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In search of the purpose-driven career
Job seekers attend a state-sponsored career and job resource fair in Denver, Colo.
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Tess Vigeland: Get a job doing what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life. That's a tough sell even in a good economy; much less when unemployment hovers near 10 percent.
And when job openings are scarce, it might be tempting to apply for anything -- and everything -- in sight, just for the paycheck. But Marketplace's Eve Troeh reports a better approach might be to keep your high standards in place.
Eve Troeh: Around 10 a.m. on a Monday morning, Dali Colorado goes for her second round of coffee.
Dali Colorado: This will bubble and pop.
She's been up a few hours, seen her husband off to his job, straightened up the house. When the stovetop coffee maker goes off again, it's time to work.
Meaning, look for work. Colorado's been unemployed about seven months. She feeds her dog, a rescued boxer named Lizzy, and heads for the computer.
Colorado: It's her least favorite time of the day because she knows I'm gonna be on there for a couple of hours, so she knows she's not gonna be able to go outside until I'm done.
She starts clicking away at online job boards.
Colorado: Start my search log for the first quarter of 2011.
Colorado is 34. Unemployment for people like her, with a college degree, is the highest since 1970, at about 5 percent. Colorado used to work at a music company, managing and promoting bands. After being laid off, she thought about what she'd love to do, and tried to pursue that.
Colorado: I actually want to move into nonprofit work, specifically with animals.
She's applied for jobs in that field, also in the music industry, and in the field where she worked before music: marketing. She's sent out about 200 resumes.
Colorado: I've had a couple interviews. Let's see how many have I had -- four? In seven months.
Frustrated, Colorado started applying to jobs well below her qualifications, including administrative assistant.
Colorado: That was one of the first jobs I had out of college, so I'm finding myself back to that place, which is really difficult.
Lots of job seekers have done the same, and they're flooding the inboxes of hiring managers. Kaye Sterling is a corporate recruiter in Minneapolis. Here's what her Monday morning is like.
Kaye Sterling: Open up a job you posted over the weekend and there are 500 new applications.
She has to narrow 500 down to three or four candidates. But, she says, that's not actually that hard to do, because she sees a lot of resumes from people like Dali Colorado: aiming below their experience level, and far from their interests. Sterling says they're among the first to get cut because if she hired them...
Sterling: Within six months they're unhappy, they're making the rest of the department unhappy, because they don't like being the gopher of the department. You know, so even if they don't leave, they just become unhappy.
She says it's a buyer's market for employers, and they'll only hire the person who exactly fits their needs.
Sterling: You are better off as an applicant finding one or two jobs you are truly qualified for, and spending all your time and energy applying to those jobs.
Sterling wants to tell applicants: it's not a numbers game. Applying to hundreds of jobs doesn't improve your chances of getting one.
Job counselor JT O'Donnell agrees.
JT O'Donnell: That's by far the most popular method right now, and it's failing 99 percent of the population.
O'Donnell runs a website called Career Realism. She says blanket-applying is popular because it's something for unemployed people to do with all that time on their hands. But, she says, instead of constant clicking, they need to take a deep breath, and a new approach.
O'Donnell: You are a business of one. We have to know how to market our business of one. You need to have special skills, you need to define your potential, and brand that. And that goes completely in the face of what people think.
Pursue jobs like they're your personal clients, she says. Identify companies you admire and figure out what they need. Take classes and workshops. Because the big-picture goal should still be to find work that suits you, she says. That's better for job seekers, and employers.
O'Donnell: That's when people are most satisfied, most happy, they do their best work, they're their best people.
When I tell all this to our job seeker, Dali Colorado, she says she doesn't feel like she can stop applying to lots of jobs. She says that would feel like she wasn't trying hard enough. But, she is thinking about re-training, in a field she's seen popping up a lot online.
Colorado: When I've been looking specifically in the animal nonprofit sector, there's a lot of positions open for vet tech -- a lot of them.
So she's set up an appointment with her dog's veterinarian to talk about training as a vet tech.
Colorado: This might be a good time for me to go back to school, probably in the fall.
Colorado says she could see herself working part-time in retail as she prepares for school. And just thinking about that is helping her make sense of the chaos of being unemployed, because at least it's a path ahead.
I'm Eve Troeh for Marketplace Money.
Vigeland: Tell us what you think is happening to the purpose-driven career. Post your thoughts on our Facebook page.
Jessica's comments are right on the ball. I continue to be stunned by the amount of people who stay unemployed for more than a few months, because they are looking for a career that fits their needs. This story, in particular, is one that I find very damaging to the message that people really need to hear: there is something to be said for the stability of a regular paycheck, so just get a job, any job. When I say "any job" I don't mean 1 or 2 steps below where you think you belong. I mean go all the way to the bottom. Work in restaurants, work as a janitor, work in pizza delivery--just work. When I was a manager of a pizza delivery restaurant during the last major recession, I hired a software engineer and a CPA. Neither of whom had found work in two years and were totally out of money. At first, they looked completely defeated, but after just a couple of weeks, their attitudes began to change--I believe because they were making some kind of money again and contributing to their families. Within a month the CPA found work, and within three months the software engineer landed a new job. These people didn't need coddling, or being told that it's ok to stick to what they want to do, because their attitudes were so far in the dumps that no employer in their respective fields would want them. But, working at a job that most people would consider demeaning enabled them to turn their attitudes around and get back into their own fields again. As for the argument made in this story that "over qualified" people get passed over because of the fear of high turnover, the jobs that I'm referring to are high turnover jobs. Employers in these industries expect the door to keep revolving, so they keep hiring. They understand that it is just part of the business. So, check your egos at the door, walk into a Pizza Hut, and ask for an application.
It looks like job search now is all about fresh college graduates like me with excellent grades competing with much older job seekers with 20 years of experience with no education who are willing to take a pay cut. I have noticed that listing education in the resume will actually back fire as you might be considered over qualified.
While in graduate school, I had such a difficult time finding just "any job" to pay my way through. Frustrated and bewildered by the lack of response from prospective employers despite hundreds of resumes and cover letters, I began questioning myself. It came to mind, I must have the wrong approach. I never suspected quantity over quality actually hurt my efforts in snagging a "career job." In the mean time, I took up work in the hospitality and food industries where "extra hands" were sorely needed and education might be passed over. I am no closer to finding work in my field of study. Lucky for me, this was the turning point. A practical job as a psychotherapist was not what I wanted, after all. It took a recession for me to explore my true passion - baking. I now work for a cupcake bakery, make much less, and thoroughly enjoy every minute of it.
R B: Your comment is right on. The Washington State Department of Employment Security does require 3 employer contacts and/or approved work search activities per week recorded on your job search log. Approved work search activities are the Job Hunter Workshops and/or other activities available at WorkSource offices throughout the state of Washington.
As I have learned, it is a full-time job searching for a full-time job. There will be additional time left over after making the 3 mandatory contacts to follow the plan depicted in this broadcast.
Although I haven't checked out the Career Realism Web site yet, I do plan to. Good luck to us both.
