Which is more frustrating during a job search?

[RandySF]

Not getting any calls, or interviewing every week without landing a job?

[Broderick]

1. Don't know personally

But, I can imagine it's the not getting calls. You would have to wonder what you are doing wrong, and at least with a response and an opportunity for an interview you feel like you are doing something right.

[dbonds]

2. At least if you are interviewing there is some hope.

No calls you sink fast.

[tridim]

3. Submitting hundreds of resumes and applications, and knowing that it's a complete waste of time.

Filling out the same god-damned, long-form application hundreds of times.

Filling out electronic applications that aren't smart enough to mine data from an uploaded electronic resume.

Being both under or over-qualified, often for the same job.

Thinking about lying about my college degree, just so I can land a shitty job.

Recruiters making promises they almost never keep.

[elocs]

6. Throughout the decades of my working years I have gotten jobs because I have a college degree,

jobs that did not even remotely require one, because it proved to the employer that I complete what I start.

Resumes: those little exercises in hyperbole and outright bullshit. I've always hated them.

[CTyankee]

10. Do you mean lying about having a degree or lying about your major?

You might be required to produce a copy of your degree on your first day of work to the Human Resources person. That wouldn't be so good if you lied about it on your resume. Most jobs I have held didn't do this, but on one I did.

If you lie about the major it could trip you up, depending on the nature of the job. I had a degree that basically merged my years as a Liberal Arts major and of my Fine Arts major into one, when I finished it. My degree was actually called General Studies. On the resume I thought that didn't give enough information, so I listed "Fine Arts and Communications" which is what it actually WAS, but technically it was General Studies. Of course on those employment forms you often have to fill out, you need to put the correct wording of the degree because some places check with your college to make sure you are telling the truth.

[tridim]

13. Lying about having a degree.

I have a BA in Architecture.

I think it's what is preventing me from landing low-paying jobs. They know I will walk if/when things improve.

Every app I've filled out has a space for "education". I haven't lied yet.

[CTyankee]

14. I don't know about that one. This is one for the "ethicist" in the NYT Sunday Magazine

section! You could certainly get away with it. So it becomes an ethical issue. Is that your concern?

[slackmaster]

4. The worst thing IMO is being offered a job that you really don't want

If you are collecting unemployment benefits that situation creates a moral dilemma (at least in my state, YMMV.)

[DrDan]

5. the former - the latter indicates there is some hiring

[LWolf]

7. Both are stressful. nt

[graywarrior]

8. I started going to networking groups and, believe it or not, workshops

at career centers. The support is awesome and you do find out more about who is hiring and who you're wasting you're time with.

[cbdo2007]

9. No offense....but maybe you need to work on your interview skills??

90% of job searching is actually getting an interview. If you are going on an interview every week and still don't have a job after a few months then maybe you need to change your interview strategy.

[Kennah]

12. Not necessarily

I've been searching since December, outta work since April. Only gotten a couple of interviews, and in the past, once I got the interview I had about a 75% chance of landing the gig. Had 3 interviews in the past 2 months. Made it to the final round, even the final 2, but still no job.

We are definitely in a depression, and the stock market is spelling it out today.

[stopbush]

18. Have you been looking recently? I don't think so.

I've gone through interview processes recently where I have had 3 face-3-face interviews that are spaced out over maybe two months, only to receive an e-mail (not even a phone call) that the job search has been suspended indefinitely. It's like companies are playing a game of, "IF we were to hire, what does the candidate field look like and what would it cost us?"

I have an interview for a non-profit in LA scheduled for later this month. It will be my FIFTH interview with them, and my third face-2-face on their territory. Considering who I am meeting with at this 5th meeting, I am assuming it is the final interview in the process, which means it's probably down to me and maybe two other people, tops. Considering I'm over 50, I'm going to assume that my interviewing skills are just fine to have taken me this far, and I will assume that if I don't get the job, age had something to do with it. I don't know if there's part of an "interview strategy" where one can get younger (and I say that as one who exercises regularly and looks younger than my actual age).

I have no expectations for this upcoming interview, except that I know I'm perfect for the job and that my chances are probably - at best - 50-50 on getting hired.

This stands in sharp contrast to the way the job market worked in the Clinton years, when companies were calling me and trying to recruit me. Sometimes, it's the times that work against you, not things like interview skills.

[Dawson Leery]

20. Most employers are quite cold in that they do not

give you notice whether or not they have decided to hire you.

[Dawson Leery]

11. Both

[stopbush]

15. They're mutually exclusive, and just as frustrating if you're in either situation.

Other depressing thoughts:

• Being one of the 9.2% who can't find work means you're not part of the 90.8% who are working. So what's wrong with me?

• Every talking head you watch on TV talking about the jobless has a job themselves, and probably a decent job at that. Otherwise, they wouldn't be on TV.

• Every person empowered to create jobs for the unemployed is also employed themselves. Ergo, they are at least one step removed from understanding the hell that is joblessness

• When it comes to a choice of creating new jobs or keeping your own job, 99% of people will pick the first choice every time, especially politicians

• Contrary to received opinion, there is no magic bullet available to jump start the economy. No tried-n-true method that will work in every situation. Life is more complex than that. But almost all imagined "solutions" are treated as gospel, which makes people take entrenched positions that are resistant to modification, simply because people's cred has been invested in the imagined solution.

• A body in motion tends to stay in motion, and so does an economy, no matter which direction it is heading. It takes an outside force to change the direction of the economy - we've already had the outside force of bushco changing the direction of a once-surging economy, but we have yet to have had the Clintonesque game changer to reverse the trend.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

17. You Are Spot On

But the real unemployment figure is much higher than 9.2%. It is probably closer to 20%.

[uppityperson]

16. Finally getting an interview, being 1 of the top contenders to find it was only prospecting, there

was no real job. Let me tell you, THAT pisses me off.

Not sure which is more frustrating. It just sucks.

[stopbush]

21. Been there myself. It pisses me off as well. The best one can do

is to make a silk purse out of that particular sow's ear by treating the process as an opportunity to hone one's interviewing skills in anticipation of a REAL opportunity that may arise in the future.

[Kat45]

19. I'm not even finding jobs to apply for that I'dhave any chance of getting.

I find that highly frustrating. (I've only had two interviews all year.) I've gone to job search workshops that say it's not good to just send out shitloads of resumes; it's a waste of time to do that. They say to target resumes to particular jobs. Unfortunately, I'm not finding many jobs that I think I could get. These days, you have to have not only all the required skills, but also all the preferred skills--and then some. With so many people out of work, someone else will have all those things. At the workshops they also said it was pretty useless applying for jobs you see advertised. They all emphasized networking and finding unadvertised jobs that way. Unfortunately, I don't have much of a network and have not received any help that way.

[TheBigotBasher]

22. The depression caused by no money

it nearly broke me mentally.