Im good for no job. (sob, sob, sob)

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Forum -> Working Women

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amother

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 5:18 am

Ive been looking for a job for a while now. I have no formal training. Went to college, had no idea wha to study. Got a BA in social sciences. Big woop as they say.
I have had a few different jobs over the years, mostly as office staff (office manager, data entry/secretary) but its been a little while and I am finding nothing.
Today I had an interview, also office staff, and I was asked some questions and I am almost certain that I did not get the job.
I am good at and for nothing Crying

Its so frustrating. I cant get any good job. And no, I can not go back to school (no time and absolutely no money for that) so I sit and wait and sent out my CV over and over again and 99 times out of 100 I get no replies from anyone.
It is so disheartening and very sad for me. I feel like a nothing after these interviews where I am so sure that I did not get the job.

amother

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 5:30 am

( I saw this and all I could think of was the Hannukah song - "Sevivon, sov sov sov" - I know, I'm a terrible person Sad

)

As atonement, can I suggest starting your own business? Or going freelance? Can you cook/sew/childcare? Import, export, distribute? Be a virtual assistant?

amother

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 5:35 am

amother wrote:

( I saw this and all I could think of was the Hannukah song - "Sevivon, sov sov sov" - I know, I'm a terrible person Sad

)

As atonement, can I suggest starting your own business? Or going freelance? Can you cook/sew/childcare? Import, export, distribute? Be a virtual assistant?

Be a virtual secretary? The jobs that I have been applying for are all secretarial/office managerial. No, people dont just hire someone. I still have to have something on my CV that will jump out at them as a reason to hire me. I love working in an office. I did it before.

My own business? Thats also not so easy. And thats also not something thats a "just". I have no business to start. No ideas at all.
Freelance? What. I have no talents to freelance Sad

Import/export? That would be starting a business, but I wouldnt do it as I would have no idea, until it was too late, if it would be profitable or not.
Thanks for all of the ideas. Ive gone through them all already.
My home is not big enough to do childcare at all. And sewing I dont know how. And there are so many cooks/caterers/bakers in my area that I would be stepping on other's toes.

amother

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 5:49 am

Me again.

Childcare doesn't have to be in your home- you could babysit it someone else's.

Freelance secretarial could be in your home, with companies using you as and when they needed documents processed.

Could you be a craft person/entertainer for kids parties?

amother

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 5:53 am

amother wrote:

I could actually babysit in someone else's home. thats something to look into.
As for the freelnce secretarial, my point was that I have tried looking for secretarial work all over the place. From home, from the office, nobody wants someone with no skill. Are you talking about freelance secretarial places as you know they exist? Or do you just think that people hire secretaries like that? not with any skills?
No craft talent and no, I cant be n entertainer for parties. Nobody does that where I live. It would make no money at all.

amother

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 6:08 am

Apologies - I didn't understand you weren't looking for secretarial work!

So maybe go with the babysitting-elsewhere part....hatzlocho Smile

amother

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 6:11 am

amother wrote:

Apologies - I didn't understand you weren't looking for secretarial work!

So maybe go with the babysitting-elsewhere part....hatzlocho Smile

What? no. I am looing for secretarial. Thats what I am looking for. My point was, that I have sent my CV in to probably 50 or so places, ofice manager, virtual secretary, receptionist, etc and in the past year, I have had two interviews.
My point was that even "just" for a secretary, the companies still want someone with some experience. Otherwise, I have no idea why I am not being hired anywhere.

bigbird

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 6:21 am

I would suggest that means your CV/cover letter needs to be adjusted. You can get work without experience, but you need to make sure everything is worded correctly, you're highlighting your strong points in relation to the job and both the cover letter and CV are tailored to the job description.

It's not a matter of sending out hundreds of CVs, it's making sure you're taking the time to ensure your CV will be noticed.

amother

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 6:26 am

bigbird wrote:

I just had soeone help me redo my CV, so that cant be the problem either Sad

finallyamommy

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 6:32 am

OP, where are you located? If in EY I know of a few secretarial type things that I'm pretty sure are still hiring. (Though, if you're in EY I would recommend branching out--over here, a job's a job and everyone needs babysitters--my husband always thought he'd be in carpentry forever and now here in EY he found a good job in catering and much to his surprise he's still there and enjoying it 3 years later.)

I agree with freelancing--there's a website called Elance that you can sign up for as a virtual assistant and find jobs there.

amother

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 6:36 am

esheschayil wrote:

I am in EY and I have branched out. Not just looking for secretarial positions. Can you please letme know what secretarial positions are still hiring people? I would love to know.
As far as freelancing, I really would love to be able to go out of my home to work.

finallyamommy

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 6:44 am

amother wrote:

Can you PM me?

finallyamommy

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 6:59 am

OP, I just PMed you. And darn you, second amother, now I have "sevivon sov sov sov" in my head! lol.

JoyInTheMorning

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 7:56 am

Secretarial work requires certain skills. Indeed, few people will hire you if you don't have these skills, so you have to make sure you get them. You need to find out what employers want --- proficiency in Word? Excel? scheduling software? setting up online conference calls? -- and become excellent (not just proficient) in those areas.

How do you do that? You don't need a course. You need to either find people who are great at one or more of the skills who will teach you (you can offer to babysit, cook, or do other tasks in exchange for this tutoring) or get books that you assiduously work through.

And seriously, you need to change your mindset from sob, sob, sob to Yes-I-can! Employers want someone who not only has skills but knows how to get new skills when the occasion arises.

Good luck!

amother

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 8:01 am

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

Im sorry, am I not allowed to vent here? I have nobody else to vent to about this. I m not this way all of the time. It just really hit me after I came back from the interview that I have no skills and it seems like nobody wants to hire me.
And the things you mentioned above? I have all of those. its more specific things that I have not known how to do and they haev not hired me Sad

JoyInTheMorning

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 8:05 am

Of course you can vent! I'm a big venter myself and I fully understand the need to vent! However, in your post you came across as someone who feels overwhelmed by fate, not like someone who takes charge of her own destiny. When you're job hunting, you have to come across as the take-charge kind of person.

What skills were your interviewers requesting? Was it tech-related, management-related, or both? Do you want to mention some of them so we can brainstorm on how you can acquire them?

amother

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 8:08 am

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

being able to write well. they even asked me to go home and write a page for them about something that I am passionate about to see how I write.
I dont have any writing skills Smile

And dont worry, when I am in an interview, I am all positive and go getterish Smile

ora_43

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 9:46 am

Writing skills isn't really something you need a formal course for. Do you practice writing? Do you read a lot? Those are both things you could do to improve.

But - are you sure this is what you want? It seems strange to me that you're focused on this one kind of job, but you apparently either haven't been working on getting the skills for it, or have been working at it but it's very hard for you. Why this job, why not work toward something else?

There are other things it's possible to learn without paying for a course. You could learn web design, some programming languages, several human languages, carpentry, mathematics, cake decorating, and more, all online, all for free.

Please don't feel bad for not being good (yet!) at job-related things. Nobody is born good at something. And in my experience, a lot of what looks like talent from the outside is just the natural result of doing something all. the. time. until finally getting good at it. I'm not saying every person can be good at every skill, but I really doubt you're uniquely "good at nothing," I bet there are many skills you could pick up with practice even if going back to university isn't an option right now.

JoyInTheMorning

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 9:51 am

Now that you've mentioned writing skills, I'm the one who's going to vent! I am appalled at the way writing skills are taught in Jewish schools, even in some Modern Orthodox day schools. I'm trying to help my middle-schooler improve in this regard, and I have found that it's challenging. It's hard to unteach bad habits. Nevertheless, I'm convinced it can be done.

I'd suggest doing the following:

1. Read, read, read. Not shallow magazine writing, but high-quality essays and articles, the sort you can find in the New Yorker, Commentary, or the New York Review of Books. You can find some of this online, but free access is usually limited, so choose wisely, and print out what you access, so you can return to it and examine the style as often as you like. You may also be able to find old issues at the library. (I'm guessing there are English-language libraries in Israel, though I don't know whether they carry old issues of magazines. I don't even know whether American libraries do, these days!)

There are also free online collections of excellent essays. This site has fifty essays of George Orwell, one of the best writers ever: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks......html . I'd recommend starting with "Politics and the English Language."

The following site has a collection of 150 good articles. I haven't gone through them, so I can't vouch for the quality of all of them, but I recognize the names of the authors as high-quality writers, so you should be okay: http://tetw.org/Greats .

The more you read, the better a writer you will become, but you need to read a lot of good writing, and make sure it overwhelms the bad writing that you're exposed to. We're all natural imitators.

2. Write, write, write. You won't develop decent basketball skills unless you're out there on the court, dribbling, passing, and shooting. You need to write every day. Make all your writing count. Even on imamother, you can practice your writing skills. Read some of Barbara's, BlueRose's, and Fox's posts: they write beautifully. You can try to write posts in their styles. (Many other imamothers write beautifully as well, but these are posters who seem to pop up all the time, at least in the threads that I read.)

3. Get all the online guidance that you can. There are many free resources. Some help you with writing grammatical sentences (see http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl); others help you structure an essay (see http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu....._par. and the other pages on that site). I also found the Purdue OWL (online writing lab) videos on rhetoric, ethos, and logos to be very helpful for high-level organization of thoughts and choice of writing techniques (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?.....dex=1 and the videos that follow.)

I'm still trying to find a good MOOC (massive online open course) for my child, or something like the Khan academy videos. I'll let you know what I find.

This doesn't happen overnight; I'm expecting it to take months for my kid, and may have to wait till the summer. But it's essential to landing a good job.

I hope this helps. Good luck!

ora_43

Sun, Mar 08 2015, 9:55 am

amother wrote:

I missed this before. Are you saying you sent in your CV to 50 places in one year? As in, less than one per week? Because if so, that might be your problem right there.

Either you're looking for something too specific (something where there are really just 50 openings per year in the entire country), or you need to be more proactive in looking for job openings. It's not rare for people to have to apply to a dozen jobs a week to find what they're looking for.

Or you didn't mean literally 50, in which case I apologize.

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