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View Full Version : Why is it harder than I expected to find a job these days? huh huh huh help?!


marketeer
Feb 24, 2004, 03:10 PM
I don't know why I decided to post in here. Prob I needed a way to vent my feelings, to make myself feel better. Prob, some people would be able to relate with me. You probably would have experienced the same way that I am feeling right now. Never have I imagine my life would turn out this way. I thought with pure determination and perseverance, it would be enough. It wasn't. I needed luck and I needed HIS approval and guidance.

you would probably consider me as your typical student. one that you see in telenovelas, a poor guy who dreams of one day achieving his dreams. in high school, i graduated top of my class. i landed in one of the top 3 schools (if there is such a term, maybe but i don't think so...anymore) i took up a business course, my first choice.

when i was in college, i was very active in school. i held key positions in numerous organizations. i was in the student council. i knew a lot of people. i "networked" around. i was invited into a lot of seminars and conferences here and there, travelled here and there, represented my school etc etc, name it. (did it help me? :shedtears:)

not just that, i juggled a part time job. i have worked at a bank as a telemarketer to earn. i did not come from a rich family, not like my schoolmates. i did buying and selling, not primarily coz i liked the idea of doing it but it was out of need. same with my telemarketing job. people get amazed how i have managed my time. i had to earn coz my parents could not sustain the cost of living here in manila. i also thought, this would make my resume look better in the future.

my life was like a telenovela. i never would have thought i would be able to do those. taking a part time job, active in school and somehow managed to pull up my grades as well.... my friends would always tell me i was "good" that i would definitely land into a promising career. i took up a personaliy test and i was deemed to be a millionaire. oh yeah....:shedtears: but i kept my foot on the ground, never lost hope someday i would make it big time in the corporate world and be able to help out my parents. to add to it, my parents seem to "bet" on me as the lucky kid coz they think i sort of "made" it.

now here comes job fair, final year in college. i tailored my resume. i ironed it so many times. it was even like 3-4 pages initially (now it’s 1 page) bec of all the curricular achievements that i have. when i graduated, i already had 4 part time jobs in my resume, all with good recommendations from my previous employers. all the companies that went to my school, i submitted amy resumes. i skip class just to submit resumes. i prepared. i talked to some career consultants to evaluate my resume. they said it was ok and good enough. I attended counseling and they say my job objectives were perfect and matched with my personality. my thesis was a finalist when I graduated as well.

2 months before graduation, no one had seemed to call me yet. a month before, the companies started calling. i had been interviewed a dozen times. big companies to small companies. i practiced before the interview. i rehearsed my answers. i researched about the company before i went there. i studied the job requirements to make sure if they ask me about it, i would be able to answer them. everything was ready, from SSS, to NBI, transcript. i was waiting for an employer to embrace me. i was ready.

i graduated in march, still no final job offer. others also have not found one yet. to make life harder, my parents "pressured" me that i need to find a job soon coz they could not pay for my allowance anymore. when i graduated, i burdened my parents with a very very big loan and debt from people. i know my parents love me so much and they really want me to make it..

i was desperate, i texted people that i knew from all industries I know of. they said this and that, but no one was able to help me or so.
i dug into the directory, began calling companies from A-Z, submitted my resume online, did walk-ins. i had to find a job coz it was needed badly. I had to fine one asap. unlike my friends, there was no pressure. they were rich. they can afford to take a vacation first. go to boracay or elsewhere. me, we were poor. i had to work now. no rest.

one day, i got an email from somebody about a job opening. i got accepted finally. it was an unknown company. very small. it had 20 employees with them. the work was ok. but the pressure was tremendous. i did not know the history of the company. i found out later, the former employees had mass resigned. all of them due to poor management. i got the chance to talk to the former employees. and they said, i sort of made a "bad" decision, somehow it was correct. my bosses were harsh to me. but i kept quiet, and then the others started resigning again. many have happened, our salaries got delayed, etc etc more problems came up. i cried like hell. my friends began urging me to resign.
one day, my boss transferred me to the sales dept. i was on probation then. i sort of did not have a choice. and then there were quotas. in the beginning, i never signed up for a sales job. i was in marketing. i would work on saturdays just to meet my targets - no pay. i was kind to them but somehow, they did not do their share in the bargain.

i left the company in sept. i was so humiliated but i was still nice to them. i still see my old officemates til now. when i left, they did not pay me yet my last pay and my separation pay. they still owe me money up to now. the company was in bad condition when i talked to our accountant. when i resigned i had no fallback. no security, no money. Yet when i left i still got a letter of recommendations from my bosses. they never knew how i felt bad with them. i kept quiet. when i left, i was promoted already to a brand assistant. but emotionally and spiritually, I had no more energy.

1 month of job seeking, i haven't found out luck yet. and with all humility, i took a call center job. got hired in oct. the pay was low, but i needed money badly. graveyard. it was hard. physically i was devastated. i got sick and lost weight. from long sleeves to plain white shirt, i began the call center work. for me, i was humbled and it made me feel bad about myself. The people were nice to me, a lot better. The management was supportive as well.

whenever i see some old college friends, they seem to be ok now. those people who i think have never paid attention to their studies, who were "relaxed" somehow ended in the good big named companies. they were earning well. and they had good positions. when they ask how i was doing, i never admitted to them what had happened to me coz up to now it was difficult to admit to myself that i somehow had failed. i did my best. i did my best in school. i did my best in my previous work.

right now i began to do the hardwork of job seeking again. i make it to the 1st, 2nd and final interviews and somehow i lose to the others that have experience already. i know. that's life. and somehow HR managers would be surprised to see my resume now. they seem to think i don't have any direction. to add more pressure, my baby sister is going to college in june. my dad had asked me to help out financially. Can life be a lost worst?

right now, what i have been doing was thinking, praying, submitting resumes here and there., still no luck.

i don't know why i deciced to post in here. I would always ask myself.what went wrong? Did I miss something in the process? Wasn’t I good enough? I swallowed everything that have happened to me, kept a humble soul and embraced all trials with dignity.

it's really harsh out there. but i haven't lose hope yet. i feel like i'm running out of time. my mom wants me to go home on march. she misses me. i don't know....

i just hope we all get lucky guys here in the corporate world.

i wish you all the luck. id be happy to read out your advices, posts or replies. if you wanna send me a private message, you can email me here. marketeer@icx.net

ciao! I still have a shift later in the evening….

callboi22
Feb 25, 2004, 03:46 PM
it's all in the matter of being in the right place at the right time.

FendeR_21
Feb 25, 2004, 04:46 PM
u knw marketeer i can feel and relate but ur a little "luckier" you know why? your in Metro Manila, imagine the situation in other cities in the country...

heart021476
Feb 25, 2004, 09:27 PM
Don't lose hope. I know how it feels, I've been there. Why don't you try applying abroad. Malay mo, andun ang swerte mo, tulad ko.

SaintLuci
Feb 25, 2004, 10:51 PM
check your email... I sent you one...

FendeR_21
Feb 25, 2004, 11:11 PM
hi SainLuci can u send me mail also? im jobless too :)

hey_anton@yahoo.com

Bea19
Feb 26, 2004, 12:09 AM
Don't lose hope...minsan nga nakapasa na ako sa exam a year after pa ako tianatawagan e. sometimes its luck din e. oh btw if may experience ka sa finance send ur resume sa philam dami kameng openings ngayon sa sales n mktg.

rabbaddal
Feb 26, 2004, 04:43 AM
Marketeer, it might help to look at the bigger picture of why job opportunities are currently hard to come by. Understand that there are 2 key measurements that businesses keep track of: top line (revenues, market share) and bottomline (net income, gross margin, etc.). Usually companies with high top line growth are more capable of hiring, espescially for corporate positions like marketing. Since top line growth is driven by sales, it helps to look at who the customers of the specific company are and how likely are these customers to buy the company's products/services, or at least those of its competitors. Strong customer purchases in the market means that companies are encouraged to invest so as not to lose out to their competitors in a dynamic market. For example, adding a new product line will require investing in new equipment, hiring more people to run the new equipment, and hiring corporate staff such as marketers to create strategies for the product. On the other hand, weak customer purchases would mean that the company may have to drop product lines and lay off the people that work off of these lines (from the shop floor to the corporate offices).

Once again, do a background check on who the target customers of the company you are working for are. Companies that sell expensive imported equipment that are dollar-denominated to local customers like IBM or Xerox may have a hard time selling to Filipino corporations that are unable to cope with the unfavorable exchange rate. Aside from exchange rate problems, their clients may themselves belong to industries that are experiencing sluggish growth within their own customers' purchases (ex. the Philippine banking industry, whose companies are the largest buyers of computer equipment, has not experienced as strong a top-tine growth that would justify extensive computer hardware purchases). Call centers and IT consulting firms (i.e. Accenture), on the other hand, cater to offshore customers that pay in US$ and are driven by a worldwide need to lower costs and make business systems more efficient. That's why there is a lot of hiring in these kinds of companies. Media companies like ABS-CBN are looking to expand to targeting Filipino communities abroad, which could justify additional investment in corporate staff.

I'm not sure what industry you're in, but you might want to position yourself for a marketing job in a company with a lot of top line growth potential in the industry that it competes in. If you don't want to shift industries, you can try entering the dominant company in your industry.

As for your former bosses, be happy that they gave you a recommendation which you can use to look for better prospects elsewhere. Considering that they are a small firm in rough waters, it's probably the best they can do for you.

Stampede
Feb 26, 2004, 07:14 AM
10 years, no, 5 years from now, you'll look at this episode as a small small bump in the road.

keep at it though. good luck.

bosstl
Feb 26, 2004, 07:50 AM
that's what's called reality.

welcome to the real world.

kinda hard swallow sometimes that those who did not do well in school gets the job deserving of us. but that's how it is. kaya nga sabi nila, good academics is not the only criteria for one to get a good paying job. oftentimes, it takes a lot of connections, hardwork, ability, patience, and most of all, a large dose of luck.

a have a friend... he finds it easy to job hop from one company to another, and in the process increasing his pay. i was better than him academically, and to some extent in work performance. but he has guts, and the ability to bargain.

well, that's life.

TT_Boy
Feb 26, 2004, 08:20 AM
For starters, use capital letters at the start of a sentence. Avoid words like "coz". Use "because". My point is you have to be good at everything, including composing letters, memos, email messages, and forum posts.

Employers look at those small details. I know one case wherein a person wasn't promoted to an AVP position because his composition was terrible.

Look at the big picture. The global economy is bad - more so the Philippines, so you're not the only person struggling. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

The fact that you've been through a dozen interviews is a good sign - you're doing something right. The fact that you didn't convert even one out of 12 to a job offer is a bad sign.

Something went wrong in the process. You come off too contrived. Sometimes rehearsing for an interview gives off a "manufactured" or fake image. Seasoned interviewers know a rehearsed answer from a genuine one. Relax.

One advice I often hear for guys who want to get a girlfriend is not to appear desparate. Girls can smell desperation a mile away and its a turn-off. The same thing with employers.

That leads me to another point. You appear too tense, too emotional. Lines in your post like "my life was like a telenovela", "i was desperate","i was so humiliated but i was still nice to them","Can life be a lost worst?" give off a picture of a loser. You don't want to be a loser. You don't want people to think you are a loser - including potential employers.

You are not a loser.

You're just having a tough time like us old-timers have experienced and continue to experience. I've been there and I've survived. Just look at this patch in your life as a character-building exercise.

FendeR_21
Feb 26, 2004, 11:40 AM
Marketeer stop feeling sorry for yourself, to make you feel good, im in a much worse situation. im not into marketing, i came from a degree (w/ license) that has little chance of employement here and if employed the pay is right on the minimum. Hang in there with me

Quentin
Feb 26, 2004, 01:36 PM
i think you have the most important skill on how to make it big -- dealing with people. i wonder how you're using it.

i say get the right connections. i think what's also bogging you down is the broken pride. i couldn't analyze what's it doing to you at the moment, but i think you'll be a better person if you could get rid of it. mmmm, you may shoot me on this yet.

SpellbindMedia
Feb 26, 2004, 02:54 PM
I agree, connections is everything. Based on paper (resume) you may seem to be the best candidate for a job, but if your employer knows someone who they are more familiar with then the possibility of getting that person is higher. I'm doing freelance work right now, and most of my clients are former officemates.

I agree too that the times are hard. There are people in worse positions. Take looking for a job abroad seriously. Things might just be better for you out of the country.

Lastly, don't think getting employment is the best way to earn. Entrepreneurship, in the long term, is a better solution, though it doesn't work for everyone.

I wish you luck.

mark_mark
Feb 27, 2004, 12:49 AM
Originally posted by TT_Boy
For starters, use capital letters at the start of a sentence. Avoid words like "coz". Use "because". My point is you have to be good at everything, including composing letters, memos, email messages, and forum posts.

Employers look at those small details. I know one case wherein a person wasn't promoted to an AVP position because his composition was terrible.

Look at the big picture. The global economy is bad - more so the Philippines, so you're not the only person struggling. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

The fact that you've been through a dozen interviews is a good sign - you're doing something right. The fact that you didn't convert even one out of 12 to a job offer is a bad sign.

Something went wrong in the process. You come off too contrived. Sometimes rehearsing for an interview gives off a "manufactured" or fake image. Seasoned interviewers know a rehearsed answer from a genuine one. Relax.

One advice I often hear for guys who want to get a girlfriend is not to appear desparate. Girls can smell desperation a mile away and its a turn-off. The same thing with employers.

That leads me to another point. You appear too tense, too emotional. Lines in your post like "my life was like a telenovela", "i was desperate","i was so humiliated but i was still nice to them","Can life be a lost worst?" give off a picture of a loser. You don't want to be a loser. You don't want people to think you are a loser - including potential employers.

You are not a loser.

You're just having a tough time like us old-timers have experienced and continue to experience. I've been there and I've survived. Just look at this patch in your life as a character-building exercise.


wow :eek: :rolleyes:

SaintLuci
Feb 27, 2004, 04:54 AM
galing ni tt_boy... bilib ako sa analysis... bow...

black_death
Feb 27, 2004, 12:18 PM
to those who are jobless but with computer science/engineering/ece/it related courses and with good English communication skills -> PM me! maybe I can help you! TY.

FendeR_21
Feb 27, 2004, 01:21 PM
black death are you talking bout call center?

black_death
Feb 27, 2004, 03:04 PM
yes, why? ;)

mark_mark
Feb 29, 2004, 06:38 AM
good thread.

se7en_of_nine
Feb 29, 2004, 06:03 PM
too young and too jaded. hang in there, your place in the sun will come to you eventually. a case of high expectations me thinks. don't take yourself seriously ;)

bosstl
Feb 29, 2004, 06:19 PM
yup... probably a case of high expectations from a newbie into the real corporate world. welcome. :D

TiNyCuTiE
Feb 29, 2004, 10:41 PM
i've been through there before...i thought that would be the end of the world for me...but fortunately after 9 months..i've got a job....at least...

one_shot
Mar 2, 2004, 01:54 AM
Just hang in there. We are all faced with a lot of challenges and we are all bound to make our move - we are actually given the choice to do that either proactively or reactively, the former generating more favorable results. If you'd be reactive, you'll just end up doing nothing but blabbering about the situation. Never lose hope. Everyday is a learning process, try to analyze what went through the course of your previous interviews - what went wrong, what you could have done, what you could not have done - then charge it to experience. The next time you face another interview, you then should know what to do.

Never feel sorry for yourself, the interviewer will definitely sense this - put yourself in the employer's shoes: would you put someone in a position who doesn't have the confidence to hold it?

It's all in the attitude. Hold on tight!

marketeer
Mar 8, 2004, 11:29 PM
uwi muna ako for a while. then be back. my mom misses me na.

pinkrose
Mar 9, 2004, 12:43 AM
be happy and confident. don't sound so desperate. companies will notice that eh. good luck :redsmile:

otakusenshi
Mar 9, 2004, 12:45 AM
awww... im really sorry to hear that... promise... but even how hard life is, how things are so real... head's up!!!

know ur strengths and weaknesses, then make ur weakness as an oppurtunity to grow, rather than feeling sorry, make them fell sorry for not accepting you!!!

:D

people like you have a better future coz ur already starting to walk on the rough road, u'l grow faster than others!!!

believe me, ciao!

kireigonjin
Mar 10, 2004, 11:09 AM
Hi, marketeer!

I also tried odd jobs right after graduation to get my feet wet for the corporate world. I did office clerical work at an obscure garment printing office somewhere in Paranaque. Then I tried selling encyclopedia. I also worked as a course adviser at a speech school. There were a couple of other odd jobs I took, but I'll spare you the details.

It took me two years before I finally got to do what I wanted to do as a career -- write. That doesn't mean I got to work for the ideal company right away. To tell you honestly, I'm still not happy with my present company, but this will do for now.

I'm just telling you my story to amuse you and hopefully help keep your spirits up.

You know what to do. You just want to hear it when somebody from this thread says it.

marketeer
Mar 15, 2004, 10:55 AM
i will take note of that...