Job seeking from a hunters perspective Blog

The beatings will commence….. July 15, 2011

Remember that old joke we use to hear when we worked and morale was low?

“The beatings will commence and will continue until morale improves”

It seems that they have adopted that to the unemployed, the beating will commence and will continue until you are empployed.

Like the old joke it was as if it was your fault that morale was low and that it is your fault that you are unemployed.

As in either case the one truly responsible will never admit that it is really their fault.

Lets take a twist on a Harry Potter character One whose name shall not be mentioned and adopt it to the situation and call him/her the one who shall not be named.

It makes it that much harder on concentrating on finding a job when you feel that companies are beating you down for being in the situation your in like it is your fault.

A number of you are probably still asking yourself what did I do wrong to deserve this and maybe I am not as good as I thought I was. Stop  that type of thinking because it had nothing to do with you.

A company needs to cut X number of dollars out of the budget. They tell an accountant eliminate X number of dollars.

You are not Mary, Sam or Nancy you are a number a dollar figure to the accountant as they don’t know you just what it cost the company to have you there. They work their formulas and math until the X value is reached. If your number was in the equation then you are gone. It doesn’t matter how good you are you just happen to have the wrong number at the right time.

A company will get rid of deadwood and weight in the first round of layoffs. They will also get rid of what they consider pure overhead, HR and Quality are big hits for these.

So if you survived the first or second round before getting laid off it wasn’t that you did something wrong it is just you fit the equation.

Now the problem is that companies are doing a number of wrong things. Here is a list,

1.) Running too lean

2.) Hunkering down to wait out the storm

3.) Hording money

4.) Mergers and Acquisitions M&A (actually this is a good time for that it is what typically happens)

5.) not taking risk to continue to grow the company and business.

M&A is bad for the job seeker because it places even more talented people in the job pool which is already overcrowded as it is.

M&A is not helping the economy because there will be more people not spending because they need every penny to try and survive. Also the ones that still have jobs will not spend for fear that another round of cuts will be imminent.

Despite what the economist, business analyst and politicians say I do not think we have hit bottom yet and the ground we walk on is unstable at best.

I know that you don’t want to hear that but it helps to know the reality so we can better strategize how to move forward. This is war! Only the strong will survive!

Let me know what you think?

What is your story and how can we help?