Do something
Unemployed despite an improved job market? Get to work.
T he headlines scream at you every morning when you grab your coffee and flip open your laptop: “Hiring at all-time high!” “Job and jobs galore!” “Companies hiring at historic levels!” “Hyperbole banished from economic coverage!” OK, maybe not that last one. But as the country continues to enjoy low unemployment rates and increased job opportunities, it’s getting harder to answer the favorite question of smug former classmates and busybody aunts everywhere: “Do you have a job yet?”
Despite the anger it may elicit from the non-working among us, it’s a fair question. The unemployment rate, which maxed out in recent years at 10.2 percent in October 2009, shrank to half that rate — 5.1 percent — by September 2015 and continued its downward trajectory over the next 33 months, resulting in a 3.8 percent unemployment rate in May, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. But a lot of good that does you if you still don’t have a job.
“It’s definitely tough,” says Greg Jordan, a 37-year-old software analyst from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. “I was laid off seven months ago and I passed on some jobs that were at or below my previous level, and I’ve had nothing but small nibbles ever since.”
Jordan says he gets a little tired of “the looks I get from people when I tell them I’m not working” but he keeps his composure. “If nothing else, it’s given me a lesson on how to treat people when they’re on a bad-luck streak,” he says. “And it’s a great way to work on your sarcasm.”
Jordan admits he can’t blame his out-of-work status on just bad luck. In addition to the aforementioned jobs he turned down, Jordan says he’s changed the type of work he’s looking for at least four times. Now, however, he’s open to anything “that puts money in my checking account.” And, he says, that attitude changed everything.
Find a way
The Cleveland, Ohio, native says he learned a few things about himself the past several months, including his unwillingness to let his job search affect all areas of his life. “I was really depressed and finally, went to talk to a psychologist,” he says. “She really helped. Talking about it really helped. It’s been a much easier journey since then.”
Jordan also took the advice of some of his well-intentioned friends. “They suggested I get in shape, work as a landscaper, work as a tutor,” he says. “Everyone had ideas.”
One of his friends offered Jordan $1,000 to paint his second-floor bedrooms and family room. “I was kind of embarrassed but I needed the money and I needed something to do,” Jordan says. “I ended up having a great time.”
Jordan says during that time he spent alone painting, he realized two things: “Number one, my work didn’t define me and number two, I needed to get off my butt.”
With a new attitude, Jordan took any and every small job he could find. “I worked for a mover, laid sod, installed computers — anything I found online that I was remotely qualified for, I took.”
And in doing so, Jordan says he found his way back to his job search. “I’m open to anything now,” he says. “My sister told me about a friend in Phoenix who is looking for some programmers for a new task service for seniors that she’s developing and I jumped on the next plane, slept on her living room floor and worked 18 hours a day until I had scheduling and billing systems set up for her,” he says. “I was working on adrenaline alone half the time. Now I know I can do that. I didn’t know that before.”
Do something
Mary Hatch, 28, is a former teacher in St. Louis who decided last June that she wouldn’t be going back to the classroom in the fall. She has been looking for steady employment since. “On paper, I’m a teacher. That’s a tough sell to an employer who’s looking for someone in sales or marketing,” she says.
After a few months of a fruitless job search, Hatch decided to go back to parttime work at her local Starbucks when she saw an ad for seasonal help. “I loved it,” she says. “There’s an energy in places like Starbucks or wherever other people are, especially if you’re used to sitting at home.”
That energy helped Hatch start a tutoring business. “I’m still looking for a job but I love one-on-one teaching,” she says. “I was getting frustrated in a classroom setting and I think it made me a bad teacher but when it’s just me and a student, I’m a rock star.”
Hatch says the key to her newfound success is simple: “You just have to keep moving,” she says. “There’s no stagnation, no sitting around. That will kill you. It will take away all your energy and ambition. Go find a place to work where you’ll be surrounded by lots of people. Feed off of that.”
Although Jordan says it was work itself that reignited his motivation, he says “it’s all part of the same animal,” no matter your profession, age or experience. “I’d say get back in the game, even if it isn’t your game,” he says. “Do something, anything. I lugged around dead branches for a week and it was exhilarating. Work is work, you know. You just have to keep doing it.”