have a job upon finishing school and a way to repay those student loans.  You’ll be told to start your own business by people who seem to forget that doing so costs money, and money is difficult to come by when banks refuse to lend.

Meanwhile, you may feel like there is something seriously wrong with you.

Rest assured there isn’t.

You paid into a system that didn’t deliver what it claimed.

Find a way to be as self-reliant as possible.

Learn a trade or a skill that you can not only fall-back on should you find yourself laid off, but one you can get entrepreneurial about. The old system of being an employee protected by the shade of a company’s umbrella seems to be ending. Don’t depend on companies to offer liveable salaries, provide healthcare (in the U.S., of course), or a pension.

Believe it or not, an economy in recession does bring some options.

Think of it as a freeing influence you can leverage to pursue something you’re passionate about. On the flip side, if the position you had was your dream job, don’t beat yourself up about taking a less fulfilling position.

This isn’t failure. It’s survival.

Don’t let ego dictate what you’re willing to do. There’s no shame in earning a pay check by doing something you’re less than thrilled about. And who knows what doors that less than ideal job might end up opening. It’s all how you spin it. Learn positive self-talk. Commend your industriousness.

You’re becoming stronger and better prepared, attributes that will inevitably lead you to your next lucrative opportunity.

 

Taylor Grey Meyer has a degree in Psychology and has attended graduate school for Sports Management.  She is an author, a designer and has worked as a teacher with at-risk children. She also has a website where she blogs about managing your career and maximising your work and business opportunities.

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Streamlining the process of ‘letting go’ of human resources

by Richard , updated on November 1, 2020

Do you still respect and value the staff you ‘let go’ or are they simply a liability?

Could you be sacked via your Security Card?

InterviewIQ’s own Deborah Barit poses this intriguing question in a fascinating look at how a Swiss Bank handled this conundrum when retrenching their UK based staff.

Take it away Deborah……..

As the demands of work become greater, needing to work smarter and faster, a new streamlined approach has been developed to disengage human resources.

Gone are the days when the human resources or line managers would personally talk to each individual when people needed to be retrenched. Even using outsourcing services may be a luxury. It seems that email and text have gained in popularity. Easy, quick and not personal.

However it seems these approaches may be too time consuming when ‘disengaging’ a significant number of staff.

So why not just cancel your employee’s security passes over the weekend?

They’ll find out soon enough when they can’t get into the building on Monday morning, right?

This is exactly the approach Swiss bank UBS has taken in the UK to minimise the perceived damage staff can do when being let go.

But did UBS think about the long-term collateral damage?

Imagine for a moment you are one of the staff not let go. You arrive at work confronted at the front door by the scene of your (now former) work colleagues who are shocked, confused and upset because they can’t get in. And they now know they’ve been sacked. But you have to walk past them to start your day at work.

  • How unsettled do you feel?
  • What’s going through your mind all day?
  • And when the injustice really hits you, who’s your anger directed at?
  • Where does your loyalty lie now?

When recruiting, organisations want to be viewed as an employer of choice by prospective employees. To feel special and attract the best and brightest to the organisation, many organisations go to great lengths to choose the right people, both by insisting on a number of interviews as well as aptitude testing, psych testing, checking referees and even conducting online searches.

All this takes a lot of time, but at the end of this rigorous selection process, the successful candidate feels they are both special and prepared for the hurdles in an Olympic final.

However when letting human resources go, due to the current economic climate, it seems a carefully planned exit strategy often does not get the same care and attention.

When the economic climate improves they will again need to employ human resources.

What strategies will they use to attract the best and brightest?

While money is very attractive, it will buy the brains but will it buy the commitment and loyalty which each organisation needs to grow their business and increase profits?

I wonder, will the next group of ‘human resources’ trust their employer or will they always be on the lookout for a better deal?

Sitting at their desks with a resume ready to send or a phone call to make and their personal belongings already packed and happily return that security card before it is cancelled.

When human resources managers review the fall out of ill-considered exit strategies, will they yet again reinvent the wheel?

 

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If you could go back in time? what Career Advice would you give to your Younger Self?

by Richard , updated on November 1, 2020

Have you ever really regretted something that you did, shaken your head and thought “If only I could have my time over!”

Isn’t hindsight wonderful!

Just imagine if you had an opportunity to turn back the hands of time and speak to yourself as a 21 year old.

What career advice would you give to yourself?

InterviewIQ’s very own Debbie Scott came up with the idea for this fascinating take on career advice.

Thanks Deb!

We’ve collected the following quotes from some of the top experts in their respective fields.

Let their considerable career and life experience help you to avoid some of the ‘potholes’ in the ‘road of life’.

Whether you’re 21 or, like me just a little bit older, these tips can help you make sound decisions or find the right path in life.

These golden quotes are great examples of the power of networking on Twitter, so I’ve included each of our expert’s twitter handles.

Where was Twitter when I was 21?

“Your career is a long game. Be patient and seek a mentor right away.”

Jessica Merrell, HR, Technology & Workplace Analyst – Oklahoma, USA.  You can follow Jessica on Twitter @blogging4jobs

“My advice? Don’t be afraid to take chances. No risk, no reward. Plus, you learn most from your mistakes!”

Stacy Donovan Zapar, Social Recruiting Trainer – California, USA. You can follow Stacy on Twitter @StacyZapar

“I would say follow your instinct, play with a straight bat always. and work very, very hard.”

Greg Savage, CEO of Firebrand Talent – Sydney, Australia. You can follow Greg on Twitter @Greg_Savage

“Don’t stay in a job that makes you miserable for one more minute. Don’t let fear of the unknown drive you.”

Gayle Howard, Top Margin – Melbourne, Australia. You can follow Gayle on Twitter @GayleHoward

“Taste all the flavours until you find one you love. Sometimes the answer isn’t what it seems. Don’t be afraid to try things outside your comfort zone. Treat life like an adventure!”

Hannah Morgan, Career Sherpa – New York, USA. You can follow Hannah on Twitter @careersherpa

“Don’t grab the first opportunity that you think will make you look successful. Instead, choose the one that will bring you fulfillment”.

Claire Stretch, Filmstretch online video production – Sydney, Australia. You can follow Claire on Twitter @clairestretch

“I would say start your own business for sure.  Take a good few years before the penny drops. The key is to do something you enjoy and you’ll automatically get good at it. You solve people’s problems and you can turn that into a business of your own. Start doing something you enjoy doing, learn the trade and understand what the business models are.”

Jorgen Sundberg, Social Media consultant & trainer for recruitment & HR at Link Humans – London, UK. You can follow Jorgen on Twitter @JorgenSundberg

“Go with your passion and not the starting salary. The money and success will come naturally if you love what you do.”

Laurie DesAutels, Blogger and career coach – Texas, USA. You can follow Laurie on Twitter @LaurieDesAutels

As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts.

So please let us know what advice you’d give to your younger self.

 

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Turn your Online Profile into Job Offers and Opportunities!

by Richard , updated on November 1, 2020

There’s a flood of advice out there telling us that we’re behind the times if we aren’t using social media to job hunt. But what I see less of are the practical ‘how-to’ steps telling social media ‘infants’ like me how to go about it.

That is until now.

Our guest blogger Ashley Lauren Perez has returned to InterviewIQ with exactly that advice!

Ashley’s blog is packed with useful tips on exactly what she did to turn her online profile into job offers and business opportunities.

Over to you Ashley. [click to continue…]

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Can Backpacking Work in Australia Pack Meaning Back into your Work Life?

by Richard , updated on November 1, 2020

Life’s not always a beach when you’re backpacking around Australia

Amy Knapp, our guest blogger this week, is a great example of someone who’s found that missing meaning in her life!

So how did Amy find more meaning in her work?

Over to you Amy…..

Love ’em or loathe ’em, the simple fact is backpackers do the jobs no one else wants to do.

They sleep in barns and pick bananas in forty degree heat for months at a time.

I have a friend who lived in a trailer park for six months and washed cars in her bikini for twenty-five dollars an hour.

It’s all very glamorous!

Even in G8 countries like my homeland Canada, people see Australia as the land of opportunity  We think all Australian men are like Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. In our defence, it’s sort of true.

We imagine the country as an endless string of beaches. Even truer!

In all seriousness, things are simply more comfortable here.

Minimum wage is about double what it is in Canada, and as many at 3 times what it is in some USA states. Perhaps that explains why we’re so willing to do those dirty jobs.

To brave the spiders, the crocodiles and the stingrays!

You have to be willing to fly by the seat of your pants.

Before I settled into a career as a freelance writer I worked as:

a lounge singer in an RSL club,
fried prawns at the sample counter in my local Woolworths,
prepared memorandums for a law firm in Hervey Bay and
waited tables and cleaned toilets in Far North Queensland.

That’s what backpackers do; we sample a little bit of everything.

So why did I come to Australia?

I didn’t go for any of that.

I went there to visit my sister. I stayed because I fell in love. With Australia to be sure, but I also fell in love with a man. (He’s nothing like Steve Irwin, for the record.) We met in the unlikeliest of places; Weipa on the Gulf of Carpentaria at the very top of Australia.

My spirit of adventure kicked in about two and a half months after I arrived in Australia. I was short of cash and desperate for work. Hervey Bay doesn’t have much to offer in either of those departments.

How did I find work?

On a whim, I contacted a hospitality recruiter on the internet.

When she asked me my experience in hospitality, I actually talked up my work cleaning my mother’s B&B as a thirteen-year-old girl. At twenty-seven, it hardly seemed relevant anymore but it was all I had to go with.

I got the job anyway.

At $22 per hour, I was making more than most of my colleagues back in Canada who were interning at prestigious law firms and still living on cold noodles. Like I said: land of opportunity.

Weipa turned out to be the ultimate way to experience Australia.

The work was hardly stimulating but it was a beautiful escape from the dry textbooks back home.

The employees live in tiny dongas (transportable buildings) right on the hotel grounds. We each had a bed, cupboard, small sink and bar fridge, with room enough left for stray suitcases and maybe a chair if you were lucky.

Bathroom facilities were shared, though their state of cleanliness left much to be desired.

We put in about fifty hours a week on average. Sometimes more, sometimes less. With the scorching heat and the long hours, there was never much time left for any substantial leisure activities.

The work itself was just what you would imagine. Scrubbing floors in the morning and pulling pints of beer for miners at night. In the afternoons, you would nap, socialise, and maybe shop for a few groceries, though all meals were provided.

Mining towns can be dusty and dirty!

With Scherger Immigration Detention Centre just a half hour away, most of the guests at the hotel were FIFOs (fly in/fly out) with the Department of Immigration and its subcontractors.

You get to know the patrons pretty quickly. Heck, I almost married one of them. And before you say it, yes, sometimes it did feel like an episode of Neighbours!

That was Weipa, in a nutshell.

What did I learn from my Weipa work?

Hardly any of the jobs I worked that year landed on my resume.

What I got was something far better:

I got experience with life,
with taking risks,
with looking at the bigger picture,
I learned to stop worrying so much about where my career was headed and
I learned humility.

I could’ve parlayed all that into a great job back in Canada. I’ve certainly had plenty of offers. Employers in my neck of the woods really do value all that travel and life experience.

But being in Australia caused me to re-evaluate my priorities.

I realised I don’t care that much about jobs and salaries. In the end I decided not to go back to my dreary life as a law student. It just didn’t seem worth it.

Turns out, I’m much happier cleaning toilets!

Who knew?

Amy Knapp is an HR Blogger for InsideTrak, an online resource to find Australian employers.

 

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Finding a mining job in Australia…..rich reward or perilous pitfall? Read the inside dirt from someone at the coal face!

by Richard , updated on November 1, 2020

Can you really find a job earning 150K in the mines in Australia?

Hands up who’s heard a story like this?

My friend’s gardener lost his week-day job and couldn’t find another one. So he went over to Western Australia and found a job driving trucks in the mines. He only works for three days a week and is earning $150,000 a year.

Can you really get a 150K job in the mines with no experience?

It’s funny how you hear these stories about mining jobs from someone who knows someone.

The almost manic interest in the resources sector coupled with very high levels of job-loss anxiety is a heady cocktail of expectation you need to drink with some caution.

Here’s the insider tip from someone who’s actually working on a mine site in outback Western Australia.

After you read this post, I’d like you to do two things.

1) Download our free e-book at the bottom of the post. This has great tips on preparing for interviews.

2) If you like this post, send it to your friends.

Meet my nephew James – who found a job in the mines without experience.

James has been working on the mining site for about 5 weeks. He’s recently married and has made the difficult decision to try his luck in a mining job, away from his wife. He has done this as an investment in their future.

He just recently flew back home. I had the chance to catch up with him and hear about his experiences. I thought this would be a great opportunity to hear what it’s really like, and to share those insights with our InterviewIQ audience.

But before we talk to James, let’s first of all highlight the common perceptions out there about mining and resources sector jobs…..

  • If you land a job on a mine site, you’re going to be on big money, even for menial work ($80- 120,000+), because you’re in a remote location and it’s hot, unpleasant and uncomfortable.
  • It doesn’t matter if you don’t have specialist skills. Getting lots of qualifications (mine site ‘tickets’ like Safety, Vehicle, Security and Heavy Rigid) will make you employable.
  • The best first step is to get those relevant mining tickets under your belt.
  • Then approach recruitment agencies who will place you in a mining job.

After a chat with James, I had to re-evaluate all of those perceptions.

If you have no experience, should you approach recruitment agencies to find job in the mines?

James found that as an unskilled/unqualified potential mine site worker it was basically a waste of time approaching recruitment agencies. He found they aren’t very interested in you if you don’t have specialist skills to sell (eg engineering, trades, drilling experience etc). Plus they encourage you to get a heap of mining site tickets, which adds up to quite a lot of money, with no guarantee of a pay off.

Of course it’s likely that not all recruitment agencies do this, but it was certainly James’s experience.

How did James find his first job in the mines?

James found his job through networking. He spent 3 months calling everyone he knew that had some connection to the mines. He called friends of friends of friends. He followed up every lead and was persistent yet patient. He knew because of his lack of experience there were a limited number of jobs he could get, so he identified those jobs and focused his efforts there. James works as a personal trainer and is a very sociable, connected person in his home city, so he had a good head start.  But he estimates that he had at least 40 conversations with people before he got offered a job.

Only when he had a job offer, did James then go and get mining qualifications which were specific to the mining site that he would be working at. That way he didn’t waste his money.

And after 3 months his efforts paid off!

James secured a job on a drill site at an exploratory mine 3 hours drive from Newman in Western Australia. Basically in the middle of nowhere. He started there 6 weeks ago.

What is it really like to work in an unskilled job in the mines?

Here’s the hard part.

James’ job involves bagging and carrying ore samples from the drill.  It’s dirty, dusty, back-breaking, monotonous and uncomfortable work. And that’s just in winter. James has to wear long sleeve shirts, trousers and a hard hat for sun protection so in the summer it will be almost unbearable.

James is extremely fit and strong and isn’t shy of hard physical labour. So he has a head start on many potential mine workers. The plain naked truth is that this sort of work doesn’t suit everyone. And it’s not just the physical, routine nature of the work you should consider. Often you’re working in remote locations, away from family and friends for extended periods. So there’s a substantial ongoing mental challenge as well. Although it’s a sobering thought, these are important points to consider before making the leap into the mining industry.

So I’m guessing that you’re thinking James is at least earning big bucks?

How much is James actually earning in mining?

Well I’m sorry to blast another perception out of the water but James is actually earning about the same that he would at home as a Personal Trainer!

Mining companies have been burnt by high levels of unskilled worker turnover. They turn up and disappear almost before they’ve unpacked their bags. And mine sites are often in remote locations so it isn’t easy to replace a worker at short notice. So they test their workers out to see if they can demonstrate commitment, reliability, productivity and aptitude. Just like any other employer. It’s unfortunate to have to burst the ‘pot-of-gold’ bubble but unless you have in-demand skills, mining companies do not appear to immediately hand you a bag of money.

How will James get to earn good money in mining?

Well he’s already been looking around and his plan is to move into the construction area as a Tradesman’s Assistant. He has to prove himself first, get to know people and then wait for a vacancy. But he could then be earning $3,000 a week or around $150,000 a year. He has given himself a specific time frame to achieve this which he thinks is realistic. I also believe it counts in James’s favour that he’s doing this for a specific long term goal to set up his own business and secure his family’s future.

On a side note he’s also discovered that the recruitment agencies are now more interested in helping him because he is establishing a track record of productivity and reliability.

So if any of this has not put you off, and you’d still like a job in the mines, here’s James’s scoop on what you need to do.

The inside dirt on finding a mining job

  • Do your homework and expect to have to network for an extended period to secure a mining job. It’s who you know not what you know;
  • Talk to as many people as possible who work in mining jobs to find out what it’s really like. And then reflect on whether it will suit you;
  • Try not to be too blinded by the promise of huge salaries. If the work doesn’t suit you then you won’t be earning huge salaries. It could even cost you money;
  • Don’t jump in and sign up for too many mining qualifications or ‘tickets’. It may be wise to secure the job offer and then discuss with your new employer what tickets to go and get;
  • Expect to have to prove yourself in a dirty, unpleasant, monotonous job before you start earning good money; and
  • Try to have clear and achievable goals as a motivation for moving into what can be a physically and mentally challenging industry. This will help see you through the tough times.

Finally, good luck making your fortune!

If you have a story about working or trying to find a job in the mines, please leave a comment below.

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